In today’s post, I am continuing from the last post, mainly using the ideas of Dirk Baecker. We noted that every observation is an operation of distinction, where an observer crosses a line, entering a marked state. This is shown in the schematic below. Here “a” refers to the marked state that the observer is interested in. The solid corner of a square is the distinction that was used by the observer, and “n” refers to the unmarked state. The entire schematic with the two sides and the three values (“a”, “n” and the distinction) are notated as a “form”. The first order observer is observing only the marked state “a”, and is not aware of or paying attention to the distinction(s) utilized. They are also not aware of the unmarked state “n”. When a second order observer enters the picture, they are able to…