So, again – what is „the“ mistake of the „normal planning mode“ of learning?

Last follow ups and some remarks (text starts below with „Part I“):

26.09.2017

Part IV. 2nd version

14.09.2017

Former version of the draft can be found here.

13.09.2017

Part III 2nd version

12.08.2017

Part II (3rd version, follow up to the new version of part I)

04.08.2017

New version, Part I. The former parts II-V following the original Part I piece now are obsolete and cannot suitably be connected to the end of the new version. So they must be rewritten as well. At least, the new version contains a lot of emendations which correspond to criticism adressed in the entry prior to this one.

28.07.2017

After re-reading Part I, I have to issue a stark warning to the readers: This is the oldest passage of the entire text, and it was written when I just had restarted thinking about the OPP themes – the error within that text, however, is of some interest, and it will be an interesting endeavour to try to find the correct version for the relation between the main categories which are being inquired within that text: hypotheses/expectation, doing/doing as if, „only to be (further) confirmed/to be confirmed as well as to be belied or disproven/only to be disproven“. The present version is absolutely inacceptable because of its incoherence – it is only suited for an introductory kind of brainstorming. I will try to rewrite it as soon as possible.

27.07.2017 Part V

16.07.2017 Part IV added. In a new menu:

https://selbstbestimmung-als-aufgabe.de/some-papers-on-opp-or-plan-engl

you will find the history of versions prior to the present one, and at least two of these versions in english which was the original language they had been written in.

06.07.2017 Part III added

25.06.2017 some paragraphs added to part II in the end („Not only „feelings“ are transferred to more and most complex usages of devices …“ up to „The answer to that question does affect the most relevant aspect of all of these reflections: …). In addition, some emendations in the last paragraphs.

Preliminary note.
My intent in writing an inquiry on „Normalcy, or reasoning based on something having been tried and tested“ was to present and reconstruct a mode of deriving actions, plans, projects from experience which is the most common one („the normal one“ per se) – it is so common that it is mostly identified with „human reasoning“ in general – as if there were no alternatives.
When I stopped thinking about that topic more than 12 years ago, I had convinced myself that I had covered the most basic characteristics of that mode – such that the fundamental error and shortcoming within it is recognizable to the reader. It was only soon afterwards that I had to admit that I had been wrong: The first opportunity to discover those shortcomings in my theory of „OPPortunism“ (or „OPP“, as I had got used to name that mode) occured when I tried to write the next piece on the cognitive and emotional consequences of that „P lanning and L earning A ccording to Normalcy“ (or PLAN), and that insight became even stronger when I later on tried three or four times to again present the essence of my theory in a short and abbreviated way, and failed. In the meantime, I had adressed another such mode of planning and learning, one I called the MODern one, which I thought to develop historically from a third, an intermediate mode of thinking, the so-called „genuine RELigious“ one; relating to these topics, I had to clarify my ideas on how all these very general ways to behave towards the world and the entirety of experiences obtained from living with it, would cause and inspire and drive the respective political attitudes and ideas on sociation (basic attitudes towards „the others“ and the entirety of (possibly conflicting) communities which persons see themselves being a part of). It helped me much to later on study the ways how in OPP inspired lifestyles, the maturation of political concepts would result in a more rational and less archaic attitude towards the objective world – to a certain degree – because my guess is and always has been, that the deficit of OPP reasoning cannot be repaired but at best can only be recognized as such by the politically most advanced OPP people. Nevertheless, reconstructing the progress in partially dismissing the most archaic OPP forms of reasoning by OPP people in the wake of their political „maturation“ demonstrated that this progress mostly is in separating „subject-categories“ from „object-categories“, which, in turn, has redirected my attention on how this confusion is being handled by OPP people before they (at least partially) are getting over and beyond it. And there was where the present endeavour started – which again was motivated by the intent to present the shortcomings to a „genuinely REligious person“ in order to find out whether my guess was right that those persons are susceptible for a description of OPP thinking (if it is not too complicated, of course). And this is what – after several attempts – has come out as a result. I hope that it helps to illuminate the idea of why OPP thinking is wrong in a considerably better and more satisfying way than before.
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Part I (2nd version)

I first of all have to introduce or rather explain some very basic (and at least partially wellknown) concepts, mostly pairs of them; in a second step, I am going to analyze the relations between those concepts in order to expose possible confusions resulting from erroneously identifying some features of these concepts. These confusions, in turn, from my perspective are accountable for the shortcomings within the most common way of thinking – the one I call OPPortunism. My aim, as a consequence, will be to carve out the concepts which are involved in these confusions to such a degree of preciseness that it is not possible to relapse into those prior confusions any longer. Instead, the readers should be enabled to recognise the ubiquitousness of the OPP confusions within the way of thinking (and resulting lifestyles) of people everywhere, everytime. Maybe including themselves…
My analytical work, hence, each time has to start with an appeal – an appeal to distinguish; here is the first one:

There are TWO TYPES OF HYPOTHESES which have to be carefully differentiated between: The common ones (derived from experience), on one hand, and those I would call „optimum“ hypotheses, on the other (the most common version of the latter being religious faith (eventhough in some regard that is a spoiled version from my perspective – which not at all has to be shared by anybody else; at least, I would say, it IS a version! and that alone is an achievement in itself).

The element being shared by both types of hypotheses is the possibility of their being disproven in the end: It MIGHT be such as supposed within the hypothesis – but you cannot take it for granted. (This remains true even if a hypothesis is being „confirmed“ or has been so, for a long time, in many instances etc).
More in detail, this common element has some sub-categories, as:
– it refers to the entirety of the experience and knowledge that is available at a certain moment – to the effect that it is still possible to test this one of all hypotheses – it has „not been disproven yet“ (it ranks among those which this formula still applies to). So – there must be a certain „surplus“ content considering this entirety of experience already available to you, a „not yet proven that it is not the case“ (involving/implying an idea of what would have to be the case IF the assumed content „is not the case“);
– this surplus by definition is NOT present in the actual experience but has to be drafted as a concept or idea in imagination (in the most simple way, namely as a series of events and relations of events which will repeat themselves at least if some (possibly still unknown) conditions are fulfilled);
– however, the genuine „reality“ of that „not yet real and possibly never ever going to be real“ is in a certain „doing as if“ it was real (again, the most simple version of that is: being attentive, trying to observe if the series of events or relation of events will be continued) – AND the world hopefully taking its part within that „play“ – at least until it is proven that the world does nothing like that ie. collaborating, being the adequate „partner“ and counterpart for a practice like that – to the effect that the hypothesis is dismissed and disproven. This practice of „doing as if“ has a wellknown denomination: EXPERIMENT (if there is no other action involved than only watching and waiting, the experiment is called: OBSERVATION).
– You see: In dealing with hypotheses, a lot of thinking is involved (traditional „empiricism“ – even up to theories like Kuhns paradigm of „paradigm“ and „revolution“ in the history of science – tends to ignore that portion): defining that acting, doing „as if“ – defining one’s own role and the world’s within it – defining when the play is over – and, maybe, defining which hypothesis then is still open for being tested (and so, maybe, an entire series of hypotheses to be tested in a sensible order of succession is determined).

And now comes the difference.

One sort of hypotheses is the wellknown „conventional“ one – the technical or scientific type.
Here, the pattern for constructing an experiment is derived from a series of facts (having been observed) – it does not matter if actions from our side have been involved or not – the experiment would consist in controlling one or more determinate elements of the objective pattern by manipulating them, HEREBY trying to control some determinate outcome. Both, the „causes“ and the „effects“, can be defined in negative fashion – by just NOT doing anything or trying to cause something NOT to happen.
We normally try to make the control work (such that the effect is caused) in a reliable manner, under all circumstances, with non-expensive methods for to bring about the necessary impact etc – unfolding the entire categorical apparatus of technology.
I think that science today is exclusively thought in such „technological“ terms (such that I call it: „technomorph“ science; in order to delimitate it from an utopian counterpart I would call „biomorph“ science.)
There is need for further elaboration of this type but let me first introduce the other one.

As was already said: You will not easily find any popular material I could refer to as an example for that type – except religious faith (which, in turn, has some very special qualities which would distinguish it from other items of the same type – the question might be asked: which other types may exist? Not easy to answer in advance…).

First difference, in comparison to the technological hypotheses: These ones are NOT derived from experience. The reason for this is that they in fact form a concept of dealing with MISSING experience („not yet knowing“) and what to do then. Since in this case you cannot rely on „confirmed expectations“ as to what will happen, you have to decide with which varieties of courses of events you would reckon „for now“. In the end, this amounts to constructing a universe of possibilities – except those which have just been disclosed as such that canNOT be reckoned with any longer – at least if the world we are living in should make sense for us, or, which is the very same, that this world is such that WE can make sense in and with and „out of“ it..
So in fact, a hypothesis of this kind in almost every regard consists in a definition of what we understand by „making sense“ – it is a kind of outline of what global continuation of history (and of our lives, particularly) would be a possible material for a biography (our own, or someone else’s) which would make sense – and which course of events would put an end to any sensible practice and make it senseless.
Of course, our definition of „making sense“ – in order to be part of a „hypothesis“ – must make some difference in terms of practice and its outcome – only then, a certain way to act (different from other alternatives) can be defined as „testing that hypothesis“ („doing as if it was true“ – until it has been disproven) – and only then, there is a possible outcome of this „experiment“ in the shape of „the world is not making sense any longer“, and the overall-hypothesis of it as such that it makes sense (until the contrary is proven) has been disproven. Which need not be the end of testing because it may mark the transition to „the“ (or one of the) next hypothesis; which suggests the idea of a possible set of such hypotheses with even some ranks – such that some of them would have to be tested preferably and in advance rather than others.
And this is the moment when the category of a possible OPTIMUM comes in: If among all possibilities, there would be some which would make kind of MORE sense than others (if they were true), we would prefer testing them in advance before transgressing to the (one or more) next „worse“ in the ranking hierarchy. (This concept in some regards might remind you of what is called Pascals WAGER, and is conceived of as being an argument for christian faith. Actually, many „arguments“ used by missionaries of any religious faith deal with ideas of what would make up a possible „maximum-optimum“ – and so do many struggles between confessions and religious ideas, they relate to different ideas of what such an super-optimum might consist in… Even in the lives of single believers, there might be „doubt“ as to whether their actual religion comprises THE most advanced optimum of all – or whether they should prefer to change that idea – which, normally, means being in a crisis of faith which mostly ends in adopting a new idea of what it means to be an „optimum“ condition of the world as a whole (and the revelation or such which involves or suggests or entails that condition…)

Now let us return to the relation between the two types of hypotheses.

The point is that with these two concepts we not only are having different ways to deal with „possibilities“ – they in fact are referring to completely different types of such possibilities.
And that is demonstrated in a quite striking fashion by simply being aware of this fact: Every testing and trying of hypotheses of the first type, every conducting experiments of that kind, will be embedded within an experiment which would test a hypothesis of the second variety. The reason for that is: that the differences of „(not) being derived from experience“ and „(not) able to be confirmed by an ever longer series of ‚positive“ outcomes“ are coming along with a third one: The experimental „doing as if“ in the first case can be repeated (and confirmed by „successful“ repetion); whereas the second one cannot. To be more precise, the second hypothesis refers to very overall or overarching attempts – as leading one’s life, continuing a practice of reproducing oneself and others (together with them) within a given environment, maybe even pursue a plan for to make progress in doing all that better than before etc – and this overall plan may (or rather will, for sure) involve some experiments of the first sort – those which are to be repeated in order to discern if the alleged causal relation stands the test, or if that is linked to certain (identifiable) conditions (which in turn then should be researched more exactly) – or if the relation is too unreliable and cannot be reproduced to such an extent that it can be used as an effect in a possible practice.

This having been established, I want to investigate more thoroughly what this very fundamental difference is about. In order to do that, I want to introduce some more concepts closely related to the „two types of hypotheses“ – such that they come in as counterparts of concepts which helped to define the two types of hypotheses (which form a pair of related concepts as well; to remind you: I am preparing a presentation of confusions, so here are the possible pairs of concepts which might be susceptible to kind of blend into each other, or not to be dealt with separately):
A. A counterpart of „disproof“ obviously is „confirmation“ (this was one of the defining formulas: The first type is able to be disproven AND to be confirmed, the second one is „only to be disproven if at all“; this was simply due to the fact that experiments for to test hypotheses of the first kind are being part of those of the second kind.)).
B. Similarly, every „doing as if“ involves a „doing“, or contains it as a „part“.
C. And I could add a third „partner“ or „matching“ concept for one that was already introduced: You might test hypotheses – but you also throughout have expectations. Expectation (or prediction) – is that a „counterpart“ of hypothesis (as confirmation is to disproof) – or a portion within it (as „doing“ is in „doing as if“; expectations here being derived from what would be the case IF the hypothesis would prove to be valid ie. turn out to apply to facts, be true etc)
As you see, a lot of possible confusions is looming here – and, as will be demonstrated, OPP thinking exploits all those possibilities. But even after the most thorough scrutiny having been applied on separating the concpts within the pairs, the fact remains that the pairs of concepts themselves are intertwined and closely relate to each other. (This being intertwined and close relating to each other is the reason for the possibility of confusion.)

A very basic one of these relations might be approached by considering „doing“ in relation to „doing as if“. (Of course the latter does not refer to cases of intentionally pretending to do sth in order to deceive or make someone else (or even oneself…) believe…)
My usage of „doing as if“ was part of my attempt to define „testing a hypothesis“ – and as such it is getting a taint of artificiality because… if we study the real usage it always will apply to cases where a usual and ordinary language expression is already available: „doing while not being sure or assured or having doubts whether…or not“. So the „testing a hypothesis“ way of action might be considered as the most extreme of all varieties of acting („doing“) under „doubtful“ and risky conditions. (In fact, I tolerate that artificial taint because that way I have an elegant and lasting reminder of „doing“ always being part of „doing as if“.)
And of course this difference would affect the first pair of terms: confirmation is associated with „becoming assured“ whereas disproof is related to (lasting) doubt.
However, viewing exactly this parallel would lead us to a new difference. Because confirmation as well as rising doubt usually apply to cases where several attempts already have been made, some failing and some successful: The doubt as well as the degree of certitude will depend on the ratio of both types of cases.
That in turn refers back to „doing“ and „doing as if“: Whereas „testing a hypothesis“ might be the most extreme version of „acting while still being unsure of…“, doing might be understood as the respective extreme on the „certitude“ side.

Let me just try to clarify some details about „expectation“ by referring to what has been said before.
The relation between „hypothesis“ and „expectation“ seems to be similar to that of „type, rule“ and „token“. Hypotheses appear to refer to series of possible events or courses of events (including actions, or not) that might be expected or predicted (be they a consequence of actions, or not), whereas any single expectation just is referring to the next single case of that type.
Now you will have noticed my double expression „type, rule“. Whereas „type“ would refer to a series of facts, events, courses of such, or maybe dispositions  no matter if they occur with or without the involvement of actions, using the term „rule“ would indicate that it is about a pattern which includes actions – the single token of the type „following a rule“ is: a single action or „doing…“
And to repeatedly try and test the same hypothesis (as is necessary for to „confirm“ it) is a special form of following a rule.
The process of „confirming“ predominantly consists in forming and consolidating a certain expectation being combined with the test action: again and again (or, at least frequently enough for our needs) the world really is taking its part within that ‚play‘ “ or „doing-as-if“ which testing the hypothesis consists in (the entirety of effects may include some sideeffects which may occur in a similar frequency, or different one – they may be instrumental in some regards or not, or even detrimental but tolerably so etc). To the effect, that the doing-as-if more and more grows into being a „doing“ – namely, the usage of a technical device, or of a predictable objective fact (which the occuring or quality or ending is beyond our control at present; I would like to call that knowledge (maybe it is including using signs, instruments for to gauge and observe the according facts etc): a „prognostical device“). And that usage becomes as reliable as otherwise only our body functions are.

((Usually we have a lot of expectations (that could be belied, but nomally aren’t) – in some sense, in any moment of doing something, we make use of the entirety of all expectations that are relevant and valid at that very moment. At each moment (all the more along the series of moments when we are working ourselves through the „agenda“ of our reproduction practice) we simultaneously follow a huge mass of rules (if not „the entirety“ of all of our rules) and still are testing hypotheses that are waiting to be proven (until full certitude has been reached).))

Now the question is: Which expectations or rules or hypotheses might be associated with that maximum secure type of action – the „pure doing“ core in every and any doing?
In order to answer this question, we now have to be very precise because in a sense, there are no expectations at all involved in that „doing“: Not in the sense of something that has to be awaited for to still „materialize“ or occur, and which first has to be explored before you would „rely“ on such a relation. Instead we have feelings which – often enough in a more or less urgent, overwhelming fashion – are immediately demonstrating the present state of our capacities to act: No hypothesis in general and no „expectation“ whatsoever is interfering or going between these two categories: Feelings are what they are because of – they might be even seen as being DEFINED by, this indicating function of theirs for our (remaining, sometimes enhanced, sometimes reduced) capacities to act (physical and mental ones).
However, this is not the whole truth.
In every successful and hence lasting reproduction practice, there is an idea as to what would have to be done to meet your needs which are obviously being felt – by feelings you KNOW what conditions are uncomfortable and hence to be avoided or just to be prevented to happen, and what is necessary to be there for to quell hunger, thirst, and other „drives“ being represented in feelings. This in a sense is a form of „normalcy“ which does entitle to have expectations that what has been working so long a time: that relation between successfully heeding these needs and restoration of capacities to act (having been consumed to a certain extent in providing and preparing the means for that meeting the needs), will last any longer – within the varying limits of the wellknown human lifespan and life cycle.
It is this fact that the recurring „normal“ conditions of our (felt) bodies (or rather their normal function, normal restoration of capacities to act) depend on the „normal“ and wellknown means (food, rest, convenient environment etc) which brings these physical functions (capacities to act, conditions of their reproduction, needs and feelings expressing all of that) more in line with technical devices which might resemble their physical counterparts in that they, too, need being groomed and even sometimes being feeded in some way or other – heeding their „needs“ similarly as one’s own.

However, whereas we by our feelings learn in a very quick and immediate manner what is good or bad for the body as the bearer of the capacities to act – the fragments of the world which we use as our technical and practical tools almost never would provide us such an opportunity – for to learn to handle even those inherent and possibly even hidden properties within them, which in the end turn out to be able to be used within a purposeful action and routinely in a reproduction practice, hereby „equipping“ and extending our original and natural capacities to act such that they change into being „abilities“ – for to learn, I am saying, these qualities of facts, things, substances, signs, conditions, cycles, dispositions, what ever – we would have to be attentive towards coincidental relations of series of events – „causal“ relations“, indicating relations, „correlations“ etc – and often enough we would have to artificially restore the „causes“ in order to test whether, and if so, how reliably the following effect would occur – that is what conducting experiments or (in cases of lacking control over causes) careful and systematic observation is about – in order to obtain means for to „equip and extend“ our physical capacities. No feeling whatsoever will guide this research or even help to assess the degree to which we are still away from a possible physical optimum. (This is only of importance if we try to adapt possible tools to our physical and mental disposition to handle them and „optimize“ them for usage – which, by practicing, we would do as well with our „capacities“ in order to transform them into „abilities“ in handling the device.)

Whereas this is a difference between the „technique“ part of our practice/abilities, on one hand, and the physical „capacities“ (and the felt conditions for their reproduction) part on the other, as far as the respective way to „discover“ and research them is concerned in each case, there is another difference which is more related to the actual usage of these two „parts“ of a practice after them each having been tried and tested and optimized; The technical and prognostical devices after having been dicovered, developed, optimized, only very rarely would change their properties or function, and even if they it is mostly due to some conditions („something was other than usual“) more or less easy to identify. The body functions, to the contrary, not only react comparatively sensitive to changes within the environment (the weather) or altered food or „misuse“ (lack of sleep etc) but even that set aside, they have certain „inner“ sources of disturbance and appear way more fluctuating in terms of performance, reserves, conditions of restoration after efforts etc than any technical device; in fact if we would meet such sensitivity in a technical device we would deem it more or less useless except its service be of such a special value that we tolerate the unreliability. The passage from „normal“ fluctuations in mood and capacities to act to more or less marked versions of being sick is fluent. And of course, we are interested in diminishing the degree of volatiliy in our capacities, still looking for conditions which might accountable for enhancement or deterioration of our capacities – the optimization of this special „tool“ (our body) almost never ends – at least, it is our most universal and most important one.

From the latter difference, we can easily proceed to understanding the influence which these two „parts“ of every practice (which is nothing but a series of single steps of work, using technical and prognostical devices in actions which consume up our actual capacities to act) would exert in terms of „expectations“: As long as everything is going as usual, the dominant expectation is: everything is normal and will go on as before – the expectation is the one associated with the pertinence of technical and prognostical functions and methods. Whereas when surprising (courses of) events occur the feelings would become leading in determining what has to be expected (and what not) – and that determining would pertain to technical experiments (search for replacing techical methods for one that failed) as well as to re-arranging the matching of (limited) capacities to act and reproductive tasks, or at last re-assessing the entirety of chances and risks and „normalcy“ in general which one has to reckon with and to be prepared for, in other words: What is to be expected (in emotional regards), and what not.

The fact, however, that you have been surprised is tantamount to: you were not prepared for it, or you did not expect such, and the question might be: Why? Most trivial but nevertheless right answer to that is: Because we cannot predict, foresee, prepare for all and everything possible in the world.
But it is not so trivial anymore as soon as we become more precise and say: You not only did not expect that something like that would happen – you rather expected that it would NOT happen ever (or not so soon, not with such heavy impact etc). And you might add to that: That you even were entitled to expect it not to happen – first, from your general life experience (up to now), which would teach you something about the degree to which extraordinary events will damage your lives, or to the contrary will provide relief to them; secondly, from the same experience you learned when and where about the most severe causes of damaging and/or sources of relief and possible lucky change might occur (such that you have a pattern when and where to be cautious and/or confident or even hopeful); and thirdly, nothing extraordinary had pointed to the incident – there was no sign – so how were you supposed to be prepared for that? – Maybe you right now are learning to make the next step in refining your rules as to when and where to expect something of relevance for your practice (and still, when and where not) – such that you from now on (finally) are REALLY entitled to be assured of those rules.

There had been an „objectice“ counterpart to that „subjective“ assuredness: having been confirmed; a term which in the reflections above was closely associated with „expereince“ – the learning process would lead from pure experimental „doing as if“ up to ever more confirmed and eventually routine or pure „doing“. At least in the case of experiments which easily could be repeated, and hence would be determined by hypotheses of the first type (able to be disproven AND confirmed). The routine life and reproduction practice is subject to a learning process as well – in some sense, it is an experiment. But which type of hypothesis would suit it? Is there something to be repeated in our lives? Right now, it is looking like that; because otherwise we would not be able to learn from surprises the way that just has been outlined (the way which would lead to refined rules for forming expectations). However – is this the final answer?

In addition, there is a second question referring to the exact nature of the „feelings“ which would guide us in surprising (courses of) events: Is there a special taint within that „feeling to be entitled to NOT expect“ and the „assuredness“ it represents which would differ from other varieties of feelings in dealing with surprises – feelings associated with a certain „being prepapred for them“ (even if you would not have been able to predict the surprising event in those cases as well, that is, the surprises then are still such)?
What kind of thinking actually is the basis of that „enitlement to not have to expect“ at all?

Part II. (3rd version)
The three questions quoted above (what is the degree of the entire damage/relief we have to reckon with? how to arrange and apply our capacities to act on tasks in order to be prepared? which signs point to relevant changes such that we can prepare for them in time?) are an expression of what OPP people want to learn about „from experience“. This orientation itself, however, is not obtained by experience and oberservation – it is emerging from an original conviction of OPP people as to what to learn about would help to augment their knowledge – knowledge about what is really relevant for and counts within their lives. This, in turn, is nothing but another definition of what in the beginning of Part I was called a hypothesis of type 2 – the „only to be disproven“ and „defining what makes sense“ ones. As you see, according to this definition, there is another possible name for that type of hypothesis, namely: Rules for learning – learning what really is of relevance, by experience. In order to learn in that regard, you cannot refer to experience again, which means: these principles cannot be derived from past experience – because they to a strong extent relate to conducting and designing experiments and direct perception and attention – kind of „where to watch at, what to be attentive to“ etc. In still another defnition, you might say: It is a way to behave facing the yet unknown within your future – that you are not being assured of yet, even if it does make sense – because you know in advance that you (even in this case) don’t know enough, and at best will know only in the future. – So OPP people in using these questions are telling what the overarching hypothesis they are testing (or the learning rule they are following) is about – in other words, what „knowing more in relevant regards“ would consist in from their perspective.
Well – what actually does it consist in?
They are aiming at obtaining a certain pattern of expectations – how refined ever – which allow for to always be prepared in terms of capacities to act including their technical and prognostical equipment – all of this being at the right time at the right places where something of interest, to be more precise: that of most interest for them, at that very moment, is taking place. The pattern would include the right NOT to be prepared for being able to miss something of that kind taking place at a wrong place at a wrong time when you did not expect it then and there – not without a sign which would inform you in time.
Of course, the pattern can be very complex, and it may contain lots of conditions and complex details on situations and their qualities which would make a difference for the next actions – nevertheless, once having been experienced, processed in a correct way (by forming the relevant classes of signs and conditions when and where what to be prepared for), you can rely on that system. Eventhough you may prepare for further refinements yet.
This is a paragon of a hypothesis of type 2 – it is a maximum general hypothesis as to how the world must be for you being able to learn how to deal with it – at least if (according to this concept) this world (or growing content of experience in practically dealing with it) shall make sense any longer. The pattern of which you would seek the concrete manifestation is fixed prior to any real experience; instead it is guiding your way of interpreting and sifting through any actual experiences as to possible realisations of the pattern. In other words, the pattern in advance is determining what – from your perspective – is a relevant piece of knowledge and what not.
Being the result of applying a type 2 hypothesis, the pattern (or, the expectation that you will find something in the world corresponding to it; at least until that expectation is definitely disproven) is determined in advance, and cannot be „confirmed“ by any experience. However, it maybe can be disproven: Acting according to the hypothetical pattern is a „doing as if“ the world would be a suitable match for that pattern and play along on its side according to the pattern. Which would imply that you at least can have the idea that the world can do this job – that it is possible in general for the world to be such as is assumed within the hypothesis, and that disproving experience is not available yet (eventhough it has to be defined what experiences would be disprovinging); finally, it must be the optimum imaginable (definable, thinkable) in terms of „accomodating behavior“ of the world as far as we have got to know it until now.

In order to more precisely determine the very content of this hypothesis, we have to examine more in detail what the three questions above amount to.
In fact, they (besides the „signs“ mentioned within the 3rd question) refer to not only „feelings“ (representing capacities and dispositions to act as they are being reproduced regularly within a concrete reproductive practice) but to the entirety of the practice including all technical and prognostical means and methods used in it. The utopian prospect the hypothesis is about (until having been disproven) reads like that: Starting from an already relatively well adapted practice (this feature of being proven by the degree of regularity and „normalcy“ experienced in performing that practice), there will be steps of ever improved versions of such a practice that would match (and cope with) the surrounding environment to such an extent that there will be increasingly less surprises – if there are some at all yet. The ultimate goal that we will approach on such a path of empirical trying testing and further optimizing the respective practice is defined by a state of not being able to be surprised within that environment (and hence, within one’s lifetime) by anything one was not prepared for.

To be very exact in this point: In maintaining this hypothesis and acting according to it (doing as if its content was true), you seriously believe that there must be an overall characteristic within the world that has a lasting and reliable relation to a special design or profile of your being prepared for something and being NOT prepared for some other (sort of) events.
The special preparation is done not only by saving resources and storing reserves (including capacities to act), actions of preventing and/or evading damaging events, being attentive to (wellknown) warning signs or, to the contrary, good omens etc – but each actual version of a practice itself is a result of the overall successful process by trial and error in order to adapt to the special requirements of the environennt where you are living – its special level of controllability in general, the affordability of single practical steps in relation to the entirety of abilities which sensibly can be provided (without overtaxing as well as demanding too little from the available resources), and finally the proven reliability of the regularities all these practices are being based on.

In many regards, this picture of how a maximum optimized practice might fit into its (rather unknown, rather uncontrollable) environment is taken from a certain model, namely using a more or less complex technical (or prognostical) device and method in circumstances which can disturb as well as support and enhance its application such that you can optimize its usage within these special circumstances, and hope that from some moment on you have covered all possible influences – at least „under normal circumstances“. In fact, exactly this „normalcy“ of the conditions of applicability and purposefulness is always presupposed; in subsuming even this part of making tools (functioning in an optimum degree within a given environment) to the inventory of „usage rules“, you would delete any vestige of impairment in terms of malfunction – at least if you are prepared to also lower the aspirations as to the requirements your method and devices have to meet – so, after an alternating process of shifting to and fro, between adaption of the technique to environmental factors, and vice versa („assimilation“, one of those very general biological terms Piaget adopted for social science), in the end (when the optimum stage is achieved) any malfunction of the technique can be excluded. at least in a well-defined set of circumstances when and where it is used. – With this in mind, we can conclude: That the very core of the hypothesis is in maintaining the expectation that such a set of circumstances does exist which would require reaction on your side (adaptive, preventive, evasive, or, to the contrary (in favorable cases), „seizing (the chance)“ actions) – and that there is a huge amount of facts that can be skipped without any risk of missing anything.

A reproductive practice, however, is not as simple a tool (device, method) in prognostical and technical regards – to perform this practice, to „use“ that complex tool which it is supposed to be, in exactly this environment, is quite different from using some single tools or methods within that practice. The main difference results…
1st from the connection of every single step (or the majority of them) with all others (or the majority of them). This is true even in technical regards (side-effects of single steps in the past affect and modify starting- and performance conditions of following steps), but even more regarding our capacities to act and resources which cannot be multiplied but are exhaustible;
2nd from timing: „being at the right moment at the right location“; it does not matter that there have been successful trials and experiments which proved that an effect reliably can be brought about „there, in these conditions“ – if you are not „there“ when the conditions are realized; and you cannot multiply the presence of the entire workforce including means to be em- and deployed to meet every chance and risk and necessity (you have to set time priorities as well as priorities in terms of resources);
3rd you may be assured to be able to (re)produce effects (or insights, knowledge, by using prognostical tools) when and if the technique is available, but conditions for (re)producing the technique itself are mostly far more complex than that effect. So in bringing about effects you „in principle“ can rely on (you have confirmed that reliability in numerous experiments and repeated trials) you are dependent on by far more „favorable“ conditions (and hence ever more technical methods and devices, including environmental factors, raw materials etc);
4th and that is particularly true of your most universal and most-used and -needed instruments of all, your body, or just more precisely: your capacities to act. Although the capacities to act are indicated by feelings, they by themselves undergo very diverse influences within the body and from outside – often enough, these can be hidden and accumulating  which may lead to sudden bursts of diminished strengths or other effects detrimental to working and performance quality.

Similarly as in a present practice capacities to act and technical devices (being based on the guess that regularities having been observed for a long time will be continue to be valid and able to be relied on) are exactly „collaborating“ and fit together, also „the conditions“ for both (capacities and devices) functioning well and „as was to be expected“ form a uniform group of facts, dispositions etc where there is no fundamental difference between „conditions for lasting applicability of capacities to act“ and „conditions for ongoing usability of the technical and prognostical regularities, devices, signs etc“ – at least, this difference does not matter much as long as „everything is as usual, well-functioning, as expected etc“. The infinity of influences and possible conditions to be met (resulting from those numerous regularities and coincidences within our environment we have NO knowledge (or no sufficient one) of, in other words: the „Remaining Unknown“ (RU) ) will manifest only in „surprise“ events; where the design of the OPP people’s type 2 hypothesis is making them „to do as if“ there were only those possibilities:
1st, the event is believed to be an absolute exception which does not fit any existing rule, does not establish a new rule either, in other words, it can be awaited for to pass and ignored in the future;
2nd the event can be dealt with within the frame of the present system of practical recipes: by seeking solutions for the problem (which it is posing) in the vicinity of technical or prognostical methods being just in use at present: „something instrumental and similar to what we are already doing anyway“;
3rd in pursuing this search, we can change the assignment of capacities to act to tasks, or even the entire scope of resources (including capacities to act) to be used for our „reproduction and progress experiment“ (being markedly more pessimistic or optimistic than before) – this as either an exception, right now; or, just for a while (with fading commitment to the new maxim, returning to the original practice when the surprise does not repeat itself), or even to be adopted as a new rule (as a consequence, after having „suffered“ such a surprise – if it repeats itself „in some way or other“ in a sufficiently short timeframe (comparisons and more or less classification being required!) and/or it (maybe together with its successors) had been impressive enough), or
4th the entire practice has to be changed from now on because that surprise demonstrated something very fundamental within that part of the world which is relevant for our practice: namely either a characteristic which had not been discovered before, or a sudden change which was not foreseen (and prepared for) until now – the change being interpreted as being permanent, or being the consequence of a certain condition which might be taken to be a sign or even (hypothetically) „the cause“ – again, with numerous possibilities to generalize that as a rule and principle as to „signs of that kind“ and „causes of that kind“ in order to be prepared for „such cases“ in the future (again: respective comparisons and more or less classification being required!).

As far as these interpretations (comparisons, classifications, generalizations) refer to either purely dealing with our capacities to act, or the same with technical and prognostical methods (in an analysis of a fail or sudden favorable surplus performance) or finally in reflecting on a new allocation of our resources – as far as this is thus, we would understand this way to learn from life experience as a mature and rational one (which it is not, being viewed from a broader angle). However, if the emotional part of the „surprise“ experience kind of „encroaches“ on genuine technical and prognostical analyses, we at best would classify that as a sign of being an immature personality easily to be impressed and overwhelmed by sentiments and affects. All the more so, if this obviously is the prevalent type of reaction to surprises, especially if the subject of „generalized rules or maxims or recipes“ are „future expectations“ with relation to failures, accidents, and happy coincidences and favorable developments and chances – these expectations, in turn, having consequences in terms of general extent or level of „hopes“ or“ fears“, or such in special cases, associated with „signs“ or even possible causes the latter offering possible starting points for manipulating things in a favorable direction – which is tantamount to full-fledged superstition and magical thinking.

So we are confronted with a series of increasing degrees of „superstitious and magical thinking“ on one end, and seemingly extremely „innocuous“ origins on the other. Nevertheless, there is a common element, and that is the basis for being able to be surprised (and not being prepared for that) at all: A certain normal way of life is going well which is expected to continue, which in turn justifies the scope of what „legitimately“ has to be reckoned with, and, more important: what not. The consequence as to the „learning rule“ is this: On one side, there is that very general type-2-hypothesis as to what every experiment should be based on, in every moment of your life (until the hypothesis is disproven, which may last long); on the other side, there is a special condition which would provide a totally different point for whoever „does as if“ the general hypothesis would be true (until it is disproven) to start from, and that is that special set of practical recipes including „legitimate“ expectations (including everything which is „legitimately“ NOT to be reckoned with) the entirety of which would make up our current reproductive practice and experiment. This, however, is not yet the entire starting set up of the experiment because when experiencing whatever surprise you will change again that starting point and original fundament of your experiment according to actual feelings and affects (which may be influenced by whatever actual physical state you by coincidence just are being in) – depending on the length of the prior experience with „normalcy“ and the „proven“ level of reliablity of its recipes.
As a self-confident OPP person, you may comment on that in referring to your basical type-2-hypothesis: According to that, you may start wherever you want to, it does not matter – the rule would only tell you to increasingly adapt to the „reality“ you are living in – being „guided“ and led by surprising experiences and the felt „intensity“ of the feelings and affects caused by that event. The hypothesis makes you expect the following development, as a result of an ever better adaptation from time to time: An ever better „assessment“ of the „correct“ amount of pessimism and optimism in general, possibly tuned to special types or courses of events and conditions; an ever better allocation of the entirety of your resources on tasks, and an ever smaller degree of deviation from the expected matching of challenges with abilities to cope with them, be they breakdowns of routines or positive opportunities to be seized: In both cases, the reserves being held will ever better meet the respective challenge such that you would not have to adapt the underlying allocation of reserves any longer to ever new conditions. The disproof, in turn, would consist in these expectations (derived from the basical hypothesis) never being answered: You again and again turn out to have been too optimististic or too pessimistic, in situations when „everything actually pointed to the contrary“; in addition, even on a given level of optimism/pessimism (which means having a certain confidence that your respective reserves will be sufficient for any emergency (or lucky coincidence) case), you again and again can still be surprised by events which would prove that you (within that actual frame of allotting resources to reproductive tasks) had been wrong and not present with resources in time at the right location; and even then, you again and again may experience surprising challenges (favorable as well as unfavorable ones) from outside your schedule system – because you did not know the respective developments within your environment, the shifts and the signs pointing to them, the possible arrangements of causes which would lead up to something of relevance for your reproduction. In other words, you not only don’t have any control over that huge part of the environment you still have no knowledge of (the „remaining unknown“) – you don’t even have a sufficient knowledge basis for „correct“ assigning reserves to (reproductive) tasks – and, considering this altogether, you have no basis in general for to more or less exactly assess the „necessary“ measure and extent of reserves you would have to save for to live up to favorable and unfavorable possibilities within your environment – not even if you try to sort out special requirements for special conditions – there is no reliablity whatsoever no matter how fine you may make your system of „rules of distinguishing between…“ – not as long as your research and way to process experience is being based on „successes“ and „failures“ and „having been surprised and not prepared for“ as the relevant events for which you are seeking the relevant signs pointing to them, and the relevant causes producing (or preventing) them.

Part III. (2nd version)
So far, it is obvious that OPP people organize their learning in terms (and categories) of „normalcy“ – looking for an ever „better“ version of it – where the being better, good, or „optimum“ is defined as having a practice of reproduction installed in which one is unable to be surprised any longer – which, in turn, would be seen as „this practice is the ultimate and best match of the world surrounding me (Remaining Unknown) RU) – at least that part of it which is of relevance for me“. The idea of successfully approaching this optimum final state is formed by a sort of optimum hypothesis (or definition of what it means to make sense at all) which reads like that: There must be a series of stages such that after having made the respective decisive step, from then on no surprise whatever will exceed certain limits (in terms of amount of efforts in order to cope with its consequences) – as long as it may endure, the degree of being able to surprise any longer MUST diminish – and we MUST be prepared ever better for whatever kind of unforeseen events still occurring wihin our ongoing acquisition of experience; that is why the 3 questions above would be asked if in fact there still IS such an event – beyond the limits which the respective person allegedly had reached yet.
Now, the degree to which this mode of learning is looking familiar or, to the contrary, alien to observers outside depends on the actual situation in which it is being practiced: If everything is normal the only evidence of that mode actually being applied is the persistent confirmation by the OPP person that their practice in its entirety is being based on experience (which, after all, cannot be denied) which – in their version of that idea – would imply that it can be emendated and corrected by experience as well. They are not telling anything about the parts of their practice which are able to be varied according to „disproving“ experience. Every category or concept involved in this mode of learning is already being used in talking about a regular practice or its „normalcy“ (at least in looking back on that idyllic period of time when everything was well and well functioning) – and it looks absolutely sensible and, well, „normal“ to live on the basis of such an idea. As soon as a surprising and unexpected event would disturb and shake up the normal course of daily practice, „almost everything is different“ eventhough in the end, after successfully having coped with the challenge, hopefully nothing has changed except a more or less limited and carefully carved out portion of the former practice – in other words, normalcy, the normal course of events and daily practice, has been restored. So what happened inbetween those two regular states and stages of „normal“ life? First of all, something happened TO OPP persons, they themselves would not actively seek such an event and have not even expected it as they would have, for instance, when being in a situation of exploring something yet unknown (which in fact IS their condition in life everytime; they only forget that in living in an OPP way of life). So the unforeseen event will form every practical step they will take in order to cope with it (provided it is of enough relevance to not be ignored; ignorance admittedly is a possible and alternative way of dealing with unexpected facts which might be a convenient fundamental strategy or principle in some cases of taking an OPP kind of stance towards the world or RU) – however, the event not in itself but the way it relates to the current regular practice – and that way is the one which was not anticipated within that practice such that having been prepared for that would make a decisive difference – in that you would be able to comprehensively seize a chance, or to prevent something detrimental to your practice from happening (or compensate for the consequences even if it would happen) etc. (By the way, having been prepared without the awaited event happening is a by far more rare situation for OPP people; it is, nevertheless, another item within the series or pattern of possible frustrations and transitions to a more adapted, „better prepared“ version of the current practice.)

Saying that the event’s being related to the practice is the only crucially „forming“ factor for how the involved person will react to that event – saying that does not imply that the impact of the event must be negligeable (although negligance and ignorance in fact IS a way to react to disturbing events frequently to be seen in OPP persons) – quite to the contrary: The relation of the event to the practice appears in the shape of the emotion („expectation affect“) the event triggered: And that can lead to a dramatically excessive search for solutions in order to regain control (in terms of „conditions“ as starting points for future „precognition“ and preventing/furthering, causing that kind of event – not the event itself but… events with that impact on that kind of practice – however the concepts may be which form the basis of that classifying). The emotion, in turn, at any moment can cause a transition to resignation, limiting oneself, and to proceed to new maxims in dealing with luck, risk, chance, calamity… hereby breaking off any further research in a direction which would contradict these new maxims. (How „seducibly“ promising they may be…)
The expression, however, as to that the event’s being related to the current practice is the crucially shaping factor for the reaction meaning the emotion triggered by the event  – that statement in fact applies to the „objective“ portion within the unpredicted situation as well: It is classified as being „something similar  in some regard to something already knwon and familiar to us“ to the consequence that it can be dealt with in a similar way as we are used to deal with the familiar species of things, facts, conditions and dispositions. And that not only will determine the way we seek solutions for a sudden and suprising situation – at least as long as the respective emotion is driving and motivating such effort – we will even extend that endeavour far beyond those rather appealing and nearby ideas as to how the problem associated with that new situation might be solved which are in the periphery of the current practice and way to proceed – instead, we can seize more and more and ever more desperate forms of „simillarity“ and classificatioon of the event (possible signs indicating it; possible conditions influencing it) in order to form possible experimental practices. Deviating from regular experiments, however, these ones in the case they end „successfully“ would be used for to replace a „failing“ portion of the current practice – to the effect that we from then on will rely on them as a portion of that practice the same way we did with the failing and eliminated one.
The experiment, however, is not chosen due to preceding observations and within some leisure periods of the practice when nothing depends on the outcome (this may occur within OPP people’s lives, or may not – it for sure is not impossible but mostly they have better things to do than carrying out useless experiments and trials and testing uncertain hypotheses). It is occupying a position within a system of actions of which the entirety received that value or title of being „normal, reliable, tried and tested“. If the new practice which replaced the failed one turns out to „be functioning“ to some extent, such that the entire practice can go on – then it does not contribute to the reliablity of the entire practice by a any deserved trust of its own, it just fits into the expectation which is justified by the established well-functioning of the entire system of actions – such that that trust is transferred to that particular part of the whole. And that procedure remains the same even if bigger parts of technical knowl-how and/or abilities and/or presende and availablity of environmental conditions necessary for to continuing the actual practice are missing: There is always something left, a remainder of the failed practice that keeps on standing and helps to transfer the immanent value of expectations inherent in it to any more concrete replacements of whatever failed: If practice starts over with these replacements, the transfer was successful, and the underlying emotional value even has been proven in a further instance. Otherwise, and in the most extreme case, the value has to be changed: The entire emotional frame for building expectations (together with possible „experiments“ which may suit them) within that part of the practice, or even the practice as a whole, has to be adapted to the new „world view“ which on first hand consists in no more than the most basic expectation of all: How successful or failing will the entirety of my/our actions be in the future – how optimistic or pessimistic do I have to be in general – or in particular conditions? The content of an „advanced“ insight of that kind is provided by „experience“ (or even a particularly noble variety of it, as „life experience“ or „wisdom“); The entire stock of known transitions in the past (including those of other persons) then is being used in order to find regularities and define rules for to re-assess chances and risks, and the level of „legitimate“ expectations; moreover, in exactly the same way, the inventory of causal relations one sometime has learned about, is searched through for to find regularities and possible practical approaches for hopefully problem solving technical measures – at least trials and experiments which might be succussful and look „worthwhile“ (before one would give up). So when we consider the series of four possible problem solving strategies of OPP people (1-)2-4, they reach from a seemingly purely technical approach (2) to a similarly seemingly emotional one (4), and that idea is even reenforced by what just has been said, the fact that the inventory of all possible regularities of the past is exploited and searched through separately in both regards, the technical one and the emotional one (eventhough never simultaneously but only either of them, according to the respective „problem“: find a replacing alternative technical soluton for the present problem; find a decision (and a sufficient precedent or series of cases in th past) as to how to reassess your overall life condition and range of expectations based on that).

In fact, the connection between „way to proceed“ in a technical sense, and „effort to be invested because it is worthwhile (yet)“ never is torn apart; even in the most technical exploration, the emotion and assessment as to how long, how much effort and time would be worthwhile (based on „legitimate expectations“) is throughout present, as the entirety of „possibilities, abilities, chances, risks“ and the impression of one’s being to live up to the requirements in order to handle them, is present in any fundamentally new orientation and reasssessment of one’s life conditioons. And no one would perceive that mild level of insanity in these all too familiar approaches of OPP people if they are considered from THIS side; whereas that insanity or even childishness is obvious in cases when the emotional (or, in these special situations, it is rather the „passion“ or „affect“) portion of the ever combined approach is standing out, or the „desperate“ nature of trials to find solutions in an „obviously“ forlorn and futile endeavour is evident.
However, these judgements being made by observers are not that much distant to the allegedly childishly or insanely behaving person: In most cases, the „benevolent“ advices being given in those situations amount to alternative OPP strategies, either suggesting to act „more rationally, in a more informed way“ using other technical expertise (having been tried and tested in the past), or to take an alternative point of view regarding life conditions: „If I were you I would…“ or „I know exactly how you are feeling and that’s why…“ etc.
What the observers in these both cases perceive, is a kind of excess of OPPortunism: The extent of „letting oneself lead or guide by feelings“ is being overblown on one side, or the way of taking the idea of search for possible relations is being extended to „obviously“ irrational levels, on the other; whereas the advice in the first case is: to calm down and either „accept it as it is“, or to brace oneself in order to find technical solutions (search for them, with more patience, endurance, less nervousness etc); in the second case, to admit the failure and either seek a totally different approach to the solution, or find a emotionally tolerable view on the episode. In the first case, from the observers‘ (nevertheless OPP persons themselves) perspective, a reasonable limit of „letting oneself guide by feelings“ was exceeded, in the second case an acceptable degree of „believing in a possible level of control“ (the latter, by the way, being the appropriate wording for the approach of OPP people to causal relations and knowledge about them: The only interest with relation to that topic is: How can it be used in a present problem, or, alternatively, which possible paths to strikingly better lifestyles might be opened by adopting that technical approach?

You might say, that all these descriptions apply to rather immature, naive, unwise personalities. However, the concepts of mature, sophisticated, wise are no better at all: They are based on, and constructed with the same inventory of categories as their condmned counterparts (which can be studied particularly well in cases when two parties criticize each other by using the same verdicts). – In trying to explain these categories, we can again take the reactions of OPP persons to surprisingly favorable or unfavorable developments (or coincidences) in their lives as they are expressed within their „questions“ having been quoted in II: Why at all? Why am I not prepared for that? How should I have known? In general: What’s wrong with my expectations such that that could happen to me and surprise me to such an extent? As was shown in Part II, this way of questioning a current practice is following the conceptual levels of inner organisation of that practice: 1st, the technical and prognostical tools, methods etc used within it; 2nd, the arrangement of actions in terms of time and location and order of single steps; 3rd, the dealing with environmental factors of relevance (possible consequences) over which you have no control on level 1 or 2.
However, this „triad“ of levels occurs twice: There is one in the case of „normal“ life and work, and another one in the case of a relevant surprise – the „learning“ case.

And, as has been shown as well, this corresponds to a split in terms of what the leading „paradigm“ is in each case, namely the „technical“ one in the normal course of events, and the „guided by feelings“ one in the case of surprise. Nevertheless, and that has just been shown within this paragraph III, either of these cases is based on a very solid assemblage of the two approaches to „problems“ – the dealing with the problem as if it was caused by the actual failure of usage of a technical device (with the aim to „repair“ it) – or, as if it was caused by an actual misfunction of some physical dispositions within our bodies, a reduction (or more rarely an improvement) of the range of our physical and mental capacities to act. And this split seems to affect the make-up of the type-II-hypothesis of OPP people as well: The doing-as-if is a double one, depending on whether we look at our actual practice in „normal“ conditions, which would imply dealing with it „as if it was like using a technical device eventhough a very complex one, within a given environment (with possible repercusions on that usage)“, or whether the conditions are those of an unexpected surprise (favorable or not), which would imply dealing with it „as is if it was a felt change in our body functions and capacities to act (with possible repercussions to our ability to continue our work and daily life in general)“. So what has been called an „excess“ in using one approach or the other, is present in the OPP learning process in a very prominent and fundamental way, the emotional approach becoming the leading one behaving towards surprises, the technical one in behaving towards normal conditions. And despite that split, the two appoaches remain tightly fit together – which, again, is being facilitated by the fact, that both approaches seem to have two common elements, and that are generalizations or classifications such that you can behave towards „similar“ conditions in an equal or at least similar way, on one hand, and on the other specifications, or distinguishing between different conditions such that you can apply appropriate measures to the according situation. Nevertheless, what we can learn about conditions and causes of reduced or enhanced body functions related to feeling well or ill etc, is tied to feelings; whereas learning about conditions of malfunctions (or improved handling) of our devices in terms of impacting environmental factors is tied to using them and working with them etc. – in both cases, again, the possible relevant „causes“ or at least „signs“ have to be perceived and noticed, recalled, and, above all, interpreted and classified as being such.

When talking about the two „triads“, the difference I made betwenn the normal and learning case maybe was all too strong – experiencing the ever-lasting duration of a normal daily life in many regards is a „learning“ process in itself (it is proven again and again and again that „this“ in fact does function!); whereas the entire approach of OPP people to „surprise“ and hence „learning“ situations is based on the presumption that the bigger part if not almost everything of the prior normal practice can stay in place, and just something very isolated, a technical detail, a re-allocation of resources, an „adaptive“ change in fundamental attitudes in terms of expectations in general or special cases, has to be changed. (And even then, former experience as to more or less „proven“ (in desperate cases: „possible, probable“) causal or at least indicative relations will help to reshape the practice with relation to dealing with „new conditions“ – including taking former experiences with „fundamental attitudes“ in general and in special cases. There is an entire universe of empirical knowledge available within your past – just use it, by sifting it through and see the regularities (by appropriate classifying)!)
So this understanding of how to proceed prior experience (and define a learning rule and hence type-II-hypothesis and definition of sense) never will exclude to analyze and interpret failure and/or lucky single events, courses of events etc as result of a combined impact of
1st, physical and mental capacities to act (and conditions instrumental or detrimental to their better or just „normal“ functioning („not being ill“), or their continuing to operate in certain environmental conditions),
2nd, of the specific requirements of handling technical and prognostical devices, methods, rules etc within special environmental conditions,
3rd, of special ordering of single technical steps in order to meet requirements of physical and material reproduction within special environmental conditions,,
4th, of autonomous and spontaneous developments within relevant portions of our environment with consequences to 1-3.
All of this combined with a more or less exact assessment of the extent of the contribution each of these elements made to the overall outcome („how to explain success and/or failure?“) in a special situation – or as a possible rule.
However, OPP people have a different and additional possibility to explain normal and surprising (failing or lucky) experiences, and that is
5th, that something was either done „as usual“ (in the proven, tried and tested way, since long!), or that there was „something extraordinary and ’not normal‘ to such an extent it will never repeat itself“ (and hence can be ignored; at least if it was a calamity, in the case of happy surprises, it might be that it would trigger a search for conditions to just repeat it yet, „against all odds“ – because it would be so overwhelmingly fine to experience it again or even… control it…); or, that it was done just not in the appropriate way to do it (that is: the failed procedure) in the right way, within that situation; or, that you did not invest the necessary amount of resources (or, maybe, already too much… but when is it time to leave?); or, finally, your entire dealing with resources is wrong, you up to now have been all too cautious or venturous – such that you have to do a total re-assessment of what you can afford or spare in single „departments“ and portions of your practice (which might involve some consequences in other parts as well).
All of this, again, possibly true to this or that extent, applying to this or that class of conditions – or even „in general“, that is, in all conditions to be reckoned with.

So what is the difference between the list in 5th, compared to the items preceding it – since at least the last three items in 5th have a corresponding counterpart in the shape of 1-4: the environment and our more or less risk-aware dealing with resources (4); the „economical“ allocation or resources to tasks and orders in terms of time and location, and the debatably „right“ amount of resources in special cases (3); the handling of devices, and the question as to whether something was „done in a way that was appropriate to what the special situation required“ (2).

However, the according items in 5th are always related to a certain practice which up to the moment when it is being questioned had been „operating and normal without giving rise to such questions“.
Whereas the items 2-4 are being researched as topics of their own, the resarch being able to be done at every time and prompted by what occasion or motive whatsoever – it would not influence the content and approach of the research or reflection – these would only have to be done in a „proper way“ which is determined by the topic itself – and no other regard. It is „objective“, derived from „observations of events going on within the world or within our bodies and feelings“, when to the contrary everything belonging to 5th is done with reference to a certain practice, and is prompted only by a „surprising“ break within the normal functioning of that practice.
So… does it make sense to device and carry out experiments and, moreover, stop them, only on the basis of feelings of „this (still) being worthwhile it“ and/or on the basis of „it being similar to something which was instrumental in the past to some degree“?
Or… does it make sense to assess when and why the amount necessary to carry out a job in certain conditions was too much or small, or similarly, to determine the portion of resources worthwhile to use in general or in certain conditions just because of the fact, that such an amount was the usual one in a long-lasting practice, and right now turns out to be in a certain degree surprisingly better or worse than that usual amount prior to that?

To let oneself be led by feelings appears the right thing to do in all matters referring to our physical and mental capacities to act; even for to determine when and why possibly they might have improved or, more often, deteriorated or even damaged, in the sense of being ill, to the consequence that you can seek conditions which might be accountable for that, or at least warning signs such that you have to change your practice for to avoid that kind of deterioration.
To presume that things, materials, properties, locations, events, cycles and courses of events, dispositions etc which turned out to be regular in some regard, will continue to be so – at least as long as there is no evidence pointing to the contrary – and if there is such, then looking for possible causes (in the sense of: explaining conditions, being accountable for that, or at least indicative) for that – that appears to be the right thing to do in dealing with all and everything outside our capacities to act the actual state of which being represented within our feelings.

However, dealing with our capacities to act (and the feelings indicating their actual state) as with rigid causal relations, is weird; and hence, all the more so is…:
„doing as if“ these capacities would work as they always did in the past, in a practice that was established and turned out to work well over a long time;
„doing as if“ they were unalterable dispositions we are using like other technical and prognostical devices such that their „failing“ to meet unexpected requirements would equal a broken instrument which has to be repaired…
(as a special version of illness (as if the entire set of capacities was damaged, and not this set being in a special state when being used in a very special way, namely that one usual in the practice which had been confronted with a surprise…) whereas it is nothing but a special version of overtaxation by negligently relying on continuability of a special usage being made of the general capacities to act that would make them vulnerable to that kind of overtaxation – which you had not reckoned with, although you should have…)
…or otherwise has to be exchanged for another one which in this case would mean to define another set of capacities to act the same way: a new technical device being destined to work with others and, above all, work with the present environmental conditions;
„doing as if“ this special version of capacities – in that very state they are when used in a special (and vulnerable, far from being anything stable) practice – ,and as long as one is trying to still „repair“ them, like a tool – they were THE capacities to act, such that their malfunction in surprising conditions (their not being sufficient for to meet the new requirements because they had been used up in strength-sapping actions routinely to be carried out within the former practice) is being treated like an illness; and that illness again as being the failure of a technical device…

And, exactly the same way:

However, dealing with actions and capacities to act in special conditions (with devices and methods, within an unknown and in many regards fluid environment) as with actions and capacities to act in general which the actual state of is being represented by feelings… – that is weird as well; and hence, all the more so is…
„doing as if“ actions that aim at certain effects within certain environmental conditions, when failing, can be varied, as is done in „pure body movements“ when they are hampered by, say, moving against counterforces within a dense medium (like wading in water), and „the same has to be done in that different condition“ such that the same movement can be carried out in a similar way (more forceful, more to the left than before etc.. – more this, more that, varying in this or that regard) but adapted to the new condition (as: doing the same within water, or when circumventing an obstacle, carrying a weight etc);
„doing as if“ feelings indicating the still extant reserves in terms of capacities to act also would represent the „real“ chances and risks in terms of technical failure, ability to be restored to the former level of functionality, shifts in environmental conditions with repercussions on feasability of original daily life programs etc;
„doing as if“ the actual overtaxation of the capacities to act was due to a threat to the very core of capacities to act itself, in other words a kind of life-threatening danger, as if the missing strengths and reserves exclusively had been caused by those overwhelmingly new and unexpected conditions (as in „real“ catastrophies, accidents, illnesses etc) whereas they are the result of careless and negligent overspending on tasks because of the „legitimate“ expectation that „something like that will not, cannot happen“.

In fact, eventhough in „normal“ conditions the „technical“ paradigm is the leading one whereas in „surprise“ situations the „expectation affect“ is taking the lead, there is never a split between these two perfectly complementary concepts – one contributing the „constancy and invariability (except within certain limits, in different regards)“ aspect, and the other the „measuring how long to adhere and cling to a present practice including trying to restore and repair it by variations, and when to leave and proceed to more (or, once that has failed, to even more…) fundamental shifts in important parts of the practice (as new allotments of resources to tasks, or even changing the entire way of decision making by a new definition of fundamental expectations as to what is worthwhile, and what not)“ aspct. Or in brief: The one defining the WHAT to do (including how to vary it; or what the possible alternatives are, if reserves and fundamental perspectives have been redefined), and the other the WHEN and WHY. And that’s why the former is the leading factor in routine situations (including necessary adaptive measures/experiments), and the other in presumed challenges and occasions to „learn“ when and because there is an external need for that.

Part IV. (2nd version)
In dealing theoretically with OPP, the most challenging task is to not prematurely let the knowledge about „the“ basic deficiency of OPP thinking interfere with the genuine representations of that way of thinking. The reason for that is that in ascribing attitudes to OPP people in saying such things as: „they are confusing this and that“ etc, you have to be to the utmost careful in not insinuating that they are having concepts and are working with them which in fact would make OPP thinking impossible and gives it a certain touch of insanity. So the representation (or reconstruction) of what OPP people really would say about themselves (or at least would admit and agree with when confronted with) is quite another subject compared to describring „what they are not seeing, missing to think of, lacking as a concept“ etc.
There is no doubt that OPP’s most fundamental category in terms of „what to search for in growing experience“ is: the steady improvement of an original starting practice which has been demonstrated to work, suggesting a certain distribution of available resources on tasks which to again and again accomplish in their entirety (with certain more or less predictable variations in certain special conditions to be reckoned with) would mean that life goes on, reproduction of oneself and the means one needs to have for doing so, at least on a certain level of abilities and options, including well-known and more or less limited risks one would be prepared for.
That steady improving process is what OPP people view as their learning strategy – it is the way they themselves arguably would describe what they learn (and want to learn) as a consequence from what they experience.
As was shown in the previous parts of this inquiry, this learning process is divided into two big separate divisions, one long-lasting (normally) sucessful routine life which may vary in many regards in adapting to varying circumstances without having to question any fundamental principle underlying the entire practice – and certain breaks which as a consequence provoke such questioning all the more.
The main questions already were quoted more than once, they focus on three topics: the kind of overall budget in terms of resources (resources being relevant for the actual practice in many regards, but in the very core: capacities to act) we can expect to be used for to bring about effects (within the frame of the actual practice) which would be worth the efforts and sacrifices; the allocation of reserves to sensible tasks within the limits of that budget; the possible control we might have by certain means as eg. signs for to know when and how to deal with yet unknown but relevant events in the future which we would be able to cope with provided we can anticipate them in time. The actual gist of this questioning can be summarized like this: It aims at finding a way (by using experience) to build plans for to cope with everything still unknown within the environment AS IF it was already known (hence a „doing as if“ or practical experiment following a certain overall hypothesis – one of the type 2). That doing as if one knew where in fact one doesn’t results in that peculiar split along a line which is supposed to be formed by two concepts: being known, and being of relevance; the hypothesis is: Both are the same, what is relevant is already known, and what is not yet known is of no relevance for our life and can be ignored. That’s why for OPP people every „learning process“ starts with a surprise, in other words: a (preliminary) disproof of that hypothesis, and ends with a restored version of the same just with part of its content having changed: From NOW on, though, it will be proven to be true! And that, in turn, is the reason for that being entitled to NOT expect anything other, a right which enables you to make use of your reserves in exactly that very sense „as if“ there were no other threats and chances than you are knowing about and have found to be reliable enough and of relevance.

Now let me ask: Is this a descrption of how they are thinking and acting which OPP people might agree with? – In a sense, they would, I think, and that is that part of the descrption where their practice is called a learning process guided by a hypothesis; even that that is the actual content of their overall and ever guiding (type 2) hypothesis, might be admitted by them. The descrption would be wrong, however, when being understood in a sense such that OPP people view themselves as having a choice: As if that learning method had any alternatives; in fact, to them it has not (it is a type 2 hypothesis also in that it is a definition of „what it means to make sense“, to add: „…facing growing experience“.) – So being aware of the initial reminder – what are the fundamental peculiarities of OPP thinking which even by OPP people themselves could be confirmed as being theirs, and correctly rendered?

Being seen from an inside perspective, there is no mistake involved on neither side of the typical OPP „adaptation“ strategies: Neither in seeking „the relevant conditions“ which would help to explain (at least in an „experimental“ manner) why something suprising happend and hence, how to be prepared for it (once the condition (or anything similar to it „in relevant regards“) would occur again) – nor in taking feelings (provoked by failures or sudden chances, on the backdrop of the degree of the surprisingly changed practice’s quality of „having been confirmed, tried and tested“) for to gauge how long it remains worthwhile to test possible alternative technical approaches (similar to those which had failed so far to do the job), or how many shifts and reassignments of portions of the resource budget to reproduction tasks in favor to seek such a solution are still appropriate, up to the point when re-evaluation of the entire system of chances and risks is necessary. By the way, all the „adapation“ measures are absolutely apart and taken one after the (failing of) the other; every step within this procedure is being accompanied by according changes in the emotional condition (more and more frustration, impatience/anger, anxiety, depression…).
To the consequence that the inner coherence of the present normal practice (that one which seemed to be the optimum well-adapted to the environment where we are living) never is broken up: There is always a bigger or smaller part of it which is left and unaltered transferred to the next stage of the „changing experiment“ – which is predominantly done by the help of interpretation and, way more relevant, classifications in establishing and testing „similarities“. So the starting point for any search for a more adapted practice is – the original one, and the gravity of its „provenness“ and „reliability in the past“ (which is the basis of the amount or degree of „being surprised“ and one of the four emotional taints; in cases of sudden lucky changes, „hope“ or even „euphoria“ may be added, in another context that might read like „relief“ …).
It is more important than anything else to OPP people to hold together the fabric of practice such that whatever decision being made facing a surprising challenge amounts to only either shrinking or extending or rearranging the current practice (you are not having another one; it is like your body, and hence feelings are the right guide), or at least (in the best case, if you succeed in trying that) repair it by replacing some failing technical steps by similar ones (similar in whatever regards). Reasoning according to OPP principles, if you lose this instrument, you are unable to learn anything from any experience, life has ended for you, at least any active life, and you can only restart by possibly joining another community and totally change your value system, aims, way of life, habits, and the entirety of practice; but that depends on that you are accepted by that community with its „normal life“ you can get used to. – It is obvious that OPP people have to put up with three substantial disadvantages, the first one being their inevitable tendency to superstition or magical thinking, in other words their susceptability to more or less often fall back on categorically nonsensical explanations of emotionally challenging surprises; the second one is: the range of possible experiments which is already limited (or extended beyond reasonable boundaries as well) by that criterion of „similarity to a certain degree in some relevant regard“ to something „tried and tested“ and proven to be useful within the current practice – that range is even more and crucially fixated on certain solutions by using the original practice and the degree of its having been reliable and stable as a guideline in defining when what is worthwhile to be researched and tried and tested at all, to the consequence that there is an infinity of experiences which is simply lost and skipped as an occasion for learning more about things and causal relations (long before anything useful can be made up from that knowledge). And the third massive disadvantage is that measuring chances and risks by feelings (being based by the felt degree of disparity between what had been expected and prepared for since long, and what surprisingly happened) – especially the determining of what is worthwhile to try and research and what not. Of course, all of that is subject to criticism on the side of OPP people, too: The susceptability to superstitious thinking is limited by knowledge on real causal relations – after having received some lessons by practical experience connected to those relations. One cannot deny that in the course of time there is a steady increase in knowledge of that kind, and that it narrowed the excesses of superstitious thought to a considerable degree.
Similarly, it cannot be denied that OPP people can learn from biographies of others as a model – if these are presented in a way, that is, which would allow for „emotional“ identification und „living through“ the same feelings to a certain amount – particularly if there is (again!) some „similarity in relevant regards“ (classification to be done!) to the practice and life experience of the observer. „Similarity“ being the key word, the transfer of the foreign experience (being rooted within a foreign „normal“ practice) may be successful at least if the shared character of the original situation is sufficiently recognized by the learning observer; in fact, it can be refused as „not being relevant in my special case in some special regard“, so the classification activity does not end with that possible increase of precedents although the chance to have more material for to learn from has grown then. We should not forget that this similarity-orientation is one of three possible evaluations available to OPP people, the other two being: „of no relevance, can be ignored“ and „I am more or less impressed, there is something shedding new light on my actual practice, so something has to be changed“.
The most defining element of the way OPP people refer to their actions and the environment surrounding them, is the lack of any active attempt to obtain knowledge without immediate purpose it might serve. (That does not exclude the possibility – as is the case in „modern“ societies – that „doing research and experiments“ was developped by non-OPP-people in the past and since then has entered the „daily life“ of many educated OPP people, as a „proven element“ of their lifes, or as a „cultural“ reproduction routine of even big communities. The restrictions for that acceptance of scientific thinking within a totally different (ie. OPP) framework, however, have to be described and studied in another context. The same is true with a more OPP-appropriate path of learning by the help of experiences which came about not by active research but only by involuntary failures and/or other types of surprises which provoked some attention on the side of those affected by them: To the consequence that the mass of real knowledge about real causal relations is growing and the scope for superstitious interpretations and experiments is being diminished. The incentive for that learning process is a rather sad one, and the only reason why OPP people are interested in achieving control over some relevant causes (material, dispositions, facts…) in their environment, way beyond their „normal“ routine practice, and that is in violent conflicts and wars when they have to use any means to prevail – real and evidentially effective ones. In those cases, they – against all habits which they show elsewhere – would even seek explanations in terms of „objective“ causes for failures; superstitious reasoning is not excluded by that but at least the other one is the most „object“-directed approach in a „dynamic“ and permanently changing situation which in an OPP context is available. As far as OPP people have reached to a certain level of objective thinking, they can tackle the other „limiting“ dimension which is about false hopes, exaggerated opinion of oneself, lack of self-restraint, temerity, and many other vices to be fought against in order to prevent the consequences in the form of missing one’s sensible interest (and not even having reflected on how to define it in a cautious and circumspect manner – one’s own as well as that of others, possible partners, allies and counterparts in negotiations, conflicts, in striking deals, forming associations etc).
That’s why even on an OPP base of thinking, provided a certain tradition has formed to educate the members of, say, the up-and-coming members of a ruling or political class (by teaching them eg history), this second „limiting“ factor for reducing the typical OPP „expectation affects“ can be successful, Unfortunately, the most determining element in OPP thinking is not the least brought down by those two „reducing“ factors, and that is the fixation of OPP people on the limited perspective of their actual idea and concept of what is „normal“, normal practice (varying within certain boudaries, of course), and hence can be expected by others as a basis for rational arguments in eg. terms of morally legitimate demands. Whereas everybody (having reached that level of intellectual „maturation“ on an OPP basis) would agree on the abstract principle(s, in fact it is only one) of moral reasoning (it is simple enough), they would immediately start arguing on what this or that fact would mean for this or that life condition hereby using their idea of what THEY deem to be reasonable on the basis of their idea of what is normal – and hence can demanded and expected from others – supposing that this „idea of normalcy“ must be the same in all. Having understood that that is not the case, whereas they still cling to the idea of the equivalence of each person’s right to be as advanced in their respective plan (based on THEIR idea of what is normal which the y don’t share with anybody else) as anybody else, they have to to find a general gauge for to evaluate the state of „advance“ of a person, and the only basis for such a comparison shared by all persons are their feelings associated with their „advancement“ in the sense of „experienced“ success, failure, happiness, suffering, stagnation, and long-lasting labour with frequent set-backs etc. However, there are numerous second thoughts and conditions which have to be fulfilled before real empathy, compassion, solidarity can arise: The first ones focusing on defining all those rules of „sensible“ dealing with knowledge either about capacities to act and requirements of their conservation, reproduction, thriving, improvement, those of the planning persons themselves as well as of all which would be affected by the realisation of their plans, or rules of sensibly dealing with knowledge about all relevant facts of the respective parts of the environment. Having established these first conditions, the advanced moralistic and empathetic peacemakers already are in a bad predicament because they can demand being sensible as they are, and may require their counterparts (or quarreling parties) to know and note everything pertinent to their case, and in the same moment they can understand that those persons will not answer to those demand because they don’t have any incentive within their experience and idea of normalcy why they should do that. So while they had taken feelings to be a sufficient measure for to assess legitimate priorities (the bigger suffering has to be healed and served first etc), they now discover a very important element in everybody’s plans and hence source of their expectation affects and feelings, and that is that being motivated to even just note facts which from the special personal point of view of single persons might seem totally irrelevant to them. And no appeal to change their detrimental (because neglecting relevant facts) approach will help. This is all the more shocking to the persons who try to understand others on an empathetic basis, when they have to admit that they themselves would act exactly the same way as the others being in their position (with that biography, growing up, education, experiences etc). So when they see that there is no definition of rationality which would include that vast field of personal past and experience, in the sense of being an absolute and ubiquitously valid principle to behave towards whatever content that experience may have, they lose any fundament for having expectations with relation to the ability to define possible demands and proposals every participant in the respective debate can and hence will agree with; they themselves will not agree even when everything „rational“ pertaining to knowledge about capacities to act and facts in the world has been heeded and taken into account. Which amounts to stop expecting anything let alone demanding from others – at least not doing this any longer together with any reasons why this „can be expected by them if they are to be understood any longer“  – this, by the way, might remind you of a similar formula which was mentioned several times above: the being entitled (by sufficient experience) to not be prepared. This reminder, however, shows that not feeling entitled to expect anything from anybody else any longer is even not the worst consequence of what those empathetic OPP people have come to realize then – because this very insight, applied to themselves, immediately turns into the other formula, that one which is about your (not) being entitled to NOT be prepared (eventhough from a rational point of view it is absolutely possible, and hence not to be excluded by those rational principles of dealing with anybody’s capacities to act and the conditions of their conservation, protection (against damages) and reliable reproduction) or dealing with factual, objective knowledge): Because your being able to be surprised or not depends on whether you coincidentally had a reason (within your former practice and experiences) to become acquainted with the possibly surprising effect (and hence having been able to expect it). In other words, the only quality of your present or former practice which would guarantee that you are able to be surprised (or not) consists in having been motivated to take notice of the respective effect – and nothing within that practice you can know about by experience (its having been proven, tried and tested, lasted so long etc) has any relation to that quality, let alone that it can replace it to some extent. And since this is true of all effects, the rather tautological conclusion is: There is nothing left which you are entitled to NOT be prepared for – everything „rationally“ possible (in the sense you have been forced to recognize as being such in the course of your own „maturation“ and education process, see above) has to be reckoned with – there is nothing to rely on as something not going to ever happen, and there is nothing you are entitled not to be prepared for except one sort of events: the rationally impossible or absurd ones – not because they cannot happen (in fact, they can) but because they would not make sense or would not offer you any occasion to make sense of them (you would not know how to react to them). This category no less played a certain role within said maturation and education process: Because your feelings of excessive hope and/or desperation (including desperate wrath, impatience, addiction etc) had made you expect and even try things („similar to something effective you knew about from the past“) which by sober and sound reflection did not make any sense; and that in many cases was combined with very silly decisions and tremendous determination which just missed your real interest – that which to follow and try to realize would have been the best thing (and worthwhile the efforts) in the long run – which, in turn, amounted to again and again help make people understand each other – in the frame of their limited perspectives (compared to yours; which now has turned out to be no better in relevant regards…). However, they may know as much as possible about realistic psychology and objective causal relations – they still are missing a central point: Knowing, considering all that – how should they form a reproduction (and possibly even progress) project or experiment for themselves? According to which principles should such a project be built? In other words: Their type-2-hypothesis turned out absurd or nonsensical – it is no learning rule at all, does not define any conditions for „making sense“. The question is: how far does that negative realization take those who finally got there? Are they able to build a concept of what they are missing, or of what was wrong with what they had been doing all the time before? The only clue and starting point they have is what they had been confronted with (and eventually had to admit as being the same with themselves): Everybody’s insisting on their own proven practice as a reason for NOT having to strive after learning about possibly relevant (at the latest in the future) facts, and not listening to anything which is presented to them together with the promise it would change their judgment, being something of relevance etc. With that statement, however, they have not gone beyond the scope of OPP thinking by one single step: Their only question still is: How to recognize the relevant occasions for learning efforts, or how to communicate your knowledge about such? The problem is: your only means for to solicit any learning activity in others is your pointing to the knowledge you already have – they, in turn, don’t have it, it rather is just the topic itself that they would have to become interested in, and hence cannot simultaneously be the incentive for that as well. And again this is a loop the empathetic communicators can observe within themselves: They seek that knowledge preceding all knowledge (which still has to be obtained by research etc) which would indicate the relevance of possible research aims. Relevant for what? If there is no relation to a previously defined „normal“ practice, it will not be easy to find alternative criteria for „relevance“. The fixation on original precedents (the „normal“ practice one had got used to) has proven to be the most important obstacle or limit for becoming acquainted with advanced knowledge content. When they consider this, the most advanced OPP people might notice that they themselves never had any unconditioned criterion of what to know is more important than anything else – it always was related to a proven and reliable practice, positive or negative surprising events (to be awaited) and the feelings (as a measure) they provoked. The question with relation to:
how and with which topical priorities?
spending how much resources, how long?
on trying to obtain relevant knowledge –
this question then is combined (as a background) with all those cognitive results of the „maturation“ process, namely advanced psychological knowledge about emotional, subjective conditions for presumably stable plans, intentions, projects and their more or less collective acceptability – because of appropriate handling of capacities to act and the conditions of their reproduction – on one hand, and on the other hand knowledge about things, qualities, facts, events and courses of such (cycles, periods and points in time eg), materials, locations, prevalence of all of such in space and time, dispositions – and all technically reliable „know how“ based on these wellknown entities and regularities. Whereas all of this forms the possible starting material for a possible rule as to how to use this mass of information for building „the optimum reproduction practice in the/any present/respective environment“, such a rule does not exist, and would miss everything an OPP person needs to make sense: There is no tried and tested and proven reproduction practice which has been there since long, and it is impossible to use surprises and the feelings they provoke in order to optimize that original practice; instead there only will be a construction or designing rule prior to any trying and testing, and it is nothing but this rule which has to define what a possible „optimum“ might be. and how to behave facing the more or less wellknown (see above: the „possible starting material“), even more the not so wellknown parts of the environment. There is no experience which would teach the former optimizers of their ordinary practice and wisdom (derived from emotionally interpreted „experience“) how to do that. They know the task and the requirements but don’t know how to live up to them.

The breakdown of the OPP concept of making sense here has been derived from the failure of empathetic OPP mediators to motivate opposing parties to focus on reasons and evidence which might shake their respective position; these reasons at least would presuppose a point of view which no other OPP person would take except these empathetic mediators themselves: To focus on the „valid“ knowledge (and reasons derived from that) of others (in terms of: causal relations and/or about capacities to act of people participating in shared cooperative and/or controversial projects) because of the fact that there are differences which would have to be accomodated. So the mediators do have a motive to focus on those differences and see how the valid arguments on both sides relate to each other and help the involved parties to take note of the reasons of the others – whereas these parties themselves have no such motive, and this gap cannot be bridged. However, this asymmetry is just the start for a comprehensive self-reflection of the mediators because their distinguishing specialty, that very motive, is not derived by a general rule being shared with others – a general rule regulating when to sensibly pay attention to possible extensions of one’s own knowledge (in this special case: when to listen to another person’s proclaimed „evidence of relevance“). It is nothing but one particularity fighting the other, and whose demand for attention will prevail. As has turned out above, this is just the begin of further hurting discoveries on the side of the mediators, undermining their entire endeavour and turning the direction of their questioning back on themselves: Their own dealing with possible new knowledge (about relevant facts) is suffering from severe deficits, which can lead to extreme failures and missed chances – by pure coincidence. And that can encroach on that task of cautiously fitting together all those bits and pieces of knowledge referring to capacities, usable technical and prognostical methods, and, as a third element, the not so controllable aspects of the environment (which might be seen as a kind of fringe of the „prognostical methods“) – the task of fitting all that together for to obtain a precarious and ever dicey and threatened reproduction practice where in principle every moment everything damaging can happen – or not happen; it is just an experiment. So if this is an experiment – what is the overall and leading hypothesis? Since the OPP definition of making sense is broken down – which new one is able to replace it? Is there any left at all?