In this entry we carry out an experiment in inspecting distinction. We don't hold that this is the correct and only way do do this. Indeed, holding distinction to be the essence of all things, our exposition is guaranteed to be imperfect by the principle that only all reality can accurately model all reality. We here work by example, or approximation, looking to model distinction and trust in our roles as collocutors to hold only the essentials of the model, thereby capturing a possible essence of distinction.
In distinction is the discerned and the indiscernible. We model a simple distinction of a diversity of two, D, by { D1, D2 }. D is the original thing upon which we draw a distinction; D1 and D2 are the distinguished parts. When D is what is held at face value, all we see in the distinction D is what we've fixed upon as D1 and D2. We do not see the D. D at that point is as yet uninspected. We have in this first act a thing that is both an arbitrary act of distinction and a determinate act of particular fixation.
There are two features of this first model that tell us we have an incomplete apparatus for full distinction. First, in the fixing of D1 and D2 in our model of D we trust ourselves to ignore irrelevancies of letters and subscripts and see neither one of D1 and D2 as elevated over the other. Second, our having named this distinction D is a feature of our account, not a feature of the distinction, leaving us no way to see a whole divided in one distinction. Yet, we do recognize particulars with emphasis, and we do distinguish wholes to be divided. Here we may find our bridge between discovery and creation in that emphasizing some among many has the character of discovering them, while recognizing many as parts of a whole has the character of creating those parts or choosing the whole's division. As a form of distinction bridging these two views we can see in some imagined list of particulars a commonality with some central collection elevated above the rest. In this sense, the { D1, D2 } is just two elements taken to be elevated above the rest on the list, and the view of the whole D is taken to be just that commonality to the many on the list. We can recognize as somewhere between these two views, distinction as a multiplicity of variations. A useful element of our model of distinction then will be this bridge between the free and arbitrary visage of particulars, and the discovery of those certain of those particulars as fixed. Between the bare apprehension of particulars at face value,
(A) { D1, D2 },
and the full recognition of the whole,
(B) D0 = { D1, D2 },
we emphasize, or focus on one element—discern it from among many,
(C) { ... Fi, F0, Fj, ... }.
Let us call this latter distinction F. We can depict the approximation of the distinction of particulars alone by
(A') { ... Di, D1, D2, Dj, ... }.
and that of the whole with particulars by the distinction of distinctions,
(B') { D0, { ... Di, D1, D2, Dj, ... }, ... },
With this we can draw further distinctions on our original taking of the whole with its particulars, D0 = { D1, D2 }, discerning in it priority. Our further application of form F will prioritize which comes first, the discerned or indiscernible:
{ D0, { D1, D2 } }
or
{ D0, { D1, D2 } }.
These two forms of D0 = { D1, D2 } we call E1 and E2 respectively. In E1 we say D0, as the focus, is fixed first and seen subsequently to be distinguished. This is the simplest form of multiplicity creation. In E2 we see { D1, D2 } as the focus upon which is elaborated that its multiplicity is no more than the whole D0. This is the simplest form of the removal of distinction. These two distinctive acts we will call division and unification or inscription and erasure.
With distinctions such as with E1 and E2 we can see in distinctions such as D, naming and community. Via E2 and its removal of distinction we can see in dissimilars identity, or indiscernibility: D1 = D2. They are recognized via the unification in E2 as undistinguished, or the same, or simply, equal. We may, via E1, remove an apparent contradiction in D1 = D2 by creating a sense in which E2 holds of { D1, D2 }, say by distinguishing in both D1 and D2, { G, ... }, so that D1 = D2 now, perhaps surprisingly, is fulfilled by { G, ... } = { G, ... }, in which we lose our ability to discern the two by no positive act of distinction at all.
We may distinguish each of the Di in D as { Di, j }, and via various operations like E1, see on occasion Dk, l = Dm, n, and again via operations like E2, recognize a concomitance of distinction with in a community of discerned things, { Dc1, Dc2, ..., Di', ...}.
With this experiment we have the elements of taking together, naming, internal-external, choosing-fixing, resolution of contradiction, community and the asymmetry of priority. There is little that is circular in our construction, though this absence likely reflects certain conveniences we availed ouselves of in concepts such as nested distinction, forms of distinction and the use of forms as operators. Such concepts will themselves have to be found among distinction itself—distinction as distinction, with no use of singular or plural, object or operation, initial or subsequent. But compelling approximations are exactly what we seek, for perfect descriptions aren't to be had in fixed expositions. The distinction captured by the investigator, though, does not carry such limitation.