What's hand wavy about it? It's just not concrete because the idea itself is abstract, not concrete. To orient, you have to combine information (synthesis) from your observations and your priors (what you previously observed and what you know). You can give concrete examples but then people still have to figure out the abstraction to connect one concrete example to another, and if they spend time thinking about it end up with the simple concept I described.
But that is no different than any other description I've seen. I took the question to be "what does it mean to orient to the observation?"
That is, I suspect the asker wanted specific examples of what that means. I think it is fair to say that people learn in concretes, not in abstractions. Is why so few of us know what a semigroup is, after all.
I'm not talking in abstract algebra level abstraction here, no need to be a twit. Your comments are usually better than this.
But in the spirit of being a twit, your "answers" are hardly coherent, let alone concrete. They're just as hand wavy as the original asker was probably complaining about if they wanted a concrete answer.
> How many movement choices do you have? Can you get back to a position? Does your moving cause others to move? Can you see places that are safe to experiment in?
If you want to give a concrete answer instead of a hand wavy one like yours pick a real game, sport, or combat scenario and apply it. Here's a stab at it that's absolutely useless unless you generalize the concept back to my original answer:
BJJ (which a lot of people tie to OODA):
The observations are what my own body-awareness and my opponent's actions and position relative to me. Up to this point in the match I've gotten them into my guard, they put their weight and body just far enough back that I haven't had much luck getting more control. But I managed to bump them and trip them up, they slipped up, they just planted their left hand by my right shoulder (observation).
Orientation: Combining the observation and my training in BJJ, I know that this situation ripe for an arm bar or a triangle.
Decision: I will grab their arm and adjust my guard to pull off the next move, an arm bar.
Action: I grab their arm, but this isn't a turn based game and they move too.
Observation: Gripping my sleeve or collar or shifting their weight, they make an arm bar too hard.
Orientation: I'm still in a good position for a triangle.
Decision: I'll attempt the triangle, but maintaining proper control I can still shift back to the arm bar if they open themselves up to it again.
Action: Move my legs and their body to achieve the triangle.
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But while concrete, the only utility here is to point out its generality. Either the person gets it and understands the concept beyond BJJ (and this specific scenario) and maybe other combat sports or they don't. This was a longwinded way to get back to the core concept: Take the observations and combine them to feed into the decision process.
And if you really think that last sentence has anything to do with semigroup-level abstraction, I can't help you.
Ha! Fair on my answers not being too concrete or coherent, either. Was why that was my "stab." I don't have a firm grasp on the idea, myself. My examples were trying to build on my other post bringing in Ender's Game as a neat take. (No, I didn't link those correctly.)
I also should have pushed back to your terms. I think it is surprisingly useful to constantly ask what that sentence would mean in different situations. Such that I plan on doing just that for the next few days. Specifically, what did you mean to synthesize new ideas?
Would love to have success getting my kids to try this. I love your narrative there, as it shows how rapid the progression can go. At least, that is my current read.
What I wrote was "Synthesizing the new information (from observing) with prior information", not new ideas. Synthesize means "combine into a coherent whole" (among other things, but this is the definition I intended; it's the one programmers ought to become familiar with since we "synthesize" solutions to problems by combining existing and new programs and possible physical components into a whole, our field is fundamentally synthetic). Here it's the act of combining information into a more coherent and accurate model: Present observations, past observations (part of your prior knowledge), and previous training and whatever else (the rest of your prior knowledge).
All of that gives you your present orientation, your position, in either a literal or figurative sense.
And then there's your "opponent" (if there's not one, OODA may not be the right mental model to use). In your observations of your opponent and repeated orientation you are building up a model of them, synthesis again. You start with any prior knowledge (have you encountered this opponent before?) or an assumption (maybe a worst case, or estimate based on sizing them up). Then you engage, and in the engagement you observe and determine their real capabilities, which feeds into orientation for rendering a more accurate model of the opponent.
Orientation is taking the existing knowledge, adding new knowledge or information, rendering a better model (hopefully). Then you decide based on that model, act on that decision, and observe.
Of course it's not actually linear, all of this is happening at the same time, or can be. You don't stop observing while you orient, decide, or act. And you don't stop acting while you observe, orient, or decide.
