Intellect and Abstraction

The key to understanding human consciousness is the problem of abstraction. What are abstractions, and how do they function in thinking? To begin let us review some of the material I covered in my "5 Meditations of the Nature of Mind." Psychic activity is a continuum. To understand a continuum it is best to examine the simpler part of the continuum to begin. So we shall start our examination of consciousness with plants, then animals, and then humans. Let us now introduce some terms:"instinct", "intellect', and 'imagination." All living things have some intellect and instinct. Instinct is when an activity or action is triggered by an image. The term "image" is being used in a technical sense, of being a one dimensional sense data. The reader must not be misled in thinking of "image" only in visual terms; this shall become more clear as we progress. All living things have a desire to expand; this is what differentiates living things from non-living things. Instinct, intellect, and imagination are how living entities satisfy their desire to expand. So let us start our examination with instinct and intellect; although an entity is usually dominated by either intellect or instinct there is always a combination of both. As is our stated practice, let us start with the simpler part of the continuum: plants. Plants are dominated by instinct, but possess some intellect, even if it seems to be soeeping most of the time. A simple example of instinct: trees drop their leaves when the weather turns cold. The temperature acts as an image-trigger, The weather drops to a certain temperature: the tree drops its leaves.Let us now examine the primitive intellect of trees. If the weather does not get cold enough to trigger the tree into dropping its leaves; the tree in time drops its leaves. The tree dropping its leaves is caused by the tree's desire to expand and survive. Intellect is when a living entity can change an image-trigger. The training of domestic animals is an example. On a command a dog engages in a specific activity. It can be sitting, shaking hands, etc. The advantages of intellect over instinct are obvious for a living entity. The most obvious is animals can accomplish a change in activities in a fraction of the time of a plant. So now we move to imagination. Imaginations found in humans, although there does not seem to be any reason that an animal species could not develop imagination. Imagination has two parts. The first part is the ability to recognize an image-trigger without doing the associated activity. In other words a human can be told to sit, and not sit, but still feel the activity of sitting in an attenuated form. Humans can feel the activity that an image-trigger brings about, and yet not perform the activity. The second part of imagination is that we can bring about these felt activities and try them out mentally before trying the activity out physically, and make changes in the activity in our psyche before trying out the change in physical activity. Humans have the power to sublate image-triggers into imagination. That is lift off image-triggers from the scenario they occur in and make changes. The sublated image-triggers are abstractions,or what philosophers have called universals. Let us observe how this works in normal conscious activity. We think in scenarios; thoughts are scenarios. These scenarios are the associated activity of the image-trigger. Some image-triggers are turned into instinct; this is why we can walk around town without paying much attention to walking. This is because we have turned image-triggers such as street lights, curbs,etc. into instinct. We do not have to pay conscious awareness to such things. The strength of humans is that even while using training or embodied image-triggers; the imagination is still active. We are constantly thinking or running scenarios. We see a car, person, picture, and so on; and it brings about a scenario either from the past or a future expectation. This is normal consciousness. We can also purposely think about a problem. This leads to the solution of the mind-body problem. That there is physical activity and mental activity. The senses take in data that is coordinated by the brain and then recorded. Thinking is experience recalled or re felt is an attenuated form. The coordination is of course, function to training (turning intellect into instinct). An example should help illustrate. In driving a car visual data is the most important; a driver should pay more attention to the visual data of other cars, street lights, and such then how the seat feels on her back. The above discussion shows how abstractions are created and function in everyday life. With abstractions we create minds: the individual minds the private minds and standard minds. I have examined individual minds in some detail in the essay: "The "I" and the Self" so let us look at private minds and standard minds. The difference between private minds and standard minds is one of degree. That the abstractions are connected by reason or mythological thinking. In mythological thinking abstractions are connected through emotional and physical resemblances. This is of course, in computer jargon "the default setting" of the human psyche. Abstractions that give us the same emotional feeling are connected. This is why at home we surround ourselves with objects that give us pleasant feelings, and not avoid objects that give us jarring or unpleasant feelings or emotions. In mythologies and occult systems this type of thinking reaches its greatest exposition. Standard minds are when abstractions are connected through reason. By reason is meant that abstractions are connected by function and origin. This flexibility in using abstractions has allowed humans to dominate the planet. The study that deals with abstractions is philosophy. This is why the best philosophical literature has an anagogic function. Philosophy has developed two important tools to create standard minds: the law of non-counter diction, and Ockam's razor. The more a mind or system conforms to these two tools the greater degree of standardization. Mathematics is of course, an example of standard minds of a high degree. There are no counteractions, and no superfluous entities. The mind of a family life is is a good example of the private minds. The mind of family life contains conflicting emotions and superfluous tasks. Let us look at a mind that leans towards the standard mind, but still has many characteristics of private minds: education. Every good teacher realizes that each student must be dealt with as an individual. One of the great teachers of history made a practice of giving different advice to different students; his name was Confucius. Confucius would often give different students different or counterdicting advice, depending how he judged their development.This is why teaching is an more art than science. So depending on the degree of a mind follows the law of non-counter diction,and Ockam's razor shows its degree between private mind and standard mind. The individual mind cannot be standardized, not that people have not tried. The individual mind is the self, emotions cannot be taken out of the individual mind. Although some conformity can be achieved, but usually must be achieved in childhood. The individual mind is made of mostly unsublated image-triggers. These image-triggers by being unsublated have not become abstraction. A person can sublate and change the image-triggers of the individual mind. Much of western mysticism concerns this process. The birth of the new man. The new man is of course, Paracelsus's homunculus, or the little man in the head. If we are to believe the great mystics this destruction and reconstruction of the self is a very painful process. It was during the Greek enlightenment that humans first started to build standard minds. Protagoras breaking subject and object apart was the pivotal event. So let us move to the first serious study of abstractions, in Plato. Plato realized abstractions have power. Again an example: an expert in martial arts has trained herself to recognize different stances and movements of her opponents. Through training she has embodied these image-triggers to adjust her activity to counter an opponent in a fight. This is why for a martial arts expert an unskilled opponent seems to move in slow motion. This should help illustrate why Plato identified abstractions with power. Plato called abstractions Forms. Plato suffered from a common human weakness: that humans are often humble when they should be proud, and proud when they should be humble. This is why Plato thought he was discovering the Forms when in fact he was inventing the divinized mental realm of the Forms. This is a clear example of divinizing abstractions. This led to the top-down system of western civilization, of regarding abstractions as independently existing entities that are more real than material entities. The trouble is humans have an ambiguous relationship with abstractions. They have given humans power, but have also increased alienation