CONT'D
We are faced with a difficulty which is unavoidable. We must think, as well as process thoughts, if we are to be aware or conscious of the thoughts and the processes involved. We must think if we wish to understand. Certainly the existence of a thought implies thinking, but once a thought is formed, thinking is not necessary in order to process it with other thought representations even forming what might be considered "new thoughts" without thinking. We can appreciate this by considering a computing machine which in essence does just this: It processes "thoughts" without thinking, without being conscious. If such processing could not form "new thoughts", or answers, obviously a computing machine would be worthless. It is also quite obvious that the thoughts fed into such a machine or those coming out of it are quite meaningless to the machine. The thinking is done by the makers of the machine and by those who interpret the results of the processing. In fact, it is even erroneous to say that they are processing "thoughts". It would be more accurate to say that they are processing physical representations of what we understand as thoughts.
Consider a broadcasting system. Messages (thoughts) are coded into a particular type of current peculiar to the message. This current as such is relatively useless, because it doesn't have sufficient strength to be transmitted any distance. But it can be mixed with (super-imposed upon) a much stronger signal, or current which "carries" it through the air to the receiving sets. Here it is separated again into its components and the "carrier signal" is discarded or "grounded". Now suppose we took the mixed signal and added a second message to it in the same manner. The result (after the "carrier signal" was removed) would be a "double-exposure", as useless perhaps as its counterpart in photography.
This idea of "double exposure" is interesting if one considers "vague emotions", "mixed emotions", "mixed thoughts", or confusion. All of these can be abstractions of such "double exposures", "triple exposures", etc. In this case we could interpret them as being the result of the "machinery", or an attempt to use a "machine" for a purpose it was not intended, or simply an inability to understand all the data presented. But not all "double exposures" are useless. We could get an idea of a "ghost" by such a technique (trick photography could give us plenty of uses of double exposures). In this case we could interpret them as imaginative thoughts, intuitions, etc. depending upon whether we have or can find a use for them.
These two very simple processes of analysis and synthesis (as we expressed them in their simplest form) are actually the essence of all thought processes, both normal and abnormal, as well as the essential nature of the conditioned response mechanisms. This becomes apparent when we consider that these processes depend upon the accuracy, the completeness, the duration, and the nature of the "mental" or physical representations that are made which in turn depend upon the physiological, physical and chemical structure, the viability of various tissues, the state of health of the organism, etc., etc. But that's not all. The picture is further complicated by analysis that produce more than two parts or aspects; and synthesis of more than two stimuli. There also considerations that these processes occur in step-wise progressions, applying the same processes to the results obtained by the previous processes. This in turn necessitates not only a consideration of the inter-relationships of these two processes but also the possibility of alternating one with the other and that, at various stages. And to think that all of this can occur without thinking.
There's more. For, not only are thoughts, or rather their physical representations, processed and developed in this manner, but thoughts in their truest sense are actually formed from from it, i.e., they are abstracted from such a sub-stratum.
We noted that feelings and thoughts are abstractions of conditioned response mechanisms. We also noted rather frequently the arrangement of concepts (on a conscious level at least) into "trinities". Some philosophers have noted the "triune" nature of things. The syllogism of logic can be considered as an example. This is rather easily explainable in terms of the thought process since the most general scheme of analysis is to break up a single concept into two parts and then to analyze each part separately, further sub-dividing the parts in the same manner if necessary or desirable. The simplest division is into two equal parts rather than more than two, or into unequal parts. Hence we can also appreciate the tendency of the formation of "equivalent", "resonant" structures which represent the "hybrid".
Considering this process from the other direction we synthesis concepts, theories, etc., which may at first seem contradictory by establishing relationships between them. Mathematically a relationship is defined in terms of equations which, to be valid, must equate some common property, etc. When all the relationships are found and equated, the two or more concepts are found to rest on a common basis, and through it, to be equated with each other. Again the tendency is to handle two concepts at a time and synthesize them into one. This completes not only an indication of why thinking, and subsequent understanding, tends to arrange itself into trinities, but also throws light on the nature of the "trinity" which in some respects, applied to reasoning, resembles "circular reasoning". Actually it could be better described as"spiral"reasoning.
FOR EXAMPLE:
CONSIDERING AN example from the physical world in which the relationships are defined in mathematical terms.
We noted that the nature of man is essentially the same as the nature of mind, both being a union of body and spirit, and that both are triune. We also noted that man can only know and understand in terms of himself or his nature and considered the dictum: "Know thyself.", as a summary of this idea. We notice now that through "Einstein's synthesis" the entire physical world (of which the body is a part) is also triune. It's hard to believe that it is an accident. Without becoming involved in a lengthy theological discussion, we might simply note the theological contentions that man is created to the image and likeness of God, as well as to love and serve Him. Following are a few speculative syllogisms which might help to indicate the usefulness of speculation, and might also serve as a summary or derivation of some of the ideas developed.
Theology:
1. The Nature of God is triune.
2. Man is created to His image and likeness.
3. The nature of man is triune.
or
1. a. The nature of man and his mind are triune.
1. b. Man knows everything in terms of himself or his nature
1. c. If man is to know God, the nature God must be triune.
2. But man is commanded by God to know God.
3. The nature of God is triune.
Philosophy:
1. The nature of man is triune.
2. Know thyself.
3. If man is to know Nature, the nature of the physical world is triune.
or,
1. The Nature of the physical world is triune.
2. The body is part of the physical world.
3. Since knowledge is derived from the body, the nature of knowledge is triune.
Science:
1. E=mc2 is the relationship of two general aspects of the physical world.
2. These two aspects of the same thing (physical world) reach, or can be seen to reach, an equivalence point through this relationship.
3. This is the essential nature of a trinity.
(The Trinity of God is certainly more perfect but is of the same nature. Two Entities, or Aspects, called Persons, derived from ONE and equated through Love to perfect equivalence).
Getting back to a consideration of the mind in terms of a relationship of body and spirit, we might consider the physical aspect of mind to be a machine with an operator, or boss, as the spiritual aspect. The only thing the boss does is think (pure thought), the machine processes the thoughts, or rather, their representations or impressions. Indulging ourselves just a little, we could give the boss a name like "Ego", or "I". The relationship of "Ego" and "I" is such that we might consider "I" to be the total being with the "Ego" as its representative -- e.g., the boss of the machine. We could then introduce an idea like "Id" to represent the machine. There is another related idea we might add. Consider for a moment the pronunciation of "I" and the identical pronunciation of "eye". A "double exposure" in the sound center of our minds. That's interesting, but is it accidental? From our previous discussions, we should expect that there is some relationship, but we'll leave the historical development to the semanticists. Let's just speculate a little further.
I see. An eye "sees". Seeing is believing. If I understand, I see. A blind man seesin the sense of understanding. Understanding requires thinking. Ego thinks. Ego understands. Ego sees. And we might present the relationships:
But this could be more than just speculation. We've set up "Ego" as the operator, or boss, of a machine which has no "sense" in the true sense of the word. We have also seen that the five "senses" usually considered, operate through a "sixth sense" of maintaining the integrity of a complex organism through conditioned responses. This occurs without feelings or thinking. In fact we pointed out that feelings are actually primitive thoughts. They are formed in the same way as thoughts, through the association of the spirit and body, through the process of abstracting, or "bridging the gap", which is the only ideas we have so far attached to thinking.
Indeed the Ego, the mental faculty, is the eye through which we see (rather than merely respond to) complex and subtle stimuli, such as light, and understanding. Indeed, the Ego is the common sense. The sense which makes sense out of all the other "senses" in the true sense of the word. Common sense is therefore equivalent to thinking, being common not only to the other senses but common to all human beings (which is the usual connotation of the term "common sense"). Through this equation of common sense and thinking one can readily see that the use of the term "common sense" has incorporated similar distortions to those attached to thinking by traditional concepts. But here an attempt has been made to separate the ideas as we divided the thinking process into two ideas. Logic actually is an attempt to describe the processing of thoughts, beginning with one thought, the premise, presenting a relationship -- the argument, and establishing a new thought, the conclusion. With the present interest in symbolic logic one can appreciate this equation of logic with the thought process (as distinguished from thinking) and also the possibility of building machines which can test the validity of various logical systems in an attempt to eliminate human bias.
Let's take another look at the trinity we developed with the "Ego", "I", and "Eye". This particular trinity was presented by three diagrams rather than one to emphasize different aspects. Let's take a look at one of them at a time. The first:
See
Figure 17. gives the impression that the Ego is the "boss", "I" the operator. and the "Eye" as representing the production of the material that Ego and "I" are concerned with. But this places the idea of "I" as being only an aspect of Ego despite the fact that we developed the idea of Ego as representing "I", and not that the Ego is only an aspect of the concept "I". The two are actually identical as long as we consider only one individual. But if we consider an individual in association with other individuals, we get an idea of "I" that is not only concerned with that material presented by his own "Eye", but also concerned with that presented through the "Eyes" of others. In other words, we get an idea of "I" as representing the "whole" being in association with others. Then the Ego takes on the connotation of the selfish "I" as compared to the "I" as representing the association with others. The selfish "I" as compared to the universal "I", or at least the "I" associated with one or more other "I"s. This is emphasized in the second representation.
To further emphasize the ideas presented in the preceding paragraph we could represent this by the following trinity.
The ideas of super-ego, ego, and id presented here are analogous and similar to those presented by Freud. They are not the same however, primarily because the concept of the trinity equates or relates them in such a manner as to show at least a tendency to equate them to equivalence, rather than one above the other.
The third representation:
is interesting from another point of view, which also helps to support the tendency to establish equivalence. One has only to consider the idea of prejudice or bias which is present even in scientific investigation. This idea is certainly emphasized in this trinity. If we substituted the terms super-ego and id here, the Id would be at the top position which seems to indicate predominance. From our development of "Id", it is clear that it represents body activity, or the physical aspects of man, his body. Prejudice , such as racial prejudice, can then be seen to be an attempt to "flatter" the Ego through the Id by making one individual's "Id" more valuable than others. This idea is also supported by "vanity", beauty contests, etc.
We cannot say that one representation is better than others since they are all equivalent, and the emphasis given would depend upon the use to which each would be put. But as far as the representation and relationship shown by using the terms super-ego, ego, and id, the one we presented seems to be the best since the idea of super-ego demands a predominant position. The most important thing is a realization of the tendency of equivalence, and also the close inter-relationships which show that the "position of predominance" is a function of the other two "subordinated" aspects. For example, the ego derives a position of importance through the super-ego. In fact, it also derives a position of importance through the Id, through "beauty", etc. Considering even an isolated individual, it still makes a difference which is given the position of prominance.
In such a case the selfish "I" would still be the Ego, the associative "I" could represent associations with God. Since association demands communication, we can consider the id to be the "medium" of communication (as through conscience) which gives the id its importance and equivalence with ego. Communication or association with other human beings is also accomplished through the id.
We have rather forced ourselves into the idea that the representation:
See
Figure 21.
is the healthy state, and that the other representations are distortions of this healthy state which are very easily accomplished.
We can show these relationships by the composite representation:
See Figure 22. The Ego in ths case represents the conscious individual with respect to himself by its incorporation into this larger frame of reference. But we noted that the case of the individual with respect to himself, Ego, I, and Eye, become identical.
There are very many considerations and associations we can make by developing these ideas further. Let it suffice for us now to say that "I" represents the "whole" individual, (the individual in association eith others, in a common union, or simply a "communion"), that ego represents the conscious individual, and the "eye" represents the "material" (the "I" with respect to self alone) made conscious through the Ego, or what is the same thing, that "eye" represents the unconscious. Now I simply wish simply to substitute some terminology leaving the "justification" of the substitution to you, for the time being anyway. We shall represent "I" by "super-ego", and "eye"by "id".
So far what we have developed is expressed below diagrammatically.
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It should be clear that mechanistic conditioned responses can account for all behaviour of animals but not the kind of behaviour that is particularly or uniquely human. Some, maybe even most, of man's behaviour can be explained in the same manner since man's body is essentially the same as animals from which it evolved. But man does demonstrate some unique, even peculiar, behavior which cannot be explained by such phenomenon. Furthermore, since man is distinguished from animals on the basis of the "spiritual" (non-material) entities such as thoughts and souls, the uniquely human behavior (and phenomenon) must be a manifestation of this soul, or the thoughts. We have considered this manifestation of the soul to be an abstraction from the physical mechanism to the spiritual world. This merely establishes consciousness. If there is to be any change in behavior, the abstractions, or thoughts, must have the ability to act as stimuli to evoke responses that are different from those which would be produced by simple conditioned responses. The thinking process must be a two way street. Thinking must entail not only an abstraction from the physical phenomenon to the spiritual world, but also a manifestation, or an application, of thoughts to direct the thought processes, which in essence entails something non-material -- or non-physical -- the spirit, or some part thereof -- to change, or effect the physical phenomenon. Mind over matter, so to speak.
By merely associating with the physical processes the ability to feel and thereby the ability to be "aware" of the stimuli and responses is not sufficient to explain the behavior that is uniquely human. Feelings are primitive thoughts, although a feeling and a thought can be considered to be different by virtue of being different kinds of abstractions. For our purposes at the moment, we can consider them to be the same, merely abstractions, and, as such, a product of thinking. All that we could hope to develop by merely associating feelings or thoughts with the responses is an exactly analogous type of behavior as we observed in animals with the simple addition of an "awareness", or "consciousness".
The feelings, thoughts or the "awareness" could also be trained; that is, they could change as the responses to various stimuli do. All this could possibility yield is knowledge of the feelings, which knowledge, of itself, would be quite meaningless except to the individual involved to whom they would be quite useless. We could not consider any action or behavior of such an individual to be a conscious act, not a fully conscious one, since consciousness of the action or the response could only follow the action. For, even to communicate a thought (by the usual methods, to exclude ESP) requires the ability to effect the physical processes. To say that we performed a fully conscious act we imply that we knew what we were doing at the time we were doing it, or even before (pre-meditation).
Since the mere association of "feelings" or thoughts in this manner can produce consciousness or awareness of a sorts, let's simply refer to actions or behavior that occurs in such a manner to be sub-conscious. Sub-conscious activity is simply that activity we have discussed as unconscious activity, the activity of animals or robots, with the simple addition or association of feelings or thoughts to such responses. This also maintains a remarkable consistency, and adds some further justification, for our preceding discussions in which we developed the conclusion that animals have no feelings. For, since animals are incapable of conscious activity, in the sense that they know what they are going to do before they do it, it would be silly for us to discuss "sub-conscious activity" of animals.
Sub-conscious activity is passive -- that is -- passive from the point of view of the individual since he does not control his responses but is controlled by them. He is controlled by the various stimuli which conditioned his organism, and his responses are passive in this sense regardless of how active or "vivid" his responses may be in a physical sense. His being controlled in this manner indicates that he is completely controlled by the "will" of his environment (of which his own body is a part). Or, he is completely controlled by the "will" of nature.
Considering this from the theological idea presented earlier, he would be completely subject to Will of the Single Spirit pervading everything everything material, including his body. Also indicated from this point of view is the manner in which God could make His Will known through the body, the unconscious, the Id. This then would be a part of conscience, the innate ability to which reference was made in the essay "I Am Great". This could only be a part of conscience however, since the idea of conscience implies more than passive behavior. It implies that an individual is responsible for his actions, that he is fully conscious of the action, and that he has the ability to control his responses.
This idea of passive behavior, or sub-conscious activity, is identical to the kind of behaviour, or the explanation of behavior, that is considered in fatalistic philosophy. Again we must recognize that this explains, or accounts for, only some of man's activity, and not that activity which is distinctly, or uniquely, human. For, if this represented the total picture there would be no such thing as individual responsibility. How could we account for guilt feelings or complexes?
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