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How are we conscious of concepts? If you know what concepts are, the way we are conscious of them is by means of words, written, spoken, heard, or "signed." All things we can be conscious of by perceiving them, directly or from memory. A word is not a concept however, it is only the symbol for a concept, the concept is an identification of something, an existent or class of existents, attributes, behaviors, relationships, concrete or abstract, actual or imaginary. But, without words there would be no way to be conscious of concepts. Remember this article is only about the nature of perception. Before we can have any concepts we must be consious of something to identify and discover the nature of. You must know by now that I do not believe any knowledge is possible without concepts which is the basis of my emphasis on language. This article which is part of an online book about episemology should relieve any doubts about my view of conceptual knowledge: Concepts. [Note there is a criticism of Rand''s mistaken view of concepts in this article.] Hope this explains my position, Anthony. Randy

Thanks Michael, Just for the record, I do not hate anyone. Hate is a useless self-destructive emotion I rid myself of years ago. Randy

I'm sorry you think so. It was certainly not my intention. I'd appreciate it if you would specify which guideline you believe I violated so I can avoid it in the future. Thanks! Randy

Hi Anthony, Please let me ask you a couple of questions. First about this claim: "But I think there have to be and are - 'a million' - sensory experiences dating from infancy (sound, sight, tactile) which were never and don't need to be recovered, integrated and evaluated -- within and deep in one's consciousness." My question is, "integrated and evaluated," by what mechanism. You have made the same mistake Rand made, assuming some process for which there is neither evidence or explanation. If something is automatically, "integrating and evaluating," something, that mechanism must be identified and explained. How would one ever know if the results of that mysterious unidentified process was reliable or not? My next question is, what do you mean by the, "subconscious?" Where is it, what is it like, how does it work? Are you sure what you think of as the subconscious is not simply your emotions, your memory, your desires, and your habituated patterns of thinking and behavior--none of which have any affect accept as your are conscious of them? If you understanding of the nature of perception comes from Rand, please read Perception, which explains the true nature of perception. Think whatever you like of Nathaniel Branden. I'm not interested in personalities. I knew the Brandens and have no use for them. I don't mind if you do. Randy

If you have personally benefitted, or even think you have, from anything Nathaniel Branden wrote I'm delighted. I refer to Nathaniel Branden the way I do, because I knew him, (and his nasty wife, when she was his wife). I know what he taught, and some of it is worse then wrong, it's harmful to anyone taken in by it. I certainly do not mind if you admire him. I cannot, Some of the things he wrote were good, but every quack has to say some things that are true or no one will believe him. I'm not trying to change your mind, by the way, just telling you what my experience has been. I also didn't mean to offend you, if I did. Thanks for the comment, Randy

Hi William, Did you have a comment to make. This is an awfully old article. Randy

They were wrong. Randy

There Is Only Consciousness In my previous article, "Magic Thinking," one supposed explanation for, "sudden insights," and other events in consciousness for which there is no explanation is attributed to something called the, "subconscious." It is very important to understand that there is nothing injecting thoughts into our minds, especially not some absurd idea of some consciousness we are not conscious of. The Subconscious, The Invention Of Bad Psychology The false concept of a subconscious (or unconscious) was originated by the psychology charlatan's, Anna and Sigmund Freud. It has plagued all thinking about the nature of the human mind since. The term, "subconscious," was invented by the Freuds as an explanation of, "repression," the idea that one can simply "hide" in some sub-basement of the mind, feelings and desires (or the cause of them) one does not like, and yet those hidden things still somehow affect one's feelings or thinking. The meaning of the term in psychology today has many different and conflicting variations, but retains the idea of something we are not conscious of that, somehow, affects our conscious experience. There is no subconscious. What we are conscious of, we are conscious of, and all that we can know, identify, think about, experience or have feelings about is what we are conscious of. Nothing "affects" our consciousness we are not conscious of. The only way anything can "affect" out consciousness is by our being consciously aware of it. There are many things we are not conscious of, both physical and psychological but so long as we are not conscious of them they have no relationship to consciousness at all. One example of the so-called "subconscious" is the pseudo-concept, "repressed memory." We can certainly have memories that we have difficulty recalling because we have intentionally ignored them for a long time, or had no interest in remembering them. A memory we cannot recall cannot have any effect on consciousness, and cannot affect our emotions or thinking because only things we are conscious of affect our emotions or can be thought about. If memory affects consciousness it is because one is conscious of that memory, otherwise it has no effect whatsoever. It may be in memory to be recalled, but if we do not recall it, we cannot be conscious of it, and it has no affect on our consciousness, our thoughts, or our feelings. Things Mistaken For The Subconscious There are four things which are mistaken for the subconscious: memory, emotions, desires, and learned patterns of behavior (habits), both physical and psychological. None of these are some kind of paraconsciousness lurking just under the surface of real consciousness just waiting to burst onto the scene or subtly influence our thinking and feelings without our being aware of them, like the man behind the curtain. They are mistakenly called subconscious because they are real aspects of the human organism, whether or not we are conscious of them, and, under the right circumstances, we can be and frequently are clearly conscious of them. Memory is all that we have stored and can recall to consciousness. Exactly how memory works is not known, but it is known it is a function of the brain under the control of consciousness, and we know we can recall almost anything we have remembered (learned), with varying degrees of difficulty, but what we remember (become conscious of from memory) is always related in some way with what we are currently conscious of. Memory does not spontaneously push "memories" into consciousness. The reason memory is mistakenly included in the pseudo-concept "subconscious" is because everything that can be recalled is in memory but we are not conscious of it until it is recalled and otherwise it has no effect on consciousness. What we are not conscious of has no effect on our thinking or feelings. If subconscious only means what we can be conscious of but are not presently conscious of, it must include the entire perceivable existence. It does not matter if they are things external, internal, or from memory, what we can be conscious of has no effect on consciousness unless and until we are actually conscious of them. The other aspect of human nature which are mistakenly included in the pseudo-concept "subconscious:" emotions, desires, and habituation, do not exist at all unless we are conscious of them. We already know that emotions are our consciousness of our physiological reactions to the content of consciousness. There is nothing mysterious or "subconscious" about them. Except for the most basic biological desires, all other human desires are developed and learned (See the article, "Desires.") and do not exist except as we are conscious of them. The reason habituated actions are included in the idea of the subconscious is because they sometimes seem to proceed without our being conscious of them, such, as when we are typing, or driving a car, or even reading. Nevertheless we are conscious of those actions, and when necessary can take immediate conscious control of any of those behaviors. The idea of the, "subconscious," is a very dangerous one that has enabled psychologists and sociologists to put over no end of deceptions. There is only consciousness and that which we can be conscious of. What we are conscious of is all that we can have any feelings about or can think about, and what we are not conscious of, if it exists, is only what we can "potentially" be conscious of. There is nothing else. There is no subconscious pushing (brain generated) thoughts and feelings into our consciousness.

Yes!

Exactly!

Sanity!

That's right. The mistake Rand made was doing exactly what she said should never be done. She attempted to answer a scientific question philosophically. When she said, "matter can neither be created or destroyed," she was letting science inform her philosophy which she herself considered a bad mistake. There is no way philosophy alone could derive the conservation of matter concept. Nevertheless both metaphysics and ontology are required as the foundation of science and all other intellectual inquiry. All of science is based on an assumed metaphysics, that all of reality exists and has the nature it has independently of anyone's knowledge or awareness of it, (metaphysics) and that every existent must have some attributes that are that existent's nature, and that every existent is different because its attributes are different from all other existents, and that all existents must share some attribute with all other existents (ontology). Neither metaphysics or ontology can identify the attributes that make the existents of reality what they are, only the physical sciences can do that. Randy

That's exactly right. Metaphysics is the study of the nature of existence and the meaning of reality. Ontology is the study of the ultimate nature of material existence as defined by metaphysics. Ayn Rand did not dismiss metaphysics and stated that it was the foundational branch of philosophy. She just never developed that branch. Randy

There is, in fact, no ontology in Objectivism. There are fleeting references to it but no, "ITOO" [Introduction To Objectivist Ontology] as there is for epistemology [ITOE], and there is precious little metaphysics as well. So your view is correct if by poor ontologist you mean no ontologist.

Material existence is comprised entirely of existents. Or is it? The view that all of existence consists of all the existents there are is technically called an "entity ontology" in contrast to the opposite view called a "matter ontology." The entity ontology is implied in some philosophies (Locke, for example) and explicitly in others (Rand, for example). Rand said that only entities exist. In that view, "matter," is simply, "all the material entities." Based on the explicit entity ontology, Objectivism holds an entity view of cause. According to that view, it is an entity's nature and attributes that determine or "cause" its behavior. That is also the basis for the Objectivist argument for volition. They dismiss the "determinism" argument against volition (everything has a cause therefore everything is determined, by simply saying, for volitional beings, volition is the cause of their behavior.) The entity ontology is contradicted by another Objectivist assertion, however, "matter can be neither created or destroyed." But if matter is only entities, that could not be. Entities are created and destroyed all the time. If we try to get around the problem by saying matter can change its form we have adopted a matter ontology, because entities do not change from one kind of entity into another by some kind of transmutation. Some entities simply cease to be. Other entities come into existence that never were before; for example, every human being. If something can be neither created or destroyed, we must always have the same amount of it. When one thing changes into another, or ceases to be, or a new thing comes into existence, what is it we still have the same amount of? When the lamb becomes lamb stew, what is the thing, of which, there is still the same quantity? It certainly isn't lambs?

In one sense it is the only way one can have rational principles and fundamentals, even if they learn them from someone else, they don't really have them until they have understood them, and why they are true, with their own mind. As for, "Thou shalt think," it is reality that says that and it comes with a penalty, "Thou shalt think or die." I admire Rand and her brilliant mind. I often quote her, never as an authority, but she said some things so clearly, I can't improve on them. I'm not an Objectivist (and wouldn't be if I agreed with everything Rand wrote) because I do not identify myself with any movement or ideology, that is any -ism. For example, I have no mystic views and despise all superstition, but I do not identify myself as an, "atheist," because the "gods" are just one of the many things believed in that I don't. Actually I think it's silly to identify yourself by what you don't believe. In the case of Objectivism itself, there are many mistakes, some of them quite serious. The mistakes I've identified, however, are not what the Rand haters believe is wrong with Objectivism. The mistakes I've identified are all technical, related mostly to her epistemology (which even with the mistakes is the best since Peter Abelard), and all of her political views. For someone who dedicated her life to individualism, her politics is riddled with collectivist (social solution) views and contradictions. I agree with the essentials of her ethics but not with her emphasis. I mostly agree with her aesthetics, but it only addresses a very minor aspect of aesthetics, art, and never addresses the fundamental question of what beauty actually is. The whole of metaphysics in Objectivism consist of A is A, reality is what it is, and there is no ontology at all, and therefore no philosophical foundation for epistemology. Think of it this way, ontology describes what there is to know, epistemology describes how we know it. Oddly enough, Rand wrestled a lot with a branch of philosophy totally neglected today called philosophical psychology, which is what it ought to be. Rand never actually defined what the mind is though she got further than almost any other philosopher. There is one thing I very much appreciate in her thinking that most "Objectivists" don't know. Rand was not a physicalist and correctly understood that consciousness is not a physical attribute and understood why that view is not dualism. Randy

This post does not strictly belong under epistemology, but relates to my two earlier posts on thinking. There seems to be some misunderstanding of the intention of the two earlier posts. The purpose of this article is to possibly correct some wrong impressions made by my earlier articles. The impression that they came from someone with no real experience with science and mathematics is my fault. Some of the mathematics that were routine in my experience were the development of butterfly algorithms for implementing fast fourier transforms for signal analysis, multiple applications of information theory (shannon), implementation of both hardware and software error detection and correction codes (Hamming), large number crunching systems for hexidecimal floating point math, packet switching, etc. etc. I worked daily for many years with scientists and engineers in cutting edge digital and IT systems development. None of that is meant to establish any kind of authority, because it doesn't. I've known many scientists and mathematicians who, in most practical areas of life, were complete dunces. If what I have written is of value to anyone it must based on the material itself, not on any past accomplishment or experiences. I know many will not find any value in these articles, and the articles are not for them. They are only for those who are interested in thinking for themselves and perhaps discovering something new to think about. Randy

Marie Curie The following is a response to a question I received to my recent article, "What Is an Individualist." The question concerned the following paragraph: "In the entire history of the world every advance in civilization, every gain in knowledge, and every improvement in the human condition has come solely through the efforts of independent individualists. They and they alone are the creators, innovators, and discoverers of the world. These men are all there is of positive importance in all of history; all the rest, the tyrants, the dictators, the famines and plagues, earthquakes, floods, the mass of ignorant and superstitious humanity, the crimes and the wars were important only in the negative." [Quoted from the article.] The question was, "And you know this how? Empirically or a priori?" The following is my answer. What I Mean By 'Individualist' The whole article, of course, discusses what I mean by an individualist, but in that opening paragraph I did not mean those I've identified as individualists would have identified themselves as such, I mean that the particular achievements by which those individuals benefited the world were accomplished by their own individual efforts. So the question I am answering is how I know that in the entire history of the world every advance in civilization, every gain in knowledge, and every improvement in the human condition has come solely through the efforts of independent individuals. The answer is that I know it in four ways: I know it from the irrefutable evidence of history, I know it because all non-individual (i.e. collective) efforts have been the source of all that is evil in the world, I know it because human nature makes no other explanation possible, and I know it from long experience with true creators and innovators. I note only that the question was, "you know this how?" and the answer is to explain how I know it. It is not meant as an argument to convince anyone else or change what they think they know. Everyone has their own mind and must use it to come to their own best rational conclusions. The Evidence of History One has to wonder how anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the world's history could not know that every advance in civilization, every gain in knowledge, and every improvement in the human condition came through the work of individual thinkers, innovators, and creators. No matter what the field, the history of all advances in every field from the sciences to the arts is the history of individual accomplishments. The record of the accomplishments of individuals such as Nicolaus Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, William Harvey, Robert Boyle, Robert Hooke, Francesco Redi, Sir Isaac Newton, Christiaan Huygens, Leibniz, Antoine Lavoisier, Edward Jenner, Alessandro Volta, John Dalton, Georg Ohm, Amedeo Avogadro, Michael Faraday, Lord Kelvin, Louis Pasteur, James Clerk Maxwell, Gregor Mendel, Dmitri Mendeleev, William Crookes, J.J. Thomson, Marie Curie, Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Ernest Rutherford, Niels Bohr, Wolfgang Pauli, Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg, Paul Dirac, Alexander Fleming, James Chadwick, and many other individuals is the history of science. The record of the accomplishments of individuals such as Johannes Gutenberg, Gerardus Mercator, Evangelista Torricelli, Zacharias Janssen, William Oughtred, Christiaan Huygens, Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, Thomas Newcomen, John Kay, James Hargreaves, James Watt, John Wilkinson, Jesse Ramsden, John Wilkinson, Martinus van Marum, Andrew Meikle, Edmund Cartwright, Eli Whitney, Edward Jenner, Friedrich Sertürner, Robert Fulton, Nicolas Appert, Charles Babbage, William Sturgeon, John Walker, Moritz von Jacobi, John Bennet Lawes, Sir Henry Bessemer, Heinrich Geissler, Gaston Planté, Alexander Parkes, Louis Pasteur, Alfred Nobel, Nikolaus August Otto, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Sir Charles Parsons, Carl Gassner, John J. Loud, Whitcomb Judson, Rudolf Diesel, Orville and Wilbur Wright, John Ambrose Fleming, Leo Baekeland, Jacques E. Brandenberger, Alexander Fleming, Ernst Ruska, Edwin H. Armstrong, and many other individuals is the history of technology and invention. The record of the accomplishments of individuals who have written every history, novel, play, opera, journal, and all poetry (of which a tiny fraction of the list would fill many pages) is the history of literature. Surely there is no need to include the history of art, the history of music, the history of exploration and discovery, the history of mathematics or the history of philosophy, all of which are the records of the multitude of individuals whose accomplishments are the history of those fields. History of the Collective In contrast to all the benevolence individual creators, producers, and innovators have contributed to the world, all war, oppression, failed social systems, organized crime, and economic failure are caused or produced by the collective efforts of social reformers, politicians, government and government agencies, criminal gangs, and corporations. Of course there have been individual criminals, but compared to the evils foisted on the world by collectives, their crimes are little more than petty nuisances. Some of the collectives that have wreaked the most horrors on the world are organized religions (think the inquisition and modern-day Islam), environmental movements (think the banning of DDT and the global-warming scam), social/political movements (think prohibition), and NGOs (think the United Nations). Human Nature Even if there were no historical record, human nature itself would demonstrate that all creative value must come from the productive effort of individuals using their own individual minds to determine their action. Minds are distributed one to an individual, and every individual is required to use their own mind to do their own learning, their own thinking and to make their own choices. In other words, what every individual is and does is determined by how they use their own mind to learn, think, choose, and act. While the vast majority of human beings live by repeating the thoughts and actions they have learned from others, all innovation, all discovery and invention come from the minds and efforts of individuals who choose to think something new and to do something no one else has done and to follow a path no one else has taken. No new idea, invention, or method comes from those who submit their own minds and thinking to that of the mob, the crowd, the consensus, the popular, "what everyone knows," or "what we've always done." The creator is the individual who avoids the mob, has no use for the crowd, disagrees with the consensus, does the unpopular, knows something everyone else does not, and does what no one else has done before. My Experience With Creators For over forty years I worked in the computer, IT, and telephony industry managing technical writing and publishing departments, board and system test departments, and design departments, in both small cutting-edge development companies and large international industries. There was one problem I observed in all companies, which was much more serious in the larger ones. Most managers were neither creators nor innovators and had no understanding of what true creators and innovators were and all their policies and management styles always only interfered with the productive efforts of my best designers, writers, and technicians. My job as a manager was to ensure that projects were completed on time, coordinated with all other relative departments, and that the quality of the work was the best possible. Practically that meant most of my time was spent running interference for my engineers, artists, writers, and technicians, protecting them from the absurd meddling of upper-management who were perpetually trying to force their idea of "teams," "training," "SOPs" and "endless meetings," down their throats. I was very fortunate that most of those I managed were individualists, self-starters, and competent. They were all different, had different methods of working, different skills and abilities, but were imaginative and creative, because I did everything I could to give them the freedom to think and choose for themselves how they worked and how they accomplished their assignments. I held them to very high standards, but the standards only applied to the product of their effort. I frankly did not give a damn how they accomplished their work, only about the quality of their work. Almost every project required cooperation between workers in my departments and those in other departments, and because my workers knew they had the freedom to achieve their objectives in whatever way was best for them, my departments gained a reputation for being the most cooperative. The irony was that my workers had nothing to prove to anyone and were only concerned with their own achievement and accomplishments. They never worried about being part of some fictitious, "team," or "a contributor" to some corporate cause or image, but it was always the workers in my departments others would come to when inevitable difficulties in the development processes arose, because they were competent, and because they were as free as I could make them in a corporate environment, and therefore chose to cooperate in any effort they enjoyed being part of. All evidence and reason convinces me there is only one source of any true value in this world in every aspect of human life—the self-initiated effort of independent individuals in pursuit of their own chosen goals and actions.

You may say anything you like, although I can't imagine what the point would be. As for ideology, I do regard certain principles fundamental. I believe the purpose of my life is to enjoy it, which is only possible if I conform to the requirements of my human nature and the nature of reality. Since I have a mind which requires me to think to make choices, and thinking requires knowledge, which is all there is to think about or think with, I need to learn all I possibly can. Since the only faculty I have for judging which choices are best is the ability to think, I must think as well as I possibly can. If I am to enjoy my life I must be the best human being I can possibly be, seeking nothing I have not earned by my own effort, because anything else is less than what is possible; it would be failure to be all I can be and could lead to happiness, but only to disappointment and regret. But that view is entirely personal. I do not regard it as an ideology, but don't care if you do. I have no desire to encourage anyone else to adopt it, and have no desire to interfere in how others choose to live their lives. That's how I choose to live mine. Do you object to that? Do you object to my saying it?

I will, and so will you! You need to read Mencken. It will cheer you up.

Actually I would like to know what your quibbles are, Anthony. I'm always willing to learn, and I know your disagreements would be constructive. As for the detractors, their comments identify their own problems, but have no affect on me--except perhaps pity. Randy

I don't mind criticism or being mischaracterized, but you might want to make your criticisms at least fit the facts. I'm not an Objectivist, or any other kind of "-ist," for that matter.

[from Lars P. Syll] Some criticism of the article, "Correct Thinking: Basic Principles Of Clear Reasoning," reminded me of one danger anyone seeking to think correctly will be faced with. I call it, "magic thinking," which is any of a multitude of things people believe or teach as substitutes for clear correct thinking. The Purpose Of Thinking Behind most of the criticism of correct thinking is an incorrect view of the purpose of thinking. It is assumed that clear, objective, correct thinking in some way would be incapable of creative thinking required for science and innovation. The assumption is wrong, but even if it weren't, it gets the purpose of thinking wrong. The purpose of thinking, after all, is not social, or collective, or for the sake of "mankind," but for the sake of individuals making their own choices and living their own lives. The purpose of thinking is not to make scientific discoveries for the benefit of, "humanity," but for an individual to be able to make right choices and live successfully no matter what their profession is. If correct thinking resulted in less of some imaginary benefit to humanity, it would still be the only means to the truth. In fact, all truly creative original thinking is only possible by the ruthless application of the principles of correct thinking. Substitutes For Thinking The most common objection to correct thinking is that it only includes those mental operations that use language. It is pointed out that people also have imagination, day-dreams, feelings, and occasional sudden unaccountable insights that are not linguistic. All those things, and many more occupy our consciousness, but they are not thinking. In some cases calling them thinking is just the mistake of including just anything that goes on in our heads as thinking, a mistake easily corrected by pointing out the specific nature of thinking (the use of language) that distinguishes it from all those other things we do, like imagining, reminiscing, or simply noticing what we are consciously experiencing at the moment. The real danger is when those other conscious experiences are mistaken for thinking, or even substituted for thinking, believing they are valid sources of knowledge. Common Mistaken Substitutes For Thinking Thinking without language. Some people claim they can think without words or language. They give as an example, "visualization," and emphasize that it is not asking and answering questions. One individual insisted, "Einstein thought in images." We certainly are able to "picture" things in our mind and often do so as we think, seeing "in our heads," whatever things or events we are thinking about. We sometimes picture things when reminiscing or day-dreaming. The "pictures," or "visualizations," we have in our minds, even when done intentionally, in themselves provide no more information than any other things we see. If you could picture a Wankel engine in your mind, or actually see one, it would be impossible to learn from that visualization to "see" why a Wankel engine works. The reason a Wankel engine works is because of it's unique geometry called a hypocycloid and a particular kind of hypocycloid called a hypotrochoid. While pictures can be used to illustrate what those geometric shapes are, the illustrations cannot explain what they are or even identify them. Being able to picture or visualize things is very useful, but it is not thinking. Visualization sometimes makes it possible "see" if what we are thinking makes sense. We might "see" if the stairway we are designing really works in the room it is planned for. One problem with visualization is that it can be as deceptive as it is helpful. The picture we make up in our mind may or may not truly represent what we would like it to. Visualizing can also be deceptive. No matter how vivid our visualizing is, it may be incorrect and the reality may be nothing like the vision we create. There is an even more dangerous version of visualization. When the visions one has are not intentional but seem to occur on their own, and one accepts those visions as having some real meaning it is called schizophrenia. There is nothing wrong with visualization so long as it is not mistaken as cognitive (a source of knowledge) or substituted for thinking. Imagination Imagination is broader than visualization because it includes much more than visualization. Imagination is not only about the senses; though one may imagine anything that might be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or felt; imagination is anything one might speculate about, past, present, or future. Anything one makes-up in their own mind is imagination. Imagination is the intentional synthesis of new concepts and ideas from material stored in memory and it can be anything from imagined organisms to imagined histories. Imagination is continued under creative thinking, because: Creative thinking is imagination. Creative thinking creates that which does not exist from that which does, from material stored in memory, but the creations do not exist as actual material things (metaphysical), but only as mental things (psychological). The creations of imagination may become real existents when, for example, the imagined idea for a new kind of machine is actually produced (invention) or the imagined ideas of characters and plot are turned into a published novel (art). Creative thinking is not a different kind of thinking Creative thinking is not a different kind of thinking, however. Creative thinking uses the same principles of correct thinking as all other thinking in a specific area—the mental creation of original concepts and ideas. It is the mode of thinking used by all innovators, fiction writers, artists, inventors, and designers, and it only works when the principles of correct thinking are strictly adhered to. When imagination is not controlled by the rigorous application of the principles of correct reason it becomes a source of every kind of irrational belief and fear. Every God, every superstition, every form of paranoia is the product of imagination uncontrolled by the principles of correct thinking. [NOTE: Creative thinking is such an important part of thinking a separate article will be dedicated to it.] Leaps of imagination are not thinking at all. It is a belief in a kind of mystical imagination that in some unexplained way injects the mind with ideas, or concepts, or knowledge without thinking. The idea is a new one to me but I think it is a variety of "sudden insights," discussed below. It is doubtful that, "leaps of imagination," exist at all, but if they do, they are no form of thinking and not a source of knowledge. Dreams are like "free running imagination." They occur when we are asleep and our conscious volitional control is, "off." Since thinking is a consciously deliberate act, while asleep there is no conscious control of our ability to imagine. The imagination still functions while we are asleep but our rational (thinking) control of it is does not. The relationship between the mind and memory is complex. It's briefly described under, "Conceptual Relationships to Knowledge," in the, "Propositions," chapter, in the online book, The Nature Of Knowledge. Essentially, (and over-simplified), there is a connection between material in memory and whatever one is presently conscious of. One's immediate consciousness, "suggests," those things in memory related to whatever one is currently perceiving or thinking as the next thing to, "think," or, "imagine," and one volitionally chooses which of those memory sources to recall. When asleep there is no conscious control of the process, and the recall from memory has only the loose order determined by the fact of the relationship between memory and dream content. As jumbled as dreams are, they are never completely chaotic because of the nature of the mind/memory relationship. It is not important to understand exactly how dreams are formed, it is very important to understand there is nothing mystical about them and that they are incapable of providing knowledge of anything other than the dreams themselves. They must never be mistaken for thinking and are only possible when one cannot think. Claims of discovering solutions to problems or new ideas while dreaming are always doubtful. It is possible, because of the almost free-association of dreams, for some aspect of a dream when recalled, to suggest some relationship that when attended by careful thinking might accidentally provide a new viewpoint or insight. Such a case would be very rare and sheer accident. Daydreaming is not dreaming while awake. In some cases it is like sleep dreaming when one suspends their conscious control and more-or-less let's their imagination, "run free," but most daydreaming is under one's control and usually includes some thinking. What distinguishes daydreaming from thinking in general is that it has no specific purpose or goal beyond itself. We daydream simply to enjoy the process of thinking about and imaging the future, or remembering and enjoying times past, or perhaps just the pleasure of thoughts that please us. We do a lot of thinking for its own sake because it is our nature to think, it's how we understand our life and the world we live in, and much of what we think is a matter of refining that understanding and discovering the joy of life and existence. But daydreaming is not a different kind of thinking. The thinking that accompanies the imagination part of daydreaming is the same kind of correct thinking as any other thinking; otherwise daydreaming becomes a source of worry, or regret, or disappointment with life. Instead of being a pleasure, daydreaming becomes a source of dread. Sudden insights are "thoughts" the source of which are unknown. It is supposed they occur without any thought or attention. One supposed explanation for where these sudden insights come from is the subconscious, a mistaken idea foisted on the world by the Freuds. There is no subconscious, there is only what we are conscious of. The idea that anything in our consciousness is there without explanation is a very dangerous one and the actual experience will be frightening to anyone with a healthy mind. It is a common experience of those who use certain kinds of drugs and of those who suffer from certian kinds of neurologic disease. When severe enough, such experiences make correct thinking impossible. Gut feeling is as untrustworthy as any other kind of feeling. The, "Correct Thinking," article explains why no feelings, including, "gut feelings," should be allowed to determine one's choices or actions. I have pointed out that bad feelings should never be ignored. They might be the consequence of wrong thinking (and usually are) but in some rare instances, a particular situation might arouse a sense of unease one cannot immediately see a reason for. In such cases there is often something about the situation that is similar to a previous situation in which the consequences were not good. Such feelings should stimulate a careful examination of the current situation, but no choice should be made on the basis of the feeling alone. I call the reliance on "gut feeling," the "beef-and-been burrito," theory of knowledge. It is like the man telling his friend about his date with the girl he recently took to a Mexican restaurant. "I knew I was in love with her that night. My 'gut feeling' told me she was the one." "Are you going to marry her, then?" his friend asked. "Oh no," he said. "I don't even like her. What I thought was love turned out to be the beef-and-been burrito." Instinct is not a kind of knowledge even in those creatures that have instinct. Human beings do not have instinct. Please see the article, "Instinct," for an explanation of what instinct is and why the human mind excludes the possibility of instinct. Intuition is a kind of "magic" knowledge. Wikipedia defines it as, "... the ability to acquire knowledge without proof, evidence, or conscious reasoning, or without understanding how the knowledge was acquired." Sometimes interchanged with the word, "instinct," it is just another superstitious belief in knowledge without thinking. Trial and error is sometimes suggested as a kind of thinking different from correct thinking. It is in fact a perfect example of correct thinking. Whether it is a purely mental exercise considering different possibilities or carrying out physical experiments to test various hypotheses, trial and error is asking (will this approach work) and answering questions. It was the preferred method of Thomas Edison. Symbols, especially mathematic symbols, it has been suggested, are a method of thinking that does not use language. Symbols are language, or more exactly, a symbolic short-hand that represents concepts described by language. The meaning of mathematic symbols are precisely defined using language. Another suggestion is that drawings, graphs, diagrams, and other visual tools constitute another kind of thinking. There are all sorts of tools that can be used to illustrate or discover things, from microscopes to telescopes, from drawings to cad cam, from slide rules to super computers. Without language to describe what the illustrations illustrate or the instruments' output means, they are all useless. Observation, especially of differences, oddities, and unexpected relationships, it is asserted, are sources of new ideas and knowledge without thinking. An observation is not simply seeing. Seeing a tree growing out of the side of a building would dismay any animal except a human building. The reason it would seem odd to a human being is because a human being knows what the nature of a building is, what the nature of a tree is, and can think to the mental conclusion that trees do not grow out of the sides of buildings. Observation and Identification are the basic functions of concept formation and all scientific discovery, using the same principles of correct thinking as all other thinking. [NOTE: If you are technically minded and have a keen interest in the nature of observation and identification as the basis of concepts and science (mistakenly called 'induction'), see the chapter, "Cause, Induction, and Mathematics," in the online book, The Nature of Knowledge. Different "kinds" of thinking, other than correct thinking are often promoted, especially by certain motivational-training and personal-development industry scam artists promoting shortcuts to success and achievement. Those who have fallen for the false promises of these promoters refer to correct thinking as "linear thinking," and assert, "there is vertical thinking and lateral thinking and parallel thinking and others." The derogatory description of correct thinking as, "linear thinking," is meant to imply correct thinking is limited in some way and that violating the principles of correct reason (with non-linear, i.e. lateral, vertical, parallel, and crooked thinking) is superior to simple correct straight thinking. There are no other kinds of thinking and these bad ideas all come from the work of such as the de Bono brothers. I wrote a series of articles some years ago called "Mind-benders" which included an article specifically about the nonsense "The de Bono Brothers" were promoting, and another specifically about the abomination Edward de Bono called, "Non-linear Thinking" It is not necessary to read those articles unless you have personally been taken in by their intellectual snake oil. These are not the only things people attempt to substitute for correct thinking and true knowledge, however. There are also all those varieties of what is called a priori knowledge, promoted by academic philosophers which is supposedly knowledge one has without any learning or thinking. There are also all those modern scientific versions of mysticism that claim something other than or own choices determines what we know and think, such as culture, society, or our genes. There are endless assaults on correct thinking. Nothing good or right can come from incorrect thinking; one has to wonder why anyone would reject correct thinking and advocate some mental distortion in place of it? Motives For Rejecting Correct Thinking Why do so many individuals reject or deny the principles of correct thinking? Many of them are obviously intelligent and erudite. It is very much like a mystery, but the reasons are actually common enough. They are the same reasons people are so gullible in other areas of their life. There are four main reasons correct thinking is rejected. Love of sophistry, resulting from an extreme form of cynicism or skepticism that becomes the basis of all one's thinking. While a healthy skepticism about the wild claims of self-proclaimed experts promoting absurdities is good, and a cynical doubt about every popularly accepted belief and movement is good, doubting everything and dismissing all values and principles is a terrible mistake. The sophist is interested in nothing positive and sneers at every real value, but never has anything positive to replace the principles and values he tears down. What motivates the extreme cynic or skeptic is not important; recognizing them is. Their method of, "reasoning," is never direct, or correct, and has no other purpose than to cast doubt on all truth and knowledge. The desire for shortcuts is one of the most common reasons for rejecting the principles of correct thinking. Correct thinking is not easy. It is very demanding and many people are not willing to expend the mental effort necessary to think correctly. What they want is a short-cut to knowledge, a simple formula that provides all the answers or some easy and simple "explanation of everything," they can accept and not have to bother thinking about what is right, or wrong, or important. It is easier to accept one of the substitutes for correct thinking, like gut feeling, or intuition (which is really just feelings) or defy the principles of correct thinking and simply trust in authority, consensus, popularity, or tradition. In life, there are no short-cuts to success or happiness, and no short-cuts to knowledge and no short-cuts to right choices and actions that are only possible by correct thinking. A relief from responsibility, for everything one thinks, chooses, and does is one reason people embrace a belief that contradicts correct thinking. Most people understand, however poorly, that all they choose, all they do, and all they are is determined by their own choices and actions. If they are responsible for everything they think, then everything they choose, and every bad consequence of their wrong choices is their own fault. There is no excuse for the choices they make and the things they do. But if what they have in their minds and thoughts is there without their choosing it, if what they do is not determined by their own thinking, if something else is the reason for their thoughts and choices, like instinct, intuition, their feelings or insights, or their subconscious, or society or genes, then they are not responsible for what they think and do. If anything other than their own thinking and choices determines their behavior, then the ignorant and stupid things they do are not their fault, they can't help it, and everyone should feel sorry for them instead of dismissing them as the ignorant fools they actually are. Mysticism and religion are the most common "short-cuts" and "relief from responsibility" embraced by human beings. Every form of mysticism is based on some form of faith, which is believing something with no other basis than the belief. The Wikipedia definition of intuition is an amazingly accurate definition of faith as well, "... the ability to acquire knowledge without proof, evidence, or conscious reasoning, or without understanding how the knowledge was acquired." Religion offers everything people want to have without having to do the hard work of actually thinking, making right choices, and earning what the have and are. It promises unearned blessing, forgiveness of all wrong, and perpetual happiness no matter how evil or worthless an individual is. Of course, all those promises are not for those living in this world, but some imaginary next world, where they are safe from being examined. One may be a mystic if they choose to be, but mysticism and correct thinking and the rational pursuit of success and happiness are mutually exclusive. There Is No Substitute For Correct Thinking The only attribute you have been endowed with for making sense of the world and leaning how to live in it happily and successfully is your mind, the necessity and ability to learn, think, and choose all you think and do. You have no choice about whether or not you will learn, or think, or choose; you do have a choice about how much you will learn, how well you will think, and how you will make your choices. If you do not choose to learn all you can, if you choose to evade the necessity to think by depending on one of the substitutes for thinking, you will never know if what you think is correct (which it surely won't be) or if what you choose, based on that thinking, is right wrong. If you wait for some magic form of thinking to provide you knowledge or right choices, if you wait for "leaps of imagination," or, "sudden insights," or, depend on, "instinct," or, "intuition," or trust in some knowledge you know neither the source or reason for, like "gut feeling," or, "a priori" knowledge, you may for a while be comfortable in views, but the consequences will be that the knowledge you wait for will never appear and choices you make based on instinct or gut feeling will not lead to success, but to failure and regret. Learn and choose to think correctly, and even when you make mistakes you will be able to correct them and you enjoy the benefit of all right choices because they are based on reality and all your success and happiness will be enjoyed without doubt or guilt.

If you say so. Odd, he can't answer for himself, though.

I've been sharing your posts with my wife, and she criticized me for perhaps not understanding you. She would like to know if English is your first language. It is obvious it is not a language you use well, and I apologize if I have misunderstood you.