Seriously, blanks, I no longer have any clue what you're arguing about. And the fact that you don't tell what your actual view on the matter is, doesn't help either. I don't understand whether you protest about the word 'attach', about the fact that we don't experience a 'mechanism of attachment', or whatever else. The fact that the examples that I gave you don't satisfy you tells me that you're expecting something completely different. In other words you have some preconceived idea about what this attachment process should be, then you notice that there's no trace of such a process in consciousness and conclude that Steiner talks nonsense in PoF. This is the same fallacy when atheists imagine God as bearded man hiding in the clouds, notice that this is absurd, and conclude that everyone who believe in God are idiots. I apologize again if I'm projecting but you leave me guessing about what the nature of the problem is.findingblanks wrote: ↑Sat Jun 19, 2021 6:48 pm This is exactly what always happens. You say it is very straight forward when Steiner says we must find the concept that corresponds to the percept we have encountered and THEN, says Steiner thinking "brings" and "attatches" the concept to the percept.
I say, great: describe thisb "attatching" process straightforwardly. I even hinted that you would pop away and get "intellectual" (nothing wrong with that, by the way).
But come back and give me a few straightforward descriptions of your experience of finding and then attatching concepts to percepts. Again, I predict you'll either refer to spiritual experiences of perceiving a process that is typically unconscious (this contradicts Steiner's claim that every sentence in PoF can be grasped by clear thinking about everyday experience, and it shows why I'm entertained when you tell me what Steiner said os straightforward) or you'll search for an example of when we can't tell what we are seeing and have to consciously take time to ponder and then keep looking. This also ignores what Steiner os clearly saying.
Or you'll surprise me and acknowledge that there is nothing straightforward about that claim.
My hunch, you'll find another way of claiming we need to say more and more before you can even begin to simply describe this supposed finding and attatching of concepts.
And who knows if you realize how profoundly interesting it is that in PoF says that the percept hides thinking within itself.
Maybe in some abstract way you'll agree that that is deeply clarifying.
As said, we need nothing but livingly experienced thinking in order to make the proper observations. Here's a very simple but tremendously effective exercise. Look around and take some object. The more familiar, the better. Try to find something new about it, something you've never noticed before.
Here, I'll help you out. I'll do the exercise together with you as an example. I took a pencil that was lying on my desk and started to examine it:
I've used this pencil for years but I've never really examined it more closely. Now as I look at it I see that the poor old pencil is quite worn out. There are few longitudal streaks where the paint is peeled. At the same time, as this is an exercise, I try to pay attention to my cognitive process, I try to be aware of what I'm doing in my consciousness. And I make many observations. I see that the paint is peeled. I actually become aware that this pencil is in fact a piece of wood that has paint on it. Yes, it's super elementary fact but I've never thought about it. Then I notice that these peelings have longitudal shape, they are like lines. They are not strictly parallel to the edge of the pencil's hexagonal shape but seem to go slightly diagonally. I can go on and on.
Now just consider this. Moments ago I only had some generic perception and the concept 'pencil'. Then through my consciously willed thinking activity I found a way to attach a ton of other concepts - wood, paint, peeled, longitudal, hexagon, worn out, etc. All of these concepts are meaningful ideal content. They tell me something about the perceptions that I behold, and allow me to relate it to many other concepts. For example I was thinking what could I have done with this pencil such that these longitudal and slightly twisting peeled streaks have formed. I don't know. Maybe it has something to do with the way I repeatedly put the pencil in the pencil case. Maybe I have used it while I've been doing carpentry and it got damaged - I don't remember. Yet there's a whole world of ideas that I can link to by starting from these observations.
This is very simple and straightforward exercise. I invite everyone to try it. The experience may surprise you. I have perceptions and through my deliberate spiritual activity I've come to experience a ton of other concepts/meanings/ideas, which simply wouldn't be there unless I attempted this exercise. In the most phenomenological sense, through my thinking I have attached concepts to the perceptions belonging to the pencil. I'm not speculating what may be lying behind my thinking and behind this attaching process. I'm interested in the immediate spiritual experience - I have visual perceptions and through my thinking I came to experience the above mentioned concepts in relation to them.
So I haven't overintellectualized anything here, I haven't resorted to unconscious and occult knowledge, I haven't dodged your request to give you an example. I simply described a straightforward experience of perceiving a pencil and enriching the perceptions with multitude of concepts. This enrichment I achieved through thinking about the perceptions of the pencil. If I hadn't thought about it I wouldn't have experience the meaning of these concepts. It's clear that the visual perception of the pencil hasn't changed. I have seen this pencil million times before. Yet now I experience a ton of concept together with this seeing, which previously were not there. I've 'attached' these concepts to the perception of the pencil through my thinking. I don't think I can give any more clearer example than this.