Mark Tetzner wrote: ↑Mon Dec 06, 2021 3:00 pm
With that you are most certainly right with all of this.
What is starting to make me grumpy is that the more I think about abstraction the less I understand what it is.
I think it means "set apart from reality" or whatever wikipedia might have to say on it.
Others use the term in a more colloquial sense, like "doesnt prove anything".
Now Jim just said even feelings are abstractions.
If anyone can always name anything an abstraction then I dont know how to understand things anymore.
Another thing BK says a lot is "one level/ two levels of abstraction.
Same thing. Confusing.
Gather few object of the same color, say - red. Look at them and appreciate them in their purely perceptual nature. Then think: "there's something in common in all these objects - they bear a perceptual quality that feels quite similar in all objects. I can call that similar quality - color 'red'". Now try to feel that this feeling of commonness that you recognize, is something
in addition to the bare perceptions. If you were staying firmly within the perceptions you would have several independent color perceptions. But you raise above them and in your thinking you discover a new element which runs like a thread and indeed makes you recognize that there's something in common. This common element is the concept - some specific meaning in your thinking which gives you the intuitive understanding that these independent perceptions indeed have something in common.
Now you can turn away from the perception or close your eyes and simply think in your mind "red". Now you have once again the concept of red but not the perception. It is very important to pay close attention: even thought there's nothing red in your mind (unless you have very vivid imagination) you experience
the knowing of what you think about. You
know perfectly well what the word 'red' in your mind means, even though you don't see red. This invisible knowing is the concept which thinking experiences as meaning. This exercise should help to distinguish between the perception which seems to be coming from 'outside' and the concept which we add through thinking from 'within'.
It's the same about any other perception. When I feel joy, this is a real feeling, I perceive the feeling of joy filling my soul. Then I can say "I feel joy". Now I experience in my mind also the concept (idea) of joy. If I experience joy at another time, even though the experience will be in completely different context, I can say "I feel joy again". Then later, when I'm no longer joyous but maybe even sad I can think again about "joy". Now I have in my mind the abstracted meaning of joy but not the feeling. I don't know what exactly Jim meant with "feelings are abstractions" but this example should make it quite clear. We must distinguish between the actual feeling (or any other perception) and the thinking concept which adds the meaningful dimension to the feeling/perception. We work with the abstracted meaning when we can think the meaning (through words, symbols) even though the actual perceptions are no longer present. And on the contrary - the concepts are concrete (not abstract) when we experience them against concrete perceptions (actual perception of red, actual feeling of joy, etc.)
In this sense we can say that our idea of MAL is abstract because there's no concrete perception (doesn't need to be sensory) that we can match our concept of MAL against. On the other hand, thinking is not abstract because we can observe it - we can experience the concept of thinking against the perceptions of our own thoughts.