A Phenomenology of Cognition (Max Leyf)

[Federica]

Ashvin, I invite you to experience "God's peace, which is far beyond human understanding, will keep your hearts and minds safe in union with Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:7) as the only way to heal yourself from this anguish that you are currently experiencing compelling you to spend so much time on the forums criticizing someone else's cognitive mistakes (and I am guilty of that too of course).

Eugene,

It’s not my field, and I don’t even know what it means in scientific terms. I’m sharing this visualization for the sole sake of the intuition it might convey. This animation can be seen as an illustration of the hysteresis of thinking, in other words, the thinking pattern that comes natural to our cognition and that we need to overcome through passing the inversion horizon Cleric and Ashvin always speak of. They have used diverse metaphors to illustrate the passing of the inversion horizon. One was that of a membrane slowly going back and forth, compared to the same membrane moving in the same pattern at high speed.

If you watch the animation below, you will immediately get what the qualitative difference is between, on one side, analyzing the green phase - through freezing various time-frames within the green spectrum of manifestation - then doing the same with the violet phase, and, on the other side, grasping the wholeness of the phenomenon by merging the planes, by grasping it all at once. Not by accelerating the speed of the phenomena, but by inner transformation of our ability to see enough vibrations in one encompassing thought, in one instantly understanding grasp. This ability can be built, and so the inversion horizon is passed when we can get the Oneness of the engine of reality as a simultaneous encompassing of all the green and also all the violet states, not as a sequence of separately cognized pictures, but as a continuous gradient. Through work, we need to get to the point when-where we can see the whole workings as a gray sphere, rather than as a collection of puzzling amounts of green and violet states. Only then the inversion horizon is passed (OK, more or less of a sphere, in this particular animation).

One part cannot be focused on, unless all other parts are equally incorporated and merged in understanding, acting, and being. It cannot be a question of selecting, prioritizing what we need to focus on first. As you can grasp visually, nothing will be orthogonal once we will have put enough effort in our discernment as to expand our now/consciousness, to the point when-where enough iterations of the wave are encompassed in our unbroken, instant grasp, so that we can see the whole in its spherical/gray/unitary reality. And reality is already there, available in all its possible manifestations. We are the ones who need to change, who need to expand the range of our grasp, through work, until we can stop selecting, prioritizing, and dissecting the overwhelming multiplicity of one spectrum, only focusing on the other whose color is so much more beautiful and appealing, and instead, enter the true engine of reality.

[AshvinP]

Ashvin, I invite you to experience "God's peace, which is far beyond human understanding, will keep your hearts and minds safe in union with Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:7) as the only way to heal yourself from this anguish that you are currently experiencing compelling you to spend so much time on the forums criticizing someone else's cognitive mistakes (and I am guilty of that too of course).

As has been said, we only offer criticism here constructively, as a way for others to gradually break from the infernal cycle of otherwise perpetual 'cognitive mistakes', because we are all in this Earthly drama together. We only know how to spot the cognitive mistakes because we recognize them in ourselves, along with the passionate soul-life we all share by virtue of being human. There is no 'heal myself' and leave the rest of Earthly evolution as someone else's problem. I can't find refuge from my transpersonal Earthly obligation within the Cosmic organism in blissful meditations and aesthetic pleasures. In neglecting the former, I will surely lose the latter as well once I cross the threshold of death - "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal." When we store our treasure in heaven, we can selflessly serve on Earth without expectation of immediate gratification, and without worrying if we have complete 'Free Will' at any given incarnate moment. I serve the Earth organism and the fulfillment of her evolution because it is nothing other than the Solar Idea of the Christ spirit.

[Stranger]

As has been said, we only offer criticism here constructively, as a way for others to gradually break from the infernal cycle of otherwise perpetual 'cognitive mistakes', because we are all in this Earthly drama together. We only know how to spot the cognitive mistakes because we recognize them in ourselves, along with the passionate soul-life we all share by virtue of being human. There is no 'heal myself' and leave the rest of Earthly evolution as someone else's problem. I can't find refuge from my transpersonal Earthly obligation within the Cosmic organism in blissful meditations and aesthetic pleasures. In neglecting the former, I will surely lose the latter as well once I cross the threshold of death - "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal." When we store our treasure in heaven, we can selflessly serve on Earth without expectation of immediate gratification, and without worrying if we have complete 'Free Will' at any given incarnate moment. I serve the Earth organism and the fulfillment of her evolution because it is nothing other than the Solar Idea of the Christ spirit.

You will know how to help the rest of Earthly only if you heal yourself first. You can only constructively serve the Earth organism and the fulfillment of her evolution only if you acquire "God's peace, which is far beyond human understanding, that will keep your hearts and minds safe in union with Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:7), otherwise the efforts will be counterproductive. Therefore, "seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added"

Regarding the aesthetics, as Dostoevsky said: "Beauty will save the world".

[Stranger]

Ashvin, I invite you to experience "God's peace, which is far beyond human understanding, will keep your hearts and minds safe in union with Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:7) as the only way to heal yourself from this anguish that you are currently experiencing compelling you to spend so much time on the forums criticizing someone else's cognitive mistakes (and I am guilty of that too of course).

And reality is already there, available in all its possible manifestations. We are the ones who need to change, who need to expand the range of our grasp, through work, until we can stop selecting, prioritizing, and dissecting the overwhelming multiplicity of one spectrum, only focusing on the other whose color is so much more beautiful and appealing, and instead, enter the true engine of reality.

Yes, good analogy, Federica

[AshvinP]

One part cannot be focused on, unless all other parts are equally incorporated and merged in understanding, acting, and being. It cannot be a question of selecting, prioritizing what we need to focus on first. As you can grasp visually, nothing will be orthogonal once we will have put enough effort in our discernment as to expand our now/consciousness, to the point when-where enough iterations of the wave are encompassed in our unbroken, instant grasp, so that we can see the whole in its spherical/gray/unitary reality. And reality is already there, available in all its possible manifestations. We are the ones who need to change, who need to expand the range of our grasp, through work, until we can stop selecting, prioritizing, and dissecting the overwhelming multiplicity of one spectrum, only focusing on the other whose color is so much more beautiful and appealing, and instead, enter the true engine of reality.

That is a very helpful animation to visualize the hysteresis, Federica, and analogy to contemplate its spiraling together. Thanks! And the above is very well stated. In that spirit, I would like to share an esoteric lesson by Steiner which I think speaks to the core point of your post and to the overall discussion here about patiently building the gradient of spiritual activity.
***

It sometimes happens that a man who begins an esoteric training is soon disappointed and says that he thought that the exercises would be much more energetic and that the exercises' effects would be much more incisive. One who says this should make it clear to himself that he's making a big mistake there which he should correct as soon as possible. It's the man who's not energetic enough — not the exercises. It's not that the exercises have no effect — the man just doesn't make them effective in himself. A pupil must become a completely different man through an esoteric life; he must acquire something new to add to the old.

In earlier times one was placed before the choice of esoteric training or death. One had to subject oneself to exercises and trials which put one on the esoteric path — if one was mature enough — or one fell by the wayside during these trials and died. The pupil told himself: If I can't pass these tests, I'm not mature enough for an esoteric life, and so further life in a physical body has no value for me. It's better for me to die physically and to prepare myself for a new incarnation in Devachan, which can then lead to an esoteric life.

Such trials aren't possible today; our whole organization is no longer up to it. But a pupil should get to the point where all physical happenings become indifferent to him. A man must become completely different, but anyone who says that he has already overcome the physical after doing a few exercises can easily be deceiving himself. A pupil must be honest with himself. Truthfulness is the first virtue that one who wants to tread an esoteric path must acquire; one must be extremely honest with oneself.

Another magic word for esoteric strivers is patience. Just look at the sun; imagine how the spirit of the sun makes the sun rise and set day after day, that he's already done that for a long time and will do it for a long time to lead the earth to its goal. One should think of this patience, and then shouldn't think that an exercise is ineffective just because it hasn't had any effect after three to five years.

The Lord's Prayer, this wonderful reflection of seven-membered world lawfulness, is a very significant meditation which some pupils do every day. I know a master of wisdom and of the harmony of feelings who said: I only take the Lord's Prayer as a meditation once a month; the rest of the time I try to make myself mature and worthy so that I might be permitted to immerse myself in even one line of this meditation. That's the attitude that one should have about a meditation — that one wants to make oneself worthy to be allowed to use it.

Theosophy is living practice and not just theoretical study.

We must feel the analogies in nature. There's something spiritual behind all physical things. If we do the meditations correctly and get further on the esoteric path, we'll soon feel something that corresponds to what we see in nature: germination and growth in spring and summer, and the melancholy of dying in the fall. Just as we go to sleep at night, so plants go into a plant night in autumn. Only the seeds remain. In them are the capacities that were acquired during summer life. These capacities become reactivated in spring, just as our forces and abilities from the preceding eve reawaken in the morn. We must go to sleep and wake up again repeatedly, use our capacities during the day and gather new forces at night. Behind physical plants are sublime spirit beings who must stride to new activities each spring, and who sink into a plant night in the fall when only plant seeds remain These beings are so far advanced that they only have to make this change once a year, whereas a man must go through the change of going to sleep and awakening every 24 hours. The higher beings don't have to do it as often.

Feeling oneself to be united with the pan-spirit should not remain a phrase. One must really feel and experience what lies hidden in the sequence of spring, summer, fall, in coming to life and dying.

Spiritual life flows into us during meditation. We must prepare ourselves in the right way so that we can receive this spiritual life properly. We do this through study. Just as the sun which sends out its rays and forces would only find an empty spot if the earth wasn't prepared to receive and use them, so our meditations would find no soil to work on; they would find a kind of an empty place if we didn't prepare ourselves through study, if we didn't make ourselves receptive for the spiritual life that flows into us through meditation. Thus we can see the macrocosm in the microcosm.

A pupil should devote himself to his meditations with complete devotion and concentration. He should put his everyday thoughts aside completely and only open himself to high spiritual forces. The meditator should look upon every meditation as a sacrifice, as a sacrificial smoke that rises to the Gods. Thereby we contribute to harmonization and progress, whereas low, egotistical thoughts are the basis for catastrophes; and no human protective devices can prevent catastrophes such as the many we've had recently and like the even more terrible ones that are yet to come; one can do whatever one wants to stop them — they'll happen anyway.

We must have the spiritual in view and in our feelings in all of our deeds and thoughts. We came down from the spirit, and enriched and perfected we'll reascend to the spiritual.

In the spirit lay the germ of my body.
And the spirit has imprinted in my body
The eyes of sense,
That through them I may see
The lights of bodies.
And the spirit has imprinted in my body
Reason and sensation
And feeling and will,
That through them I may perceive bodies
And act upon them.
In the spirit lay the germ of my body.
In my body lies the germ of the spirit.
And I will incorporate into my spirit
The super-sensible eyes
That through them I may behold the light of spirits.
And I will imprint in my spirit
Wisdom and power and love,
So that through me the spirits may act
And I become a self-conscious organ
Of their deeds.
In my body lies the germ of the spirit.

[Federica]

Ashvin, I invite you to experience "God's peace, which is far beyond human understanding, will keep your hearts and minds safe in union with Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:7) as the only way to heal yourself from this anguish that you are currently experiencing compelling you to spend so much time on the forums criticizing someone else's cognitive mistakes (and I am guilty of that too of course).

And reality is already there, available in all its possible manifestations. We are the ones who need to change, who need to expand the range of our grasp, through work, until we can stop selecting, prioritizing, and dissecting the overwhelming multiplicity of one spectrum, only focusing on the other whose color is so much more beautiful and appealing, and instead, enter the true engine of reality.

Yes, good analogy, Federica

Sure. If it only could be "functional, usable and performing" as well

[Federica]

One part cannot be focused on, unless all other parts are equally incorporated and merged in understanding, acting, and being. It cannot be a question of selecting, prioritizing what we need to focus on first. As you can grasp visually, nothing will be orthogonal once we will have put enough effort in our discernment as to expand our now/consciousness, to the point when-where enough iterations of the wave are encompassed in our unbroken, instant grasp, so that we can see the whole in its spherical/gray/unitary reality. And reality is already there, available in all its possible manifestations. We are the ones who need to change, who need to expand the range of our grasp, through work, until we can stop selecting, prioritizing, and dissecting the overwhelming multiplicity of one spectrum, only focusing on the other whose color is so much more beautiful and appealing, and instead, enter the true engine of reality.

That is a very helpful animation to visualize the hysteresis, Federica, and analogy to contemplate its spiraling together. Thanks! And the above is very well stated. In that spirit, I would like to share an esoteric lesson by Steiner which I think speaks to the core point of your post and to the overall discussion here about patiently building the gradient of spiritual activity.
***

It sometimes happens that a man who begins an esoteric training is soon disappointed and says that he thought that the exercises would be much more energetic and that the exercises' effects would be much more incisive. One who says this should make it clear to himself that he's making a big mistake there which he should correct as soon as possible. It's the man who's not energetic enough — not the exercises. It's not that the exercises have no effect — the man just doesn't make them effective in himself. A pupil must become a completely different man through an esoteric life; he must acquire something new to add to the old.

In earlier times one was placed before the choice of esoteric training or death. One had to subject oneself to exercises and trials which put one on the esoteric path — if one was mature enough — or one fell by the wayside during these trials and died. The pupil told himself: If I can't pass these tests, I'm not mature enough for an esoteric life, and so further life in a physical body has no value for me. It's better for me to die physically and to prepare myself for a new incarnation in Devachan, which can then lead to an esoteric life.

Such trials aren't possible today; our whole organization is no longer up to it. But a pupil should get to the point where all physical happenings become indifferent to him. A man must become completely different, but anyone who says that he has already overcome the physical after doing a few exercises can easily be deceiving himself. A pupil must be honest with himself. Truthfulness is the first virtue that one who wants to tread an esoteric path must acquire; one must be extremely honest with oneself.

Another magic word for esoteric strivers is patience. Just look at the sun; imagine how the spirit of the sun makes the sun rise and set day after day, that he's already done that for a long time and will do it for a long time to lead the earth to its goal. One should think of this patience, and then shouldn't think that an exercise is ineffective just because it hasn't had any effect after three to five years.

The Lord's Prayer, this wonderful reflection of seven-membered world lawfulness, is a very significant meditation which some pupils do every day. I know a master of wisdom and of the harmony of feelings who said: I only take the Lord's Prayer as a meditation once a month; the rest of the time I try to make myself mature and worthy so that I might be permitted to immerse myself in even one line of this meditation. That's the attitude that one should have about a meditation — that one wants to make oneself worthy to be allowed to use it.

Theosophy is living practice and not just theoretical study.

We must feel the analogies in nature. There's something spiritual behind all physical things. If we do the meditations correctly and get further on the esoteric path, we'll soon feel something that corresponds to what we see in nature: germination and growth in spring and summer, and the melancholy of dying in the fall. Just as we go to sleep at night, so plants go into a plant night in autumn. Only the seeds remain. In them are the capacities that were acquired during summer life. These capacities become reactivated in spring, just as our forces and abilities from the preceding eve reawaken in the morn. We must go to sleep and wake up again repeatedly, use our capacities during the day and gather new forces at night. Behind physical plants are sublime spirit beings who must stride to new activities each spring, and who sink into a plant night in the fall when only plant seeds remain These beings are so far advanced that they only have to make this change once a year, whereas a man must go through the change of going to sleep and awakening every 24 hours. The higher beings don't have to do it as often.

Feeling oneself to be united with the pan-spirit should not remain a phrase. One must really feel and experience what lies hidden in the sequence of spring, summer, fall, in coming to life and dying.

Spiritual life flows into us during meditation. We must prepare ourselves in the right way so that we can receive this spiritual life properly. We do this through study. Just as the sun which sends out its rays and forces would only find an empty spot if the earth wasn't prepared to receive and use them, so our meditations would find no soil to work on; they would find a kind of an empty place if we didn't prepare ourselves through study, if we didn't make ourselves receptive for the spiritual life that flows into us through meditation. Thus we can see the macrocosm in the microcosm.

A pupil should devote himself to his meditations with complete devotion and concentration. He should put his everyday thoughts aside completely and only open himself to high spiritual forces. The meditator should look upon every meditation as a sacrifice, as a sacrificial smoke that rises to the Gods. Thereby we contribute to harmonization and progress, whereas low, egotistical thoughts are the basis for catastrophes; and no human protective devices can prevent catastrophes such as the many we've had recently and like the even more terrible ones that are yet to come; one can do whatever one wants to stop them — they'll happen anyway.

We must have the spiritual in view and in our feelings in all of our deeds and thoughts. We came down from the spirit, and enriched and perfected we'll reascend to the spiritual.

In the spirit lay the germ of my body.
And the spirit has imprinted in my body
The eyes of sense,
That through them I may see
The lights of bodies.
And the spirit has imprinted in my body
Reason and sensation
And feeling and will,
That through them I may perceive bodies
And act upon them.
In the spirit lay the germ of my body.
In my body lies the germ of the spirit.
And I will incorporate into my spirit
The super-sensible eyes
That through them I may behold the light of spirits.
And I will imprint in my spirit
Wisdom and power and love,
So that through me the spirits may act
And I become a self-conscious organ
Of their deeds.
In my body lies the germ of the spirit.

Thank you, Ashvin, and how appropriate this lecture is!
You must have pulled out the most perfectly appropriate Steiner lecture in the whole archive.
I am feeling very lucky and grateful, I wish the spirit of this writing could touch Eugene as well..

[Federica]

Tracing the direct experience to which "I" refers

We can't hope to penetrate into the intimate nature of thinking if we are unable to distinguish thinking from language or in other words concept from thought-perception. Probably the easiest way to make this distinction is by thinking about a concept in different languages. Let's take the word "red" - rojo (Spanish), rouge (French), rot (German), okubomvu (Zulu). We can turn this into a meditative exercise. We can pronounce in our mind these words and observe the meaning, the concept that we experience. We can only claim to make the distinction between the concept and the word (the thought-perception), if nothing changes in the meaning that we experience while switching the words. The words should carry the same concept, the same meaning. This may look like a childish exercise but it is tremendously effective. We can never advance in our comprehension of thinking if we can't clearly distinguish concept from percept.

Ashvin,

Could it be that this exercise incorporates a sort of shortcut, or simplification? In my experience, something feels off in this direct link to language. It doesn’t seem accurate to call the words in various languages the thought-perceptions referring to a concept, for example red. I think that the percepts of red are first and foremost the observations, any visual image I perceive where the quality of red is included. The word (in various languages) is a further step, an encoding, and of course we have thought-pictures for the words as well, but the primary and essential thought-pictures connected to red are the thought-images directly materializing a perceptual instance of red.

The word for red, on the other hand, is not essential to come to the concept of red. Even if it’s hard in this particular example to imagine a concrete situation where someone would have no words for red, it is possible that one sees, recognizes and links the quality of red to its concept through wordless visual observations, insofar as they are characterized by redness. Correspondingly, if I try the exercise and produce in my mind the word "okubumvu", there is no meaning that I can naturally observe since I know nothing about Zulu. I do have a percept, of course, but the word is only an empty sequence of sounds for me at this point. I would have to first create an additional connection between a thought-image including redness (and the concept thereby evoked) and the thought-image of "okubomvu", now that I know this sequence of sounds encodes such quality, and refers to the concept of red, within a certain human culture.

I would say, the most effective way for me to check the difference between percept and concept in the context of this example would be to observe (or recall) a few instances of observation of redness - a few wordless, that is visual, percepts - and notice that the quality I am experiencing is always combined with a variety of other qualities within the various precepts. For example, I see a red flower, and I notice that the experience is necessarily an interconnected bundle of many other indissociable qualities (the green leaves, the sound of the breeze, the feeling of admiration for the beauty and aliveness of the flower, etcetera). Then I can recall a percept from the experience of a red sunset, and it’s yet another bundle of qualia that share with the first percept the common experience of redness. In this way, I can easily realize that the common element across those percepts I am only able to recognize because of the existence of the concept of red. Redness is the ideal element I must find, in order to make sense of both percepts in a linked fashion. For me this version of the exercise seems more dense and effective. I feel that language adds a step of indirectness, but maybe there is a deeper reason why you chose to use it in order to highlight the difference percept-concept?

[AshvinP]

Tracing the direct experience to which "I" refers

We can't hope to penetrate into the intimate nature of thinking if we are unable to distinguish thinking from language or in other words concept from thought-perception. Probably the easiest way to make this distinction is by thinking about a concept in different languages. Let's take the word "red" - rojo (Spanish), rouge (French), rot (German), okubomvu (Zulu). We can turn this into a meditative exercise. We can pronounce in our mind these words and observe the meaning, the concept that we experience. We can only claim to make the distinction between the concept and the word (the thought-perception), if nothing changes in the meaning that we experience while switching the words. The words should carry the same concept, the same meaning. This may look like a childish exercise but it is tremendously effective. We can never advance in our comprehension of thinking if we can't clearly distinguish concept from percept.

Ashvin,

Could it be that this exercise incorporates a sort of shortcut, or simplification? In my experience, something feels off in this direct link to language. It doesn’t seem accurate to call the words in various languages the thought-perceptions referring to a concept, for example red. I think that the percepts of red are first and foremost the observations, any visual image I perceive where the quality of red is included. The word (in various languages) is a further step, an encoding, and of course we have thought-pictures for the words as well, but the primary and essential thought-pictures connected to red are the thought-images directly materializing a perceptual instance of red.

The word for red, on the other hand, is not essential to come to the concept of red. Even if it’s hard in this particular example to imagine a concrete situation where someone would have no words for red, it is possible that one sees, recognizes and links the quality of red to its concept through wordless visual observations, insofar as they are characterized by redness. Correspondingly, if I try the exercise and produce in my mind the word "okubumvu", there is no meaning that I can naturally observe since I know nothing about Zulu. I do have a percept, of course, but the word is only an empty sequence of sounds for me at this point. I would have to first create an additional connection between a thought-image including redness (and the concept thereby evoked) and the thought-image of "okubomvu", now that I know this sequence of sounds encodes such quality, and refers to the concept of red, within a certain human culture.

I would say, the most effective way for me to check the difference between percept and concept in the context of this example would be to observe (or recall) a few instances of observation of redness - a few wordless, that is visual, percepts - and notice that the quality I am experiencing is always combined with a variety of other qualities within the various precepts. For example, I see a red flower, and I notice that the experience is necessarily an interconnected bundle of many other indissociable qualities (the green leaves, the sound of the breeze, the feeling of admiration for the beauty and aliveness of the flower, etcetera). Then I can recall a percept from the experience of a red sunset, and it’s yet another bundle of qualia that share with the first percept the common experience of redness. In this way, I can easily realize that the common element across those percepts I am only able to recognize because of the existence of the concept of red. Redness is the ideal element I must find, in order to make sense of both percepts in a linked fashion. For me this version of the exercise seems more dense and effective. I feel that language adds a step of indirectness, but maybe there is a deeper reason why you chose to use it in order to highlight the difference percept-concept?

Federica,

It should be mentioned that, in the context from which this exercise was lifted, the discussion was specifically about using the word "I" and how it shouldn't be used, according to Eugene (and somewhat Lou), because it refers to a 'separate self'. As we saw recently, when Eugene responded to one of my posts, he still automatically links the word "I" with the concept of 'separate self', rather than the direct experience of the willful force that animates thought-perceptions. Lorenzo also has difficulty with this direct experience. I have also come across several other people in the analytic idealist context who simply feel an 'intentional doer' is nowhere to be found in 'experience'. So that was the primary purpose of sharing this exercise, which is also helpful for the rest of us to cultivate the intimate "I" experience.

(this part is not directed at you per se, but simply to add some reasoning to why the exercise is helpful) An oft-used metaphor is that the "I" can't perceive itself, just as the physical eye can't perceive itself. In our age, the habit is that we only consider 'real' that which can be perceived (thought about) in some way. Yet the "I" cannot be perceived, rather it is the invisible force that makes possible thinking and perception in the first place. In the process of divesting its energy into thinking-perception, the "I" merges into the 'background' of experience. So it can only be intimately experienced by consistently focusing its power in short bursts, so to speak. In normal life, this power is distributed across a wide spectrum of experiences that unfold over long stretches of time. For ex. we may learn to play an instrument - this will require the active will force of the "I", but it will happen over such a long stretch of time, where the main focus is learning a new musical skill, that we hardly have an opportunity to pay attention to the willed thinking experience itself.

With concentration exercises such as the fireball, the intent is precisely to experience the willing force in our thinking by condensing its normally distributed intensity into unitary thought-perceptions. Such exercises bring us much closer to the experiential reality of the "I" as an essential will force and how it is distinct from the normal thinking personality (the idea of "me"), the latter being a conglomeration of patterned perceptual experiences (including desires, emotions, etc.) that have been identified with over time. This personality is the 'separate me' that many people refer to, but we can easily distinguish this from the experience of "I" through concentration exercises. The experience of "I", which can be condensed into the conceptual testimony of "I", is exactly what brings the separate self back into a concrete relationship with its Universal life.

Regarding the concept-percept distinction, I agree there is some ambiguity in the way those terms are used in this particular post. But I would say the underlying point remains valid and is highlighted in the most readily accessible way through linguistic examples. We have a more refined example in FoHC:

One approach is to consider a word, for example ‘dog’. This isn’t simply an arrangement of letters or phonemes but evokes in us certain idea – that of the animal ‘dog’. Now let’s look at the same word in different languages – perro, Hund, cane, собака and so on. We can try to focus on each of these words. We can focus either on the written words (visual perception) or their sounds. We can also take a sketch or photo of a dog. All these perceptions are very different, yet there’s something common in all cases. It is precisely this meaning, the idea of the animal dog, which elucidates the different perceptions with common knowing experience. This already tells us that we can’t find the knowing aspect of our experience as some concrete perception ‘in front of us’. We can order the words and pictures of a dog side by side but the meaning can’t be found as yet another perception that can be added to the sequence. Instead, it is the imperceptible but known experience of our conscious life which invisibly but undoubtedly unites different phenomena in meaningfully distinguishable unities. In our conscious experience there’s some unifying, we may say – invisibly known quality, – which makes all the words, pictures, memories of a dog, to be indeed felt as belonging together. Normally we can recognize this common meaningful quality and can call it a concept.

Language is practically the meeting point between percept and concept at our current stage of evolution since most people think through the mediation of the inner voice. That is why I would say it is the most directly approachable way to distinguish the two in a phenomenological way. We don't need to necessarily understand the various languages to grasp the idea that they encode the common knowing experience, since we are so intimately familiar with the nature of language. That being said, it doesn't hurt to also think through the varied imagistic percepts, such as sketches, photos, etc., or the various scenarios you mention for the concept of redness (we should remember the words are also audial-visual percepts). It seems to me that focusing on particular word percepts helps isolate the meaningful conceptual quality more, whereas that quality is intermingled with many others and therefore takes on varied shades of meaning in any given natural context. There are different shades of meaning between words of different languages as well, but less so.

[Federica]

(...)
Language is practically the meeting point between percept and concept at our current stage of evolution since most people think through the mediation of the inner voice. That is why I would say it is the most directly approachable way to distinguish the two in a phenomenological way. We don't need to necessarily understand the various languages to grasp the idea that they encode the common knowing experience, since we are so intimately familiar with the nature of language. That being said, it doesn't hurt to also think through the varied imagistic percepts, such as sketches, photos, etc., or the various scenarios you mention for the concept of redness (we should remember the words are also audial-visual percepts). It seems to me that focusing on particular word percepts helps isolate the meaningful conceptual quality more, whereas that quality is intermingled with many others and therefore takes on varied shades of meaning in any given natural context. There are different shades of meaning between words of different languages as well, but less so.

Ok, I understand this is primarily meant to treat the recurring separate-self affliction. The more I think about it, the more I believe this is a Tanguy syndrome of present-day humanity. Anyway, it’s wide-spread enough for its tackling to be justified even in the kind of general thread with curated exercises for the inner path (by the way, thanks again for this collection of exercises). Also, I haven’t yet read with full focus the rest of your post. I thought I would understand this right first. What follows is simply a comment from my particular perspective. I imagine I am not the only one experiencing language in this way.

For my part, I feel that percepts are the meeting point between concepts and language, rather than the other way around. I understand that for many it may be the opposite. I think this is because life has brought me in a context in which I continually change between multiple languages on a daily basis. I remember, long ago Cleric said this would help me get what a concept is, in terms of what stands out as common amidst the variation of possible translations. I never really felt that was working for me, and so I understood concepts the logical and phenomenological way, through PoF and its processing here on the forum.

And now I get why using multiple languages didn't give me any shortcuts to grasp the phenomenology of cognition. It's precisely because for me the sphere of language as a whole, with all its idioms in it, has loosened altogether. It's been lifted separate from the sphere of direct experience. For someone who primarily uses one language in everyday life, the word does feel solidly attached to the meaning, while the thought remains unseen in the blind spot. Then one can speculate: "If you reflect that the bond is actually not so univocal and strong - since there are all those alternative translations - you will loosen the one-to-one word-meaning connection and the concept will stand out from the sea of instances of observation that all carry the same word-label."

But for me there was not any one-to-one word-meaning connection left. Thinking was surely in the blind spot, still, languages couldn't be used as leverage to unstuck stuff at that level. No leverage, because language was already entirely loose for me. As you say, we should indeed remember the words are also audial-visual percepts (I explicitly mentioned that in the post above). This only means, the language-percepts are added percepts. It's an additional layer that comes to complement the layer of direct experience prior to language encoding. But I don't think that in general we are "so intimately familiar with the nature of language". As long as we only use one, language remains in the blindspot. But with a sufficiently long simultaneous practice of multiple languages, one gets to see the added layer of meaning communicated through individual languages. Not so much that there are different shades of meaning between words of different languages (rouge, rot, red, all point to the exact same shade of meaning, since there is only one concept of redness). In my opinion it's rather at the level of the ideas - how concepts are combined together to create more complex dynamics of meaning - that the diversity of human languages plays a role, reflecting the diversity of ethnic characters.

So maybe the exercise works as you indicate for those who experience meaning and word as one, but other than that, I feel it may backfire, in the sense that it may undo some of the progress made through posts like this, in the direction of better understanding intellect, through the encoding quality of language.