Vinaire's Blog
.
Reference: Book III: What is the Mind Really?
Intuition is often treated as a mysterious feeling that appears without explanation. But it can be examined more carefully as the ability to sense missing connections in an underlying logical structure.
The mind works with terms. A term is not merely a word; it carries a meaning, a definition, and often a conclusion about reality. When terms are used precisely, they can reveal the postulates—the basic assumptions—from which a whole system of thought develops.
Every well-defined term condenses a chain of reasoning. Its definition represents conclusions that have already been reached, even when those conclusions are no longer consciously visible.
For example, the term triangle carries several conclusions: it refers to a figure, bounded by three straight sides, with three angles. These characteristics are built into the term. One does not need to re-derive them each time the word is used.
Likewise, the term responsibility may contain the conclusion that a person can recognize consequences, make choices, and answer for actions. If those implied ideas are unclear, then the term itself is being used vaguely.
A terminology is therefore a compressed map of thought. The definitions of its terms preserve both the starting assumptions and the conclusions developed from them.
Some terms are more basic than others. The more basic a term is, the nearer its definition approaches a postulate.
A postulate is a starting point: an assumption accepted provisionally so that reasoning can proceed. It is not derived from earlier statements within that particular system. Instead, later conclusions depend on it.
Consider geometry. The concept of a point is more basic than the concept of a triangle. A triangle can be defined in terms of points and lines, but a point cannot be fully replaced by the definition of a triangle. Thus, the term point stands closer to the foundational assumptions of geometry.
In studying the mind, terms such as experience, attention, perception, and thinking may be more basic than terms such as personality, memory, or decision. The latter terms may depend on the former for their meaning.
The task is to ask:
By tracing a term back toward its simplest conditions, one approaches the postulates embedded in the terminology.
Postulates and their conclusions form a logical sequence. A basic assumption makes a first conclusion possible; that conclusion then becomes the basis for further conclusions.
For example:
This is not merely a sequence of words. Each step depends on the earlier ones. Naming requires distinction; distinction requires noticing; noticing requires that something be present to awareness in some manner.
If someone speaks of “evaluating an object” while the object has not yet been identified or distinguished, the analysis is incomplete. The later term is being used without the earlier conditions that make it meaningful.
A coherent vocabulary can therefore be organized as a sequence from basic postulates to increasingly complex conclusions.
A terminology arranged in logical sequence becomes a tool for examination. Instead of treating definitions as isolated entries in a dictionary, one can ask where each term belongs in the development of an idea.
For instance, an elementary sequence concerning knowledge might be:
| Stage | Term | What it implies |
| Beginning | Presence | Something is there to be encountered |
| First awareness | Attention | That presence is noticed |
| Differentiation | Distinction | One aspect is separated from another |
| Identification | Recognition | The distinction is made familiar or stable |
| Expression | Naming | A symbol is assigned to what is recognized |
| Understanding | Concept | Relations and characteristics are grasped |
| Application | Judgment | The concept is used to reach a conclusion |
Such an arrangement helps prevent confusion. A person may believe that they understand something because they can name it. But naming is not necessarily understanding. A name may be only a label attached to an insufficiently examined experience.
For example, someone may call an inner state “anxiety.” That label can be useful, but it does not automatically explain the state. Careful examination may distinguish bodily tension, anticipation of danger, memories, assumptions about the future, and avoidance impulses. The single term is then unpacked into a more accurate sequence of observations and conclusions.
The beginning of a well-ordered terminology should approach a postulate. It should not begin with a complicated conclusion whose foundations have been left unexamined.
Take the term mind. If it is defined at the outset as “the thing that thinks,” several questions remain hidden:
A more careful approach starts closer to what can be directly inspected: experiences arise; some are noticed; some are differentiated; patterns are retained, associated, interpreted, and acted upon. The term mind may then be used as a convenient name for a complex organization of such processes, rather than as an unexplained object presumed from the start.
This does not settle every philosophical question about mind. It does, however, make the terminology more accountable to its own logical foundations.
When a sequence of terms contains a gap, that gap indicates missing logic. Something has been assumed without being clearly stated, observed, or derived.
Suppose one argues:
The gap lies between receiving information and knowing reality. Sensory input must be organized, interpreted, checked, compared with other observations, and distinguished from assumption or error. The conclusion is being claimed without accounting for the intervening processes.
Another example is the claim: “I had a thought, therefore I chose it.” The gap is between the appearance of a thought and the act of choosing. A thought may arise spontaneously from memory, association, habit, or present circumstances. Choice may occur later, in whether the thought is examined, accepted, expressed, acted upon, or set aside.
Finding such gaps is not merely criticism. It is an invitation to investigate.
A missing link can lead to a new discovery. The discovery may be a previously unnoticed process, a more basic term, a distinction between two ideas that were merged together, or a revised postulate.
For centuries, people could observe that objects fall. Newton’s insight did not consist simply in noticing the fall. It involved searching for a logical connection between falling bodies on Earth and the motion of celestial bodies. The apparent gap between earthly motion and planetary motion became an opening for a more comprehensive principle.
On a smaller and more personal scale, consider this sequence:
At first, the sequence may seem complete. Yet closer observation may reveal a missing stage:
The newly observed interpretation explains what previously appeared to be an automatic jump from criticism to anger. That discovery creates greater freedom: the interpretation can now be examined rather than blindly enacted.
This is the area of intuition. Intuition is not necessarily irrational, mystical, or opposed to logic. It may be the immediate sensitivity that something is incomplete in a chain of thought, even before the missing link has been explicitly formulated.
A scientist may feel that a theory does not account for an observation. A philosopher may sense that a definition contains circularity. A writer may recognize that an argument reaches its conclusion too quickly. A person may feel that an explanation of their own behavior does not quite fit.
At this stage, intuition does not yet provide a finished answer. It points toward a question.
For example, an observer may notice that people can sincerely report conflicting memories of the same event. Intuition may register that “memory is a recording” is inadequate. Investigation can then lead to a more refined understanding: memory involves reconstruction, selection, emotional meaning, later information, and present interpretation.
The intuitive recognition of a gap becomes valuable only when it is followed by inspection, clarification, and logical testing.
Intuition is most reliable when treated as a guide for inquiry rather than as final proof.
This approach preserves both openness and discipline. One does not dismiss intuition merely because it is not yet verbalized, nor does one mistake it for certainty.
Intuition becomes the living edge of understanding: the point at which existing terminology no longer fully accounts for what is observed. By arranging terms in sequence, tracing them toward their postulates, and attending to the gaps between them, one turns vague insight into the possibility of discovery.
A challenge to intuition is resolving the anomalies in the functioning of the mind itself. This requires a fundamental criterion for determining the ideal. This is the subject of the next chapter.
⁂
Reference: Book III: What is the Mind Really?
Every individual appears to have a beginning. We may locate that beginning at conception, at birth, or at the first moment we recognize ourselves as separate beings. Yet an individual is more than a body arriving at a particular time. Each person expresses a deeper human blueprint: a pattern of capacities, needs, and possibilities inherited through humanity itself.
At the beginning of humanity lies a distinctive capacity—awareness. Awareness makes it possible not only to experience the world, but also to ask what the world is, what we are, and how we know anything at all. Beneath every interpretation of life are basic postulates: foundational assumptions accepted as true, consciously or unconsciously, from which further conclusions are derived.
In this sense, the beginning of one’s reality—of the universe one inhabits and of the individuality one experiences—lies in the postulates one is operating from. A postulate may concern existence, identity, causation, purpose, knowledge, or value. Once it is accepted, it can quietly shape perceptions, decisions, explanations, and expectations.
This exercise invites you to look beneath conclusions and familiar beliefs, toward the assumptions from which they arise. Underlying even this investigation is something simpler: the desire to know.
A person is operating on certain postulates. The postulates are the source of his consciousness and individuality.
A postulate is a foundational assumption taken as true, from which everything else is derived.
From this reality, the following process is recommended:
All that exists is made up of matter, energy and thought. That which is in harmony is real. That which is in disharmony is unreal.
Oneness lies in the harmony of relations, consistency of realities, and continuity of dimensions. Oneness underlies the very concept of the Universe.
From this reality, the following process is recommended:
All conditions have underlying postulates. A condition is good when the underlying postulates are in harmony. A condition is bad when the underlying postulates are in disharmony.
Attention gets stuck in disharmonies. As more attention gets stuck the person’s analytical abilities start to weaken. Attention is freed as he spots and becomes aware of disharmonies.
From this reality, the following process is recommended:
⁂
Reference: Book III: What is the Mind Really?
A person who becomes overwhelmed by persistent anxiety may gradually descend into depression. Depression is marked by a sustained low, empty, or irritable mood, and/or by a loss of interest and pleasure in ordinary life. When these symptoms are severe, prolonged, or accompanied by thoughts of self-harm, professional mental-health support is important.
In the framework developed here, depression may be understood as a condition in which attention is burdened by too many unresolved anomalies—doubts, contradictions, confusions, and disturbances that the mind cannot presently organize or address. Attention then becomes fixed, scattered, or withdrawn from the immediate environment. The person may feel mentally exhausted, disconnected, and unable to act. This chapter offers attention-training exercises as a supportive practice for regaining orientation; it is not a substitute for medical or psychological care.
Attention may be understood as the allocation of the mind’s processing resources: it selectively concentrates on some aspect of the environment while leaving other aspects in the background. When attention is free and unobstructed, it tends to move toward areas where perception or understanding has slowed down. This can be useful, because such areas may contain an anomaly—a belief, assumption, or interpretation that does not fit its broader context.
In depression, however, attention may be overwhelmed by many anomalies at once. The safest initial direction is to restore the person’s ability to direct attention deliberately. This begins by temporarily withdrawing attention from overwhelming mental content and consciously redirecting it toward immediate sensory experience.
The environment enters the mind as sensations—touch, sight, sound, smell, and taste—which can gradually assimilate into clear perceptions. A person can train attention by noticing and distinguishing simple sensory details. For example, one may compare two textures, two colors, or two sounds without demanding that the mind solve a larger emotional problem. This reduces the immediate burden on attention and re-establishes its basic function: observing what is actually present.
As attention becomes steadier, the person begins to notice simple anomalies: a tension in the body, an assumption, an avoided feeling, a conflict between an expectation and reality. Addressing these simpler anomalies improves confidence and control. More complex anomalies that previously felt overwhelming can then be approached one at a time.
Do the following exercises, as much as possible, for 20 minutes, twice a day, for two weeks at least.
Touch
Sight
Hearing, Smell & Taste
.
This exercise follows extroversion. It trains attention to distinguish directions and distances while maintaining awareness of mental activity without interference. If orientation feels difficult or destabilizing, return to the sensory exercise above.
STEPS
Once these exercises stabilize you enough to look at anxieties, return to the exercise in Chapter 8: Looking at Anxiety.
⁂
Reference: Book III: What is the Mind Really?
Anxiety can be understood as the body and mind’s alarm system. It appears as worry, fear, uneasiness, or physical tension when a threat is perceived—whether the threat is present now, anticipated in the future, or carried forward from the past.
This chapter approaches anxiety through the handling of mental objects: memories, images, impressions, thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations that arise in the mind. The purpose is not to suppress anxiety or argue with it, but to look directly at what it contains and gradually assimilate the experiences behind it. This follows the approach of Look, Be There and Confront and must be practiced according to the Laws of Looking provided in earlier chapters.
This exercise may not address all your anxiety, but it gives you a tool to reduce your anxiety by yourself.
Anxiety is not necessarily an enemy. Like a smoke alarm, it signals that something is being experienced as dangerous, uncertain, or beyond one’s ability to handle.
Sometimes the alarm concerns an immediate situation. For example, a person may feel anxious while driving through a severe storm because reduced visibility and slippery roads are real dangers. In such a case, anxiety may help the person slow down, focus, and take sensible precautions.
At other times, the alarm is activated by a present situation that resembles an earlier threatening experience. A person who was repeatedly criticized in childhood may feel intense fear before offering an idea at work. The meeting itself may be ordinary, but it can awaken old mental objects: remembered expressions, words, embarrassment, shame, or the expectation of rejection.
The anxiety is real as an experience, even when the present danger is small or absent. What needs attention is the material to which the alarm is responding.
Understanding anxiety helps a person respond more effectively to both their own distress and that of others. Anxiety often becomes more difficult when it is treated as weakness, irrationality, or personal failure.
Anxiety may be reduced by locating and assimilating the relevant memories behind it. A current fear often has connections to earlier moments of threat, helplessness, pain, loss, or confusion.
To assimilate a memory does not mean to erase it, deny it, excuse what happened, or force oneself to “get over it.” It means allowing the memory to be seen clearly enough that it is no longer operating as an unexamined source of alarm.
For example, a student may become anxious whenever they have to take a test. On looking, they may recall a recent exam in which they felt unprepared. Looking further, they may remember earlier school experiences: being ridiculed for a wrong answer, being punished for low grades, or being told that failure meant they were worthless. These memories may have become fused with the present act of taking a test.
As these mental objects are confronted and understood in their proper time and context, the present situation can be seen more accurately. A test becomes a test—not a repetition of every earlier moment of humiliation or danger.
If not already done:
“Recall an area of life that causes anxiety.”
Resolve the charge from a moment of anxiety fully as above before consciously bringing up another moment. Go over this list again and again until no new moments of anxiety are coming up.
Recall a moment when
This is not a search for a single dramatic “root cause.” Anxiety can be shaped by many experiences. The aim is simply to make the chain of related mental objects visible, from the present fear toward earlier fears, without forcing conclusions.
With all earlier anxieties drained of their charge you will be in a much better position to address present conditions.
⁂
Reference: Book III: What is the Mind Really?
Memory is the means by which data can be retrieved from the mental matrix—the thought environment that contains the accumulated data of the organism. This data first enters as sensation, forming the surface of the mental matrix. As sensations are assimilated, they become organized into progressively deeper layers: perceptions, concepts, knowledge, wisdom, and other increasingly integrated understandings.
A recalled memory may therefore contain elements from any of these layers. Perceptions are usually the most visible aspect of what comes up, while sensations are often less assimilated and may remain hidden beneath them. At the least-assimilated level, memory can appear as a literal recording of a past event. At the most-assimilated level, it may appear as understanding that is fully harmonious with the Universe.
The degree of assimilation determines the charge contained in memory. Here, charge refers to tension, anomaly, or disturbance. The less a sensation has been assimilated, the greater its charge is likely to be. As a lower layer assimilates into a higher layer, this charge is released. The purpose of recall, therefore, is not simply to revisit the past, but to support greater assimilation within the mental matrix.
Sometimes, the assimilation of very old sensations may bring up perceptions that seem connected with past lives. Other deeply unassimilated sensations may have been carried forward through an ancestral blueprint. In other cases, a recalled item may reveal no visible perception at all; it may present raw sensation, settled knowledge, or simply nothing noticeable. All such outcomes are valid.
This chapter offers an exercise adapted from 1951: Self Analysis for looking at whatever memory arises in response to each item. Let the memory appear on its own. Do not search, force, or dig into the mind for an answer. The exercise may be repeated, since one run may assimilate some sensations and allow different perceptions to become visible in a later run.
Can you recall a time when:
1. You were happy.
2. You had just finished constructing something.
3. Life was cheerful.
4. Somebody had given you something.
5. You ate something good.
6. You had a friend.
7. You felt energetic.
8. Somebody was waiting for you.
9. You drove fast.
10. You saw something you liked.
11. You acquired something good.
12. You threw away something bad.
13. You kissed somebody you liked.
14. You laughed at a joke.
15. You received money.
16. You felt young.
17. You liked life.
18. You played a game.
19. You bested something dangerous.
20. You acquired an animal.
21. Somebody thought you were important.
22. You enjoyed a good loaf.
23. You chased something bad.
24. You were enthusiastic.
25. You enjoyed life.
26. You went fast.
27. You owned something.
28. You felt strong.
29. Somebody departed.
30. Somebody helped you.
31. You gathered something good.
32. You measured something.
33. You took a pleasant journey.
34. You turned on a light.
35. You heard some good music.
36. You controlled something.
37. You destroyed something.
38. You mastered something.
39. You were lucky.
40. You felt peaceful.
41. You saw a pretty scene.
42. You poured something good.
43. You acquired something that was scarce.
44. You made an enemy scream.
45. You had a pleasant seat.
46. You handled something well. (actual physical handling)
47. You moved something.
48. You watched something fast.
49. You were together with friends.
50. You occupied a good space.
51. Somebody loved you.
52. You enjoyed somebody.
53. You invented something.
54. You harnessed some energy.
55. You killed a bug.
56. You pocketed something.
57. You made progress.
58. You walked.
59. You saved something.
60. You stopped a machine.
61. You started a machine.
62. You had a good sleep.
63. You stopped a thief.
64. You stood under something.
65. You started a fire.
66. You went upstairs.
67. You were warm.
68. You went riding.
69. You were adroit.
70. You swam.
71. You stood your ground.
72. You lived well.
73. You were respected.
74. You won a race.
75. You ate well.
⁂