Reference: Book III: What is the Mind Really?
The Main Ideas
- Postulates and conclusions are encoded as terminology.
- The more basic is a term, the closer its definition is to a postulate.
- Postulates and its conclusions form a logical sequence.
- Therefore, a terminology can be arranged in a logical sequence.
- The beginning of a sequential terminology shall approach a postulate.
- Gaps in sequential terminology will point to missing logic.
- The missing logic may lead to new discoveries.
- This is the area of intuition.
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.
Terms Contain Conclusions
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.
Basic Terms Approach Postulates
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:
- What must already be accepted for this term to make sense?
- Which terms are logically prior to it?
- Does its definition depend on unexamined assumptions?
By tracing a term back toward its simplest conditions, one approaches the postulates embedded in the terminology.
Thought Has a Sequence
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:
- Something is experienced.
- What is experienced can be noticed.
- What is noticed can be distinguished from other things.
- What is distinguished can be named.
- What is named can be compared, remembered, communicated, and evaluated.
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.
Sequential Terminology
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 Approaches a Postulate
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:
- What is meant by “thing”?
- What is meant by “thinking”?
- Is thinking an activity, an experience, a process, or an entity?
- Does the definition assume a separate inner object called the mind?
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.
Gaps Reveal Missing Logic
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:
- A person receives sensory information.
- Therefore, the person knows what reality is.
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.
Missing Logic Opens Discovery
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:
- A criticism is heard.
- Anger arises.
- One reacts defensively.
At first, the sequence may seem complete. Yet closer observation may reveal a missing stage:
- A criticism is heard.
- The criticism is interpreted as a threat to one’s worth or status.
- Anger arises.
- One reacts defensively.
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.
Intuition as Sensitivity to Gaps
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.
Using Intuition Carefully
Intuition is most reliable when treated as a guide for inquiry rather than as final proof.
- Notice the felt sense that an explanation is incomplete.
- State the sequence of terms or conclusions explicitly.
- Identify where the apparent jump occurs.
- Ask what condition, process, or distinction could fill the gap.
- Test the proposed connection against observation and consistency.
- Revise the terminology when the new understanding requires it.
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.
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