Director, Samara Center for Practical Spirituality, Saco, Maine
Mentics begins with an ambitious, clearly stated goal: “The purpose of this work is to analyze how the mind works.” What follows is a well reasoned application of Emanuel Swedenborg’s life work to a comprehensible model of the human mind. Using Swedenborg’s foundational doctrines as keys to mental process, Mentics describes the algorithmic dynamics of the human mind, and shows it to be a coherent unity of action on four discrete levels of operation.
The idea of symbolic language is central to the Western intellectual tradition, from the Pythagoreans upwards through the 15th Century revival of Platonism, to culminate in the universal mathesis of Age-of-Reason philosophy: Divine order is mirrored in the structure of the human mind because of the mind’s affinity for mathematics; mathematics or symbolic language thus becomes the key to all knowledge. The mind reflects this relational scheme in its parts and operation.
Of interest here is Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz, who saw language as a mirror of the mind, and who pursued a universal language of artificial symbols, that would supersede the content and reveal the pure form of mind beneath it all. Swedenborg mastered Leibnitz’ works, and moved beyond his “pre-established harmony” to pursue a universal mathesis of his own. In Rational Psychology Swedenborg elevates the symbology as descriptive of spiritual-natural interaction, and the harmony is now “co-established” by means of a mechanism he calls correspondence. From this new paradigm he was free to describe a mind of interactive levels, enlivened by the inflowing soul, to “infuse [it], as it were, with the power of understanding and expressing higher things.” In Swedenborg’s model of the mind we find a multi-dimensional dynamic of organic forms “in conformity with the inmost and most secret laws of mechanics, physics, and chemistry,” and yet in correspondence with the spiritual substance of the soul. And all of this, he said is within the reach of our understanding. The human mind, according to his laws of forms and operation, need no longer be a mystery.
Mentics is a timely and welcome extrapolation of Swedenborg’s science of the human mind. Using his model as a framework, Mentics attempts to bring these general principles down to the level of actual experience, to offer explanations for the mental operations that are known to exist, but are still not understood. What we have here is the beginnings of a mathesis for the modern era.
The purpose of this work is to analyze how the mind works. The methods of every science need to conform to the needs of its field. In the case of studying the mind, we consider the data to be primarily subjective. This poses a problem for most scientists, because objective data such as from study of behavior or brain scans is too peripheral with respect to the mind per se, and subjective data is frequently vague and prone to personal bias.
Comparing the physical sciences with psychology, we see the study of matter as having the advantage of effectively utilizing quantitative analysis. In our view this is less so with the biological sciences, and hardly applicable at all to the mind itself. In the absence of a suitable structural discipline in which mental data can be organized, models of the mind tend to be vague and devious.
Psychology is the study of mind. Everything we know about the brain and behavior is second hand. We know because we have learned. We have learned because we are conscious. Consciousness is the greatest tool of science. Knowing must be the starting point of science, especially of psychology. But there is also another starting point that we call having. With having, mentics also models emotion, negativity, creativity and choice. It therefore opens wider the door to clinical psychology. By treating the constituents of the mind (that is, ideas) as being alive, mentics maps the learning process as a function of motivation as well as of knowledge and reason. It also models abstract ideas such as time and space, and even the concept of what an abstract idea is. It models symbolism and maybe even language, and paints the conscious present-time moment as a dynamic conjunction of the mind’s substance and form.
Although mentics rubs elbows with philosophy, it does not purport to be philosophic. Its value is as a tool for modeling ideas and their mental structures and processes. However, as such it is capable of expressing philosophic considerations, especially those concerning its axioms. In any critical review of a mentics statement it is important to maintain the glossary as the foundation of mentics. A critique should be directed to the validity of the mentics structure, and not be sidetracked by its terms used in other contexts by authors who are not bound to mentics definitions. From this platform, philosophic implications using mentics can be quite exciting. For one philosophic perspective, see Addendum, – Descartes vs. Swedenborg.
With this perspective, we began to develop a mathesis founded upon discrete elements of subjective mental data capable of modeling introspective phenomena and processes. Upon concepts including idea, know, and possess are built precisely defined structures that provide the tools for modeling mental organs and functions. Part One of this work is dedicated to the development of that discipline, which we labeled mentics. Part Two is dedicated to modeling the structure and activity of mind in terms of that discipline based upon introspective events by the authors.
Scholars of mind will be tempted to challenge the scientific basis of mentics because of its introspective foundation. This is understandable in view of the failure of introspection in the past to meet the stringent standards most fields of science have for demonstrating validity. Such failure can usually be attributed to investigator prejudice and lack of data precision. But it can also be caused by decades of rejection by the general scientific community of subjective observation. By rejecting subjective observation, the existence of consciousness, freedom, and even mind itself, have been challenged. This leaves science with merely external data such as behavior, brain scans, and artificial intelligence, for modeling what goes on in one’s “control tower”.
Direct communication of subjective data is not available to science. For others to know what I know I have to go through the exercise of telling them. Yet Rachel and I author this work together. She assumes that I have consciousness, and I return the favor. We value consensus. In physical science one must assume that matter with its properties exists. In mentics one must assume that mind with its properties exists. Recognizing one of them should not imply denying the other. However, it is important to recognize that all knowledge is essentially subjective, and all evidence to support it is basically objective. To understand their relationship requires first understanding each of them. Epistemologically both realms deserve recognition of their reality. We do not attempt in this treatise to ask or answer, “Which came first, mind or matter?” All we ask and try to answer is, “How does the mind work?”
You, our audience, are not going to find this work easy to read. Your introspection is needed to grasp ours. This is not science fiction, a history, or a novel. As in many other mathematical disciplines, you may find it difficult to grasp its concepts. But once they are understood they simplify thinking forever. We expect your investment of time in meditative concentration to be quite worth your while.
We love to walk along Kirk Road as it curves beside Maiden Creek. It runs past a swamp, then winds through a wooded area. We lift our knees as we ascend a hill. We look down from a cliff upon the creek as it gushes over rocks under an abandoned railroad trestle. Our toes press against our shoes as we continue on the road and go down past a field of corn. We come to Guinea Road ford where Maiden Creek now drifts gently over a wide, shallow bed of flat rocks. We ask ourselves, “What is going on in our minds while nature stages all of these pleasant treats around us?”
Nothing characterizes people more than quests. From toddler to scholar our search for experience and answers is why we get up each day. It is also why we authors started studying our minds. Although the new field of cognitive science has come a long way in the investigation of mind, something has been missing in that effort. It has lacked a disciplined framework of definition in which to express structured statements of observed data. Mathematics provides such a framework for the objective physical sciences, but subjective mental data does not seem to take kindly to quantitative analysis. Our objective is to develop a qualitative system we call mentics for organizing introspective experience.
This work is written in the first person plural case. We do this for two reasons: we are two authors, and it is an introspective exercise. We are looking into our minds individually and agreeing collectively on a model of what we see. You, the reader, may find you would prefer another model of what you see in your mind, and what you see may be quite different, but at least we hope our model will be clear and exact.
When we authors look at our minds, the first thing we see is ideas. In fact, that is the only thing we see. They are the only things we can think about or with. Our minds are made up of ideas. Ideas are the only things we can know. What ideas can we have? An idea of a whole with its parts? How about a deck of playing cards or a picture puzzle in a box with a beautiful picture on the lid, or another person. Or try this: One’s self with a mind, body, clothes, money, reputation, hopes, wisdom! What in our minds is not an idea? (With this brief introductory paragraph we will start tagging in small caps terms that are meant only in the glossary sense. Please refer to Glossary when in doubt.)
Ideas in one’s mind must be connected. If they are isolated, they are irrelevant. Ideas are so extremely abstract in themselves that they are thought of as mystical, transcendental, vague, even unreal. What is our idea of an idea? Can an idea have such an idea? We must start by creating some analogue of an idea so that we can deal with it. The first analogy that comes to mind is a verbal expression, a definition. We will also portray ideas in pictorial figures, as well as expressions using alphabetic symbols as in algebra.
An idea is an element of thought which is an urge to know and to have other ideas. This definitive axiom presumes (a) that an idea is alive, being an essential element of the mind and thought, (b) that it links to other ideas, and thus (c) that it knows them and (d) has them. As we walk we see things. The idea of our environment includes all the ideas of the things we see. That whole idea knows those things, and those things are parts of that whole idea.
An idea is presumed to have only one link to other ideas. If it had two links we would treat it as two ideas. Consider the idea of a whole with its parts. The idea of a whole thing joins to the ideas of its parts because it has them. Our idea of parts is not our idea of a whole, but they belong to it. There is a saying that possession is nine-tenths of the law. We say that possession is the primary aspect of the link that joins the other ideas together into a group. A deck of playing cards has 52 cards and a picture puzzle has many pieces on the table (and floor?). And anyone has a mind, body, and, we hope, clothes, money, reputation, hopes, and wisdom. The whole of anything is qualified by its parts, for they are what belong to it to manifest its being.
Table 1, Whole & Parts, demonstrates the three ways we will portray ideas. It shows the whole with its parts, which models an idea of any thing and is the basic structure that will be the building block of mentics.
When a whole gets its parts, it binds them together as a group. If they were not a group, then the whole would be broken, not whole. A missing card from a deck disqualifies the deck at the onset of a game. Puzzle pieces must all be there, or the job of fitting them is not done. And we have our identity as a person that includes not only mind and body, but also clothes, possessions, reputation, hopes, and wisdom, whatever they may be worth. If the parts are not connected with the whole, then they just are not parts, and the whole must be redefined, like assembling a pottery vessel from one shard.
But there is another aspect of the link of a whole to its parts. The whole does not only have all its parts as a group, but it also knows all of them. The dealer counts the cards one by one before the game starts. The pieces of picture puzzle are picked up from the floor to fill the empty spaces. And everyone knows all of his own parts, how he feels and what he tries, thinks, does, wears, and owns, and how others treat him. However, the parts do not know their whole. The idea of a whole implies its parts, but going from the parts to the idea of a whole something is a rocky road.
Finally, when an idea of a whole links to the ideas of its parts, it associates them by bringing them together into a group. The cards stack. The puzzle pieces interlock. Each part of a person is associated with each other part, such as mind with body, behavior with name and reputation, name with color of eyes, appetite with judgment (good or bad), and so forth. If the parts do not concur, they part company. Yet this concurrent association is not a link by the parts, for it is the idea called their whole that associates them.
The purpose of this work on mentics is to provide a model of the mind in the same way physics provides a model of the physical world, with precision and universal applicability. Physics needs arithmetic to specify measurements of nature. Mentics needs a similar logical discipline to specify introspective events of mind. In each case, only specific data is scientifically valid.
Mentics starts out with the axiom that an idea is an urge to link to other ideas. To this mentics idea are attributed elementary properties that lead in a logical way to building various structures capable of describing a model of a thing, its parts, and their functions.
Two primary properties of the link are: 1) An idea must know the other ideas that it links to. If it did not know them, it would be a blind idea, which would be meaningless. 2) When it links to other ideas, it has them. They belong to it. The link is more than just knowing about other ideas. When an idea has other ideas, those ideas are joined together into a group. They are still individual ideas, but they are associated. This idea that links other ideas we called a whole. The ideas that it links to we call its parts, and the parts so brought together we call a group. The structure of the whole and its grouped parts we call its thing. It is called a thing because the idea of any thing can be modeled by it. The deck of cards and the puzzle are whole things. What idea of a thing is not an idea of a whole linked to its collective, concurrent parts?
Let us look at what we have been trying to do here. On the basis of this thing structure of a whole and its parts, our entire mind can be modeled. But before we proceed with that, we have found some problems to address. One problem is that we actually think in analogues. (a) The reality in our minds is the ideas that we try to model. (b) Then there is the mentics expression that is a theoretical analogy of the reality in our mind. But that expression, too, consists of ideas that are real in our mind. The mentics expression is a lower level of ideation. (c) Then there is the example we might offer to demonstrate the mentics expression in our mind such as the deck of cards or picture puzzle. Table 2, Analogy Levels, lays out the three levels. Level (a) is an actual element of thought in one’s mind. We need an analogy of this idea in order to think about it. Therefore we will give a mentics expression (b) of that idea such as the alphabetic expression A(b,c,d) which we call a mentics model. Then there are descriptions (c) of examples of that model, such as whole and its parts, or body with head, trunk, and limbs.
This work will not address the highest level. What goes on in the reader’s mind on that level is the reader’s private business. We will use the word model when speaking of the mentics expression which provides a model of a mental structure. We will use the term analogue when giving examples of how an expression might apply.
The other problem we met is with definitions. Any specialized field has its jargon. This is because when words are used to mean new ideas, their old connotations get in the way of clear expression. An author with a new meaning has the choice of either defining the word every time it is used, or inventing a new word. This problem is particularly severe with mentics. Words used to refer to mental things tend to have very many connotations because they are used in so many contexts. Our past attempts to invent new words for specialized meanings have failed because the size of our jargon’s vocabulary became burdensome. Our alternative, then, was to identify by a small caps tag every word that is used in a technical sense as defined in our mentics glossary. As you have seen, each glossary definition indicates a technical mentics context. A word like idea is tagged as small caps to indicate that it is defined in the glossary, where it is understood as an urge to link other ideas. (We use the word urge in this definition to convey the reflection that an idea is alive, being an element of the thought, and that it thus has motivation to link.) This system of tagging technical words is used for the remainder of this work.
Our idea of the whole of something with its parts is an example, or analogy, of an idea linked to other ideas. The idea of a thing’s whole is analogous to the idea that links, and the ideas of its parts are analogous to those other ideas it links to. This is such a universal analogy that we will refer to such an idea as a whole, and its other ideas as its parts. Let us then use the word thing as the structure consisting of the whole and its parts, since every thing is a whole that has parts. As we have said, this structure called a thing is the primary building block out of which all other structures in mentics are built to model the mind.
Before we go on to other structures that can be made from things, let us look again at the nature of the whole that creates this relationship between the whole and its parts. We have already looked at the ability of an idea to know and to have other ideas. Thus the whole knows its parts and has them. There are three link-modes (see Table 3, Link-loop). Each mode is a relationship of ideas in a thing. The first is the know-link-mode, which relates the whole with each of its parts. This is its ability to know them, as the idea of a deck implies all of the cards and a picture puzzle all of its pieces. The second link-mode relates the parts to each other. Thus the relation of each part to each other part is their concur-link-mode where the whole associates them by virtue of their mutual concurrence, for the puzzle pieces must fit together. The third relationship is the group of parts to the whole, called the merge-link-mode. It is called merge because the whole unites its parts and becomes thereby equal to the group. This completes a loop from the whole to parts, to group, and back to whole. Notice that in line #3 in the table merge-link-mode has both directions, being reciprocal; in line #1 the know link-mode has one direction; and in line 2 concurrent link-mode is not directional, for it is the whole that does the linking. Parts are passive, and do not link to each other. Later we will see how urge is passed on.
Going through the Link-modes again, the first row in Table 3, Link-loop, is that activity of an idea to know, be aware of, perceive, recognize, be conscious of each idea it links. Being an element of the thought, an idea is considered to be alive, and therefore conscious. Knowing is consciousness. If idea A knows idea B, B is known, but does not necessarily know A. The whole implies the parts, but a part does not imply a whole. Thus we say that to know is directional, not reciprocal. Because it is not reciprocal, the knowledge of B by A can be called abstract. This says that the knowledge is not in B, but only in A (the source of the link). A is abstract knowledge with respect to B because what knows is not in B, and B is the concrete idea with respect to A because what is known is B. Abstract knowledge is the active awareness that knows. Concrete ideas are the passive facts that are known. As a term in this study knowledge will be used in its active sense.
On the other hand, associate on the second row of Table 3, Link-loop, is a relationship that exists, not in the ideas that are linked by A, but in idea A itself. The idea of the whole associates the ideas of its parts. Without concurrence, the whole and the parts do not unite. Try to fit a picture puzzle without any idea of its whole. This can be frustrating even with a simple puzzle. Even though the whole is abstract with respect to the parts, it has very concrete consequences, for its link associates the parts so they can form a group that equals that whole.
Finally, merge link-mode shown on the third line of Table 3 relates the group of parts to the whole. This is a form of equality called group-equality because the idea of the whole then merges with the idea of the group of its parts. With all of the parts grouped collectively, the whole thing is complete. The picture puzzle is assembled without any pieces missing. The deck has all of its cards so that the game can begin. The group merges with the whole. The whole and parts are equal; not identical, but equal, analogous to our image in a mirror being equal to us, but yet not being us.
When the whole links its parts, it becomes equal to (not “greater than”) the sum of its parts and together they become joined into one thing. When we use thing as a term in mentics, we will mean the structure that consists of both the whole and the group of its parts. It is important not to confuse merge and know. Know is the relationship of a whole with any of its parts. Merge is its relationship with the group of parts, that are collectively equal to that whole.
Table 4 shows figures of a whole and its parts in an iconic view of the smiley figure in Table 1 of Chapter 1, and it also shows a thing-tree. The figure of the thing-tree shows only two parts to each whole, but a whole structure can, of course, have any appropriate number of parts, such as 52 cards in a deck. The thing-tree shows only three layers of ideas, the top whole, another layer made up of two lower wholes, and then the third layer which is the tree’s base. The base ideas shown as black squares with a dot are the ideas whose parts are not being considered. In any mentics structure, the top idea (the whole in this figure) represents the structure (where applicable), and the base ideas (bottom row) are the structure’s foundation. These base ideas are identified without specifying their own things. A thing-tree can model a deck of playing cards (represented by the top whole), consisting of red and black cards (represented by the middle layer of wholes), and the cards themselves on the base. The cards analogy has a larger thing-tree model, often calling for 52 parts in the baseline, and lowering the baseline to provide a level for (1) two colors, each color having (2) two suits, and each suit having thirteen cards. Any of these trees is bracketed by the top idea and its base ideas, which are the deck (whole) and cards (base). Another analogue of the thing-tree is a pair of shoes as a whole, but then considering further that each shoe has parts including laces, tops, heels and soles. Notice that we have a top idea (whole) as the pair, next layer as the shoes themselves (lower wholes as parts of the top whole), and then the parts of the shoes (base ideas). Each of the wholes in that tree represents its own thing as a sub-structure of the thing-tree.
In thing-tree and other structures, link-modes have important properties. In the case of know link-mode, it has the property of being transitive. This can be shown alphabetically as follows: In Table 4, if A is a top whole, B and C are its parts, and d, e, f, & g are parts of its parts, we can express a thing-tree as A(B,C); B(d,e); C(f,g). Now in that case, A knows its parts B & C. That knowledge is transitive, so that A also knows d, e, f, & g. This translates into the pair of shoes analogue like this: the idea of a pair of shoes not only implies a left and right shoe, but also can imply the parts of the shoes that constitute them. In that case, if we know we have a pair of shoes, we also know we have the shoe’s laces, tops, heels, and soles. But keep in mind that knowing a sole does not imply knowing a pair of shoes; know link-mode is not reciprocal.
Now consider the concur link-mode in the thing-tree. The relation of the parts to each other exists because the whole groups them together. They are not grouped by each other, they are only grouped by their whole. The parts are passive. They do not link; they are the objects of the links. Therefore concur link-mode is neither directional nor reciprocal, nor is it transitive.
Finally, consider the merge link-mode in thing-tree. The whole structure has parts, and those parts have parts that are collectively also parts of the thing-tree, being its base. As a group, each layer is equal to the whole, and to every other layer, like the image in a mirror. Thus the merge link-mode is reciprocal and transitive. This can be expressed alphabetically like this: A=(B,C); A=(d,e,f,g); (B,C)=(d,e,f,g), and inversely, where ( ) indicates a group (see Table 4, Thing-tree Structure).
Where is this exercise going? We have expressed a thing in terms of an idea that links other ideas, and expanded that to a thing-tree that can show any number of layers of parts. An analogy of analyzing an object could reach down to what could be compared to a sub-atomic level, each layer being base parts of the higher layer.
However, these mentics structures model real structures in one’s mind. They are not physical matter nor activities of brain cells, although they may correspond to them. Mental thoughts modeled by these mentics expressions are what we know and have. These models help us to review what is going on inside our minds. Too often we do not realize what is going on in our minds, even though that is where knowledge resides. A mentics map is needed to clear the confusion.
When two things overlap, that is, when they both have one or more of the same ideas in their bases, they are said to be tied-things (see Table 6, Tied-things Structure). A tie, then, is a part that belongs to two things. In that sense, it models a boundary, like an idea that belongs to the outside and the inside of something, like skin, a container, or border of a territory. Although the border of something may be theoretically infinitesimal, yet it is a real idea, and an idea is more real to us than that object which we examine, because the idea is what we actually know. Thus, even though a boundary seems to be theoretical, lawyers can affirm that it is actually quite real. Other examples of ties are ideas of a beach, knot, and hinge where two things share an idea that is really part of each of them.
A good analogy of a tie is our walking. The distance covered by each pace is tied to the distance covered by the previous pace and to the distance covered by the subsequent pace. Half of the left step is included in the previous right step, and the other half in the subsequent right step. This forms a tied step chain.
It is important to point out that in a tied-thing-chain association is not transitive, and does not extend along the chain beyond any given tied-thing. But yet there must be some idea that knows the tied-things to identify the chain of extensions, or ties, and thus form the concept of space. As an analogy, province A must concern itself with the boundary it shares with adjoining province B, but not with the boundaries B shares with other provinces. However, the country to which A and B belong must have concern for all such boundaries, and the idea of where we have walked today includes every step we have taken.
Before we model time we must model a concept that is especially important to people, namely, the symbol. Symbolism is one of the primary properties of mind. Table 8, Symbol and Type, shows the type and symbol structure.
A mentics symbol is an idea concurrent, and thus associated, with an abstract idea. We have shown that a whole is the abstract idea of its parts, as a deck is an abstract idea of all the cards. Also we explained that the parts are associated by their whole; that is, by the whole’s concurrent link-mode. Now consider a structure as shown in Table 8, Symbol and Type. It consists of a whole that we labeled type. A type is a special whole that has only two parts where one of the parts is another whole, B. Being a whole, B is an abstract idea of its part, d. Type A links whole B with another idea, c, thus associating that other idea with whole B, which, as we said, is an abstract idea. Note that we use an identity B(d) as a whole. Think of a whole with only one part as the idea of an experience. The idea we have is the abstract idea of the concrete experience. Here is a symbolic analogue:
Consider the written word dog as a symbol of a certain animal. When we read that word, part d becomes in our mind a concrete experience. But our idea of that word is the abstract idea (whole B) of that experience. Next time we see that word, in our mind we can associate it with the idea of that experience. That association is symbolic (type A). We remember that we had such an experience before. The second experience symbolizes the idea of the first experience. Also, our idea of each letter in the spelling of that word is a symbol of a type of letter. Any word can be associated with a meaning, and as such it is a symbol of some experience. When we see a dog it serves as a symbol of a certain type of animal. A person’s name symbolizes the person. The human mind swims in symbols.
Let us review this important structure. A type, A, knows its two parts, (1) the symbol c, and (2) the symbol’s abstract-meaning, whole B. Since it is the type that knows this, B is the essence of both the symbol and the symbol’s meaning. A knows c, it knows its abstract-meaning, whole B, and it also knows B’s part, which is B’s concrete-meaning, for the know-link-mode is transitive. Meaning is an idea’s relationship with other given idea(s) within a given structure. And so there are three kinds of meaning in this structure:
Part d is the concrete-meaning of whole B. Whole B and symbol c are also concrete-meanings of type A. Concrete-meanings always reside in the active idea, which knows the passive, concrete ideas, for knowledge is directional. A whole knows a part, not vice versa.
Whole B is the abstract-meaning of its part d. Type A is also the abstract-meaning of its parts, symbol c and of whole B. Abstract-meaning also resides in the active idea, which knows its parts. We can therefore effectively identify the whole as the abstract-meaning of its parts.
Symbolic-meaning may seem to reside in the symbol, c, but any symbol in a type structure is relatively concrete, and is a passive idea. Therefore symbolic-meaning of c resides in type A, which associates symbol c with the meaning of whole B; and that meaning is identified as the abstract-meaning of B’s part d.
Therefore the top idea of the structure, the type, is neither the symbol nor its symbolic-meaning. It is the abstract-meaning of both the symbol and the whole but holds them both and associates them. It is that type A that links them to associate the symbol with an idea that has an abstract-meaning, and provides type A with a symbolic-meaning for symbol c. We call this special kind of whole a type to suggest a type of symbol, since the type associates a symbolic-meaning with the symbol.
This short chapter launches the whole field of symbolic thought. We might ask, “What thought is not symbolic?” The next chapter will expand the model for symbolism to create models of individuality, sequence, time, category, and concept.
Table 9, Concept, shows a chain of types where a type is linked by a type that is linked by another type and so on along a chain (for the identity and type are both kinds of wholes). The first type in the chain differs from the rest because it is linked to an identity, not another type. We call that first type a seed type and the identity it has we call a prototype. Each successive type links to a symbol and the previous type. By so doing they produce a chain of types whose base is a chain of symbols. As a result, any given type along the chain knows all of the previous, lower types and symbols. But that given type does not know any of the subsequent, higher types or symbols in the chain, for know link-mode is directional. We say previous and subsequent because this is a sequence of types that models time, as well as other concepts. As in the idea of time, know link-mode points just one direction. The past-time, present-time, and future-time are modeled by this chain depending on which type we choose to select as the present-time. Our current type knows all of the past-time, which comprises its memory of abstract ideas (other types) and concrete ideas (their symbols). It knows and so can recall nothing of future-time, neither abstract nor concrete ideas. With this property the type-chain has of knowing both concrete symbols of past-time and all of the abstract ideas that were previously linked to those symbols, the process of learning is modeled so well that we will say that types learn their symbols.
As a type-chain learns new symbols it grows and becomes a concept of its symbols. Therefore the whole structure of any type-chain will be referred to as a concept, as illustrated in Table 10, Concept of Dog.
A feature of type-chain is sequence. The direction of knowledge in this structure dictates that there is a sequential order we do not have in the thing structure. Parts in a thing’s group are all concurrent. Not so in the symbols of a concept’s type. Symbols are arranged one after another in the chain. Therefore we observe that the whole in a thing has all of its parts, whereas the type in a concept knows each of its symbols. Thus the parts of a whole have a concurrent association, but the symbols of types have learn association. This sequential association is what turns a type-chain into a concept as it grows, for the meaning of the seed type grows as one’s concept (represented by the top type) grows by adding new symbols to the chain. Yet any concept remains the same concept as initiated by its seed type, but its meaning is enhanced by each subsequent symbol as the concept grows.
Let us point out that although a symbol is concrete with respect to its meaning, it need not be absolutely concrete. Ideas generally are abstract. Something abstract, like pleasure, can be considered more concrete than emotion, since pleasure is a kind of emotion.
Now that we have models of space and time, it is possible to put them together in a similar way as is done in the differential calculus. It is difficult, if not impossible, to think of either space or time without the other (as mentioned above). To think of space we imagine moving from one place to another, or extending things from one situation to another. Similarly we can think of time by imagining a place or situation having changed.
Back on Kirk Road, our attention drops to the ground, and we remember the tied-thing-chain. It can map out where we have walked, especially in the snow where we have left footprints. Now we can also map when we left the prints by using the type-chain, one type for each step sequentially. By doing so we map our walking, and therefore action and motion.
To model the change of space (distance) with respect to time we merely link the tied-thing-chain, which models space, onto the concept (structure of type-chain), which models time, as in Table 11, Action Chain. In the top row, each type can model a moment of time, be it a picosecond or a year. Each moment knows its present-time state and its past-time states. The present-time state of each of those moments is a tied-thing with two ties, one to the previous action-moment, and one to the subsequent action-moment. Each tie is in both its present-time and also either its immediate past-time or immediate future-time. By letting the model for time sequentially link to the model for space we can see more clearly the walking analogue for the tied-thing-chain. The ties on the bottom row are like the space covered by the left and right paces (middle row) at successive moments of time (top row).
Returning to the concept (Chapter 6), it models time, but also models the concept of the learning process. Now that we can model time, we can see the progress of gaining knowledge, not only in quantity of knowledge, but also in quality. Along the base are a series of symbols starting at the prototype identity. Those can be experiences, one after another, that we have. We see an object and give it an identity by noticing it (knowing it). We examine it again, this time not only noticing it, but also knowing what we saw before. In other words, we learn it by associating it with the meaning of symbols of our previous experience starting with the seed type. Each time we notice it, we learn it again, and each new experience becomes a symbol along with each previous experience. This sequence of learning produces the growth of a concept (type-chain). Learning takes time because the concept of time is essentially a process of learning. And learning not only builds our memory, but also can lead us to wisdom.
Whereas possession, the urge to have which expresses our love, is a stable condition due to the nature of the whole, learning is a time-oriented process because of the concept’s sequential nature. We notice that each experience in learning something is slightly different, for no two events are exactly the same. But meaning evolves in the concept as an abstraction that grows more abstract, becoming the meaning of more and more experience; for the type knows each of its previous symbols individually and becomes a concept of their abstract meaning.
Table 12, Concept versus Thing, shows a comparison of concept, which is a structure of types, with thing-tree, which is a structure of wholes. We view the list of properties of the respective structures as indicative of the type modeling wisdom as contrasted with the whole modeling love. 1) Wisdom communicates, but love shares. 2) Wisdom can be abstract and profound, but love is practical and all embracing. 3) Wisdom differentiates, love integrates. 4) Wisdom looks at order, love sees value. 5) Wisdom grows externally, love grows internally. 6) Wisdom is curious, but love wants company.
From this table we infer how the type facilitates the mind’s ability to grow by learning concepts, and the whole facilitates the mind’s drive to grow by integration. This perspective on the implications of wholes and types will be amplified in coming chapters.
A concept-tree is another structure that is even more intellectual than the concept, for it is an array of concepts. That array consists of a concept where each symbol (excluding the base) is also the top idea of a concept. This structure models arrays of categories, such as the names of biological categories, namely, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species, variety. Types in such a concept-tree are concepts of concepts (except those that learn the base symbols). Such concept-trees can categorize all knowledge by organizing the memory from the most general to the most specific experiences.
Table 13 shows only two layers of concepts of a concept-tree (it has only one instance of branching to save space on the page). The top row is a concept, and the second row is its symbols that are also types. Each of those symbols is also a concept. There can be shown far more categories of categories of categories if the need requires.
We find it easier to think of a concept-tree by looking at it from the bottom up rather than the top down, for a type-tree grows, sequentially, using the time analogue of concept. Therefore concept-tree also grows by the sequential process of learning. We would see this more clearly if we consider the biological categories in reverse order, namely, variety, species, genus, family, order, class, and phylum. For example, when we see various dogs, we call each one a dog. Then we see there are cats, too, and invent the word, animal. As experience grows, and kinds of experiences are classified, the concept-tree becomes indefinitely larger. By this process the tree connects all experience categorically. Not only are the names of the experiences categorized, but the experiences themselves are, too. This process will be detailed in Chapter 14.
Part One of this work was directed to the development of mentics as a system for modeling the mind on the premise that an idea is an element of thought that has an urge to know and to have other ideas. Such a system has now been prepared well enough for us to attempt to start modeling our own mind. This Part Two is devoted to such a model. It is our model, resulting from these authors’ introspection. We ask our readers to take it for what it is worth. We believe you will find it is worth your tolerant attention.
The premise that an idea is an urge to know and to have other ideas implies the presumption that there exist other ideas that a given idea can know and have. We ask, “Where do ideas come from?” In modeling our mind, this question is demanding. Yet can it honestly be answered? We can speculate that there is an atmosphere of ideas that the mind can feed on to think with. Future introspection may discover such sources when a model of mind has been better developed. Or we can speculate that ideas can divide as biological cells divide in the growth of organic tissue. Putting aside for now how ideas might come into existence, we must at this time make a presumption that they indeed do so, for we observe them in our introspection, as when we say, “Oh, I have an idea!” Accordingly in this Part Two we will express various propositions that assume ideas as needed to fulfill mentics models. We will call general statements of such assumptions propositions.
To model one’s self is a tall order, but we find it necessary to form an overall framework as a skeleton upon which to hang the various systems that make up our mental activities. Since we have a mind, and a mind is made up only of ideas, according to our mentics perspective, we will represent a person’s self by a top idea we can call one’s soul. A soul has an urge to link to other ideas, that is, to have and to know them. Those other ideas that our soul’s urge flows into constitute the soul’s mind. Let us consider the structure of our mind.
Suppose, then, that our soul has parts, one whole and one type. A structure in mentics we call the whole expresses especially the possessive aspect of the urge to link because it can have any number of parts. On the other hand, the type expresses especially the know aspect of the urge to link because it can know any number of symbols, but it has only its two parts. And so wholes and types are different. Types can possess, or have, only two parts, while wholes do not properly know symbols. Thus the whole is generally limited to knowing only its own parts or what its parts know, while the type is limited to possessing, and so having, only its own two parts. See Table 12, Chapter 8.
Now how does the soul link to other ideas? We propose that its urge to have and know expresses itself by linking together two parts, one whole (to express its possessive merge-link-mode), and one type (to express its know-link-mode). The whole we think of as the soul’s will incorporating all of its loves, desires, intentions, tries, hopes, feelings, affections, and expectations. This is because these attributes are attributes of love, and we see love as the urge to join and to have. On the other hand, the type we think of as the soul’s intellect, incorporating all of what it knows, has learned, perceives, wonders, and believes. This is because these attributes are attributes of wisdom, and we see wisdom as the urge to know others. Although the influx of the soul into the whole and the type are essentially the same urge, they are expressed in different ways.
In the hands of the soul, then, are two top ideas, the will’s whole and the intellect’s type. The soul’s whole, called the will, tops a huge thing array of ideas that services the will’s part of the mind, and the soul’s type, called intellect, tops a profound concept array of ideas that services the intellect’s part of the mind. And so the soul is the top whole of a mind which consists of a thing array and a concept array. With the thing array as its will, the soul expresses all of its desires and affections. Our ideas of all things of the universe are fitted into that will array collectively in proper subordination of parts. With a concept array as its intellect our soul perceives, finds, and organizes what it knows. All categories of perceptions are cataloged individually in proper symbolic subordination. These two means by which the soul expresses itself we will call the soul’s spirit.
In Table 14, Influx, below, are mapped some of the structures of parts of the mind which will be explained in coming chapters. At the top above the mind is the soul, the one idea that knows and has the whole mind (line 1). Under the soul are the will, that rules desire to have (line 2, left) and the intellect that rules knowledge (line 2 right). All the way down at the bottom (line 7) is the threshold field of knowledge beyond which the soul does not know anything. The undefined ideas of that field are of two kinds, motor, or try idea-dots, and sensory, or find-idea-dots. Above the threshold field are try-things (line 6) that move the body, and find-types that perceive the body. These try-things and find-types are programmed by influx from the will and intellect to produce by an action-chain an appearance of space and time. And so those try ideas and find ideas constitute the motor system and sensory system of the mind’s threshold by actively grouping try idea-dots and learning find-idea-dots in the threshold field. They do this each action-moment of time by means of influx from the soul through the action-chain. Upon those two systems we will model the growth of four different tie-tree structures providing the mind with (a) emotion, (b) intention, (c) imagination, and (d) apperception. Table 14, Influx, should be used only for general orientation, because the layout is only a preliminary overview. This structure will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 16.
Thus we have a soul standing at the top of the mind with a prime thing array in one hand and a prime concept array in the other hand. The thing array has the urge to have, which is the soul’s will and all of its desires. The concept array has the urge to know, which is the soul’s intellect and all of its memory. These arrays are tremendous, extending from our spirit to our body and from birth to death, for they hold in their grasp the whole mind throughout life.
Something should be said, not only about how the mind works, but why it works. It works because the soul is an idea. Going all the way back to our mentics axiom, it can be stated this way: An idea is an urge to individually know each, and collectively have all of some other ideas. As shown in Chapter 8, this urge of any idea to know and have is both a duality and a unity in every idea. An idea is not a thing by virtue of this axiom unless both urge aspects exist as one urge. A whole expresses its urge to have all of its parts by joining them together as a group. The whole does not express an urge to know them individually. On the other hand, a type in a concept expresses its urge to know each of its symbols individually by sequencing them one at a time in a concept. A type has only its two parts, namely, the symbol and that symbol’s meaning, and cannot express its urge to have all of its symbols. Thus the whole and type structures are distinctly different. Any whole expresses the has all, and any type expresses the knows each. Each symbol must conform to the type’s meaning and express or symbolize it. To look at this from another perspective, for the parts of a whole to have parts-association, they need to have individuality which implies each, and for the symbols of a concept to have symbols-association, they need to have consistency which implies all. And so we can see that the each and the all aspects in the whole and type need each other.
We propose that this balance between the have and know in each structure leaves the whole hungry for the know each, and the type hungry for the have all. The type tries to have what it misses, and the whole tries to know what it misses. There seems to be an interaction of things and concepts (resembling the atomic valences of chemistry) to neutralize their have all urges and know each urges. The only way for the soul to know the properties of its will’s wholes and parts is to learn them, and the only way for the soul to have knowledge of its intellect’s types and symbols is to group them. In the mind, composed of a will (a thing array) and intellect (a concept array), we can see such “chemistry” being suggested in Table 12 and can see a call for equilibrium between those arrays in coming chapters. We will propose that the soul therefore has a purpose, namely, to conjoin things of the will together with the concepts of the intellect in order to fulfill the valences within their diverse domains and bring the mind into a state of equilibrium and unity.
Having provided the top of the mind a framework to hang on, let us look in the following chapter at the framework for the bottom of the mind as a foundation.
Mentics models the mental realm from the axiom that an idea has and knows other ideas. That axiom defines mentics, placing a limit upon its jurisdiction. Being confined to subjective reality, it can only model what can be known directly. Therefore it cannot directly model physical reality, for the material realm, which is the domain of physics and its axiom of mass and energy, can be inferred only by conjecture upon the purely mental qualia of experience. This chapter will trace the urge to know down to its limit, the threshold field, and consider the boundary that conjoins our mind with its physical body.
In review, Chapter 10 mentioned two structures of our spirit, a prime thing array and a prime concept array. The concept array models the ability of our mind to know ideas in a categorical fashion like an outline so that ideas can be located in the mind and thus be recalled. It was identified in the map as the mind’s intellect. The thing array models any thing we can imagine consisting of its parts, parts of parts, and so on down to its elementary parts. It was identified in the map as our mind’s will.
Let us examine the will. From the axiom that any idea is an urge to have and to know other ideas, we see the thing array as a pyramid of wholes that know parts and have them. To have them is the primary motive of the whole because when it has its parts, what it knows is that it has them and that they in turn have their parts, etc., all the way down to the array’s base ideas. Thus the thing array is a grand ramified pyramid by virtue of its urge and that of its parts and their parts to possess parts. If that urge to try to have parts were missing, the array would fall apart. And so the mind’s urge to have constituent ideas is considered its will.
In any structure there is a base of ideas whose things are not specified for practical reasons. Any structure is identified by its top idea(s) and by its base ideas. The same holds true for the structure of the mind. But the reason for this is that somewhere in the mind its thing array just cannot know any parts of parts. At some point by virtue of the finite nature of the mind we presume it runs out of its ability to know. Whether its base ideas have parts or not is unknowable. It has reached its limit, its threshold of knowledge. Each such idea is like a location without substance, just like a dot. Such ideas we call idea-dots. This field of idea-dots is also the threshold of mentics. Without knowledge, the mind is absent, and mentics does not apply.
Idea-dots of this threshold field can be selected as parts of wholes of the will’s thing array. A group of idea-dots so linked contains the urge of their whole to have, but what that urge is passed on to is beyond the ability of our mind to know by introspection. Groups of idea-dots in the will’s base in the threshold field are urges without expression. They are hopes or expectations, they are motives to act. Yes, they are motives. Are they converted somehow into physical energy? In a newborn baby we can see an analogue of random activity that expresses try-wholes that do not know what to link to. There is waving of arms, crying, etc. Even in an adult there are often emotional outbreaks that are symptoms of try-wholes that have no base to rest on. But now let us turn to the concept array. One’s will does not act without at least some degree of intelligence.
From the axiom that any idea is an urge to have and know other ideas, we also see the concept array as a pyramid of types and types of types, etc. A type is a whole that has a symbol and an abstract idea as parts. In a concept array are abstract ideas of abstract ideas. Each type possesses only two parts, but knows an array of abstract ideas of symbols. The urge of a type in a type array to have its parts is extremely limited, but its urge to know is unlimited. No, that is not quite true; for it, also, is indeed limited by the threshold field. The base ideas of the concept array (the mind’s intellect) also rest in the threshold field of idea-dots. We presume there comes a point when the mind cannot know. The ability to know is no longer transitive. Types of symbols in the intellect that are idea-dots are blind. Even if those idea-dots were also types, the mind would not know it. All it knows is that when some “light up”, they can be learned.
When some idea-dots light up? That phrase has two problems: 1) What makes them “light up”? and 2) “When” implies time, but how did time get into the mind?
Problem #1: We cannot say what makes idea-dots light up, for that is beyond the threshold of knowledge. However, we can speculate. In fact, we frankly know perfectly well that it is a material body that does so. But that knowledge is learned extrinsically from experience, not intrinsically from influx from the soul. Somehow, stimulated nerves affect the nervous system in such a way that a given dot will light up whenever a condition exists in the body with which it corresponds. How an idea is identified will be considered later, for that is a learned relationship.
What makes idea-dots “light up” or makes a baby “wave its arms” is occult. Why the thing array of the will can move the body, or why the concept array of the intellect can recognize which idea-dots to learn is unknown. Where to find the threshold, or boundary, between mind and body has been a grand question in the history of philosophy we cannot yet answer. It may be on the level of a holographic-like junction with the brain. Possibly just with nerve impulses in the cortical cells and their fibers. Maybe it is on the chemical level of the impulses, or even the chemistry throughout the body. Going even deeper, it may connect with quantum behavior of subatomic particles throughout the body. Wherever the threshold may be, we are convinced that there must be an interface between the introspective reality that we know, and the objective reality that we infer from mental experience. Because we cannot know the physical realm directly, any answer we may come up with must be surmise.
Problem #2: We have explained that a concept can model time, but we have not yet shown how a concept functions in the intellect to simulate time. This will be treated of in the following chapter.
In order to understand how the mind can make sense out of the idea-dots that it groups and learns, let us analyze what happens from moment to moment with the try fields and find fields, starting with the try-things of the motor system. Suppose the will has an urge at one moment to cause a try-whole to link try idea-dots and thus group them. Then suppose the moment after next that action happens again. Every other moment, a new try-whole forms a new try group, alternating with find-concepts. And suppose that many of those try groups consist of many of the same idea-dots as those of the previous try group. This would make those idea-dots try ties, and would make the try-things of those groups a chain of tied try-things, as mapped in Table 15.
As more action-moments come, so do more tied things, forming the tied-thing-chain. Each thing is tied to the next thing by a number of idea-dots. Eventually a thing may not have any tie to a thing farther along the chain, as shown in figure on line 4 of Table 15, Idea-dot Ties, where the first and last group of idea-dots do not overlap.
For an analogue of the tied try-things, we think of our typing this text. Our mind presumably has an idea in the will to move, such as a finger. Certain motor nerves are stimulated, depending upon which try idea-dots are grouped. As the finger moves, different sets of nerves are activated. Eventually none of the original motor nerves may be activated as the finger stops moving a certain muscle. However, the try wholes of a chain can model a certain motion for pressing a certain key of the keyboard. The entire chain of tied-wholes has a meaning that is greater than any given whole, because of the extension of the chain through time.
Now what about the find-types of the sensory-system? The concept array of the intellect senses the body by linking idea-dots every alternate action-moment of the try-and-find action-chain. The map of idea-dots in Table 15, Idea-dot Ties, applies to the sensory-system equally as it does to the motor-system, except it learns the idea-dots instead of grouping them. The intellect therefore produces tied find-types instead of tied-things.
For an analogue of tied find-types, we think of looking at our computer monitor as we key this text. The analogue’s image is made up of pixels rather than idea-dots. The dots are not arranged in the mind as a geometric area as pictured in Table 15, Idea-dot Ties, or on a monitor screen. However, from moment to moment there are ties of find-types that form find-concepts. Each idea-dot finds itself being a symbol of various find-concepts. Think of such concepts as qualia. Each concept has learned its idea-dots. If they are all from red stimuli, then a concept of red exists, and that concept may be named red. Eventually the intellect may place that quale red into a tree of concepts that carries a broader meaning that may include warmth or blood, as well as into a concept that means only color, etc.
Thus any given find-type knows the present-time chain of tied find-types. In this way each idea-dot as a symbol gains a meaning. Through long experience the intellect can assume all sorts of meaning for each idea-dot such as color, location with respect to other idea-dots, and so forth. In other words, as an idea-dot in the threshold-field is learned repeatedly, it becomes a symbol of a growing number of find-types, which are abstract ideas, and therefore assumes more and more meaning for the soul, which knows all of those types in its intellect.
We have now described how the motor system and sensory-system can produce chains of tied try-things and tied find-concepts. Next we will show how these chains can be organized into four mental processes that lead to ideas of (a) motives, (b) habits, (c) images, and (d) qualia.
Our soul’s urge is to conjoin our will with our intellect. This urge motivates the whole mind. The thing array gravitates toward the concept array and vice versa. One mentics structure that we have discovered that demonstrates this process strongly is the action-chain. It consists of a type-chain (concept) linked sequentially to a tied-wholes-chain. This conjunction was shown to model the change of space with respect to time, which is action. That powerful structure is described in Chapter 7.
The “energy” to join that the urge has points from top ideas downwards toward a base. However this cannot happen without that base. The active cannot act unless there is a passive to act upon. In order to have a deductive analysis, there has to be an inductive synthesis. To build anything, we need to have not only a plan, but also materials of construction. Here, again, the action-chain structure exemplifies this relation between an urgent cause and a consequential effect.
Although mentics cannot model the body, for that is beyond its axiom’s domain, yet, as we said, there can be no question in a rational person’s mind that we have a body. When our mind looks down to find our body and reaches the limit of introspective knowledge, it must make some presumptions, just like those made when we looked up and presumed that there is a top idea we call soul that has both a will and an intellect. We must presume that when our mind has try-things, there is a body that reacts, and that when our mind senses, there is a body that stimulates. A rational person comes to those presumptions because perception of one’s sensations very easily correlates perceptions with motives. We learn that a certain try results in a certain sensation. That process teaches what it is that we try, as well as what we find as a result. This correlation is so strong that we even tend to identify mind and body. Yet in our present study we are dealing only with mind, and at this level we will call it the corporeal mind.
How does the mind try-and-find ideas? As we have theorized in the previous chapter, when some idea-dots are grouped by a whole, something in the body reacts physically, such as motor neurons, glands, etc. We also theorized that when sensory nerves of the body are stimulated, some idea-dots are learned. The body with its brain is a black box as far as mentics is concerned. As previously observed, we are concerned only with the idea-dots; for their analogues in terms of physical matter can be implicitly modeled by, but not strictly derived from, the mentics axiom, and are thus actually outside of our jurisdiction. All that the mind can know at this level is that it groups and learns idea-dots.
We showed in Chapter 10, Table 14, Influx, a proposed map of how influx of urge from soul structures our mind. Line 7 of that table points to the threshold-field of knowledge. Upon that field of idea-dots is an action-chain structure (line 6) of try-things and find-types which, as has been shown, consists of a type-chain that is a concept of a tied-thing-chain. That concept is a type-chain of the intellect, and the tied-thing-chain is a chain of the will. In the search for meaning, our soul has an urge to conjoin our intellect’s urge to know with our will’s urge to have. In Table 16, Mind’s Threshold, above, the type-chain, which models the concept of time, provides sequence, since knowledge is directional from a type to its lower types. The tied-thing-chain models action-moments that the concept sequences. Each action-moment is tied to a past-time moment and to a future-time moment. This means there are two ties in a present-time moment, one to past-time, and one to future-time.
We propose that every moment in our try-and-find action-chain has only two parts, a try-whole and a find-type (see row 2 of Table 16, Mind’s Threshold, that shows tied-wholes of action-moments). This proposition agrees with the soul’s prime urge that conjoins things and types in one’s mind. Such a structure models a chain where, at one moment, a try-whole forms a group of threshold try idea-dots followed in the subsequent moment by a find-type forming a chain of threshold find-idea-dots.
Since there is only one try-whole and one find-type in each tied group, and each of those ideas is a tie, one a tie to a past-time moment and the other a tie to a future-time moment, then it must follow that the groups in sequence are tied alternately by a try-whole & find-type, find-type & try-whole, etc., like walking from one moment to another. This is indeed an example of conjunction, and also a model of one’s life, where we search and find, try and succeed, work and enjoy, or maybe search for one thing but find another, search and cannot find, try and err. But through this process we learn. Such a give-and-take sequence models the baby’s random motions that gradually lead it to discover that crying finds food, smiling finds attention, bending the arm brings the thumb to the mouth. It also models look and see of one’s eyeballs, as well as many other learning events.
The soul is at the top of our mind, the idea-dots are at the bottom. We suppose that down at the base level the soul’s urge to join flows into the try-and-find action-chain every action-moment as shown in Table 16, Mind’s Threshold. On line 1, an urge to know creates a concept which provides sequence. On line 2, an urge to have creates a tied-wholes-chain of action-moments. Shown on line 3, an urge to have also creates try-wholes and an urge to know creates find-types, both of which act as ties in the tie chain. Line 5 shows that parts of try-wholes can overlap, forming a tied-thing-chain, and shows that symbols of find-types can overlap forming a tied-concept chain, as also shown in Table 15, Idea-dot Ties. By conjoining (1) and (2) from the top, the soul creates an action-chain. By conjoining (3) and (4) from below the soul creates tied try chains and tied find chains. Thus the try-and-find action-chain provides a plan for construction that rests on a corporeal base.
One important introspective event we see in this model is that the corporeal mind is big. A moment can be any size – a year or maybe just a microsecond. But even the shortest moment can have billions of ideas when all inputs into and out of the body are considered. Think of only a small organ of the face, the eye. In just one glance from one eye we see a picture with as much detail as a computer monitor, with colors and immense complexity. The mind must have a large processing unit to manage the find-idea-dots resulting from that glance. And then, in the same moment, consider the complex system of muscles that move the eyeball, adjust the focus, and adjust the iris to prepare for the next moment. Such a moment may even use idea-dots to interpret individual nerve impulses. In any case, a series of such moments, for one minute would contain a staggering quantity of ideas. That was just for the eye. The body is far bigger than one eye, and a year is longer than a minute.
Finally, add to that the mind’s task of processing idea-dots to produce such thought-modes as imagination and intention. These multiply the size of the mind by another mind-boggling factor. To handle this mental traffic, our mind must contain very many layers of try-and-find action-chains.
Deep in thought back on Kirk Road, we ponder visual imagery. Walking slowly, our eyes on the ground to avoid distraction, they glance from one object to another, a leaf, an insect, a pebble. There is a correlation between what we see and what we focus on, and then between what we focus on and what we see. The correlation is so absolute that our attention is not on where we try to look or on the experience that results, but rather it is on what the objects are. Reading a book is that way, too. The try-wholes and find-types of vision work as a single action in a continuous chain.
To model the mind in Chapter 10 we expressed the need to formulate propositions as generalizations for mental structure. Four of these have so far been devised. (1) First in that chapter came the will-and-intellect-proposition asserting that an individual has a soul, which in turn has a thing array we called will, expressing its urge to have, and a concept array we called intellect, expressing its urge to know. (2) Then we introduced the conjunction-proposition which states that the soul has an urge to conjoin things of its will and concepts of its intellect. This provides the mind with an overall purpose. (3) Then, in Chapter 13, came the try-and-find-proposition postulating that a tied-thing-chain structure sequentially associates one try-whole of idea-dots with one find-type of idea-dots. This creates an action-chain for the corporeal mind. And (4), back in Chapter 12, was the action-proposition that, by linking a type-chain to the try-and-find wholes, the action-chain, the soul conjoins one try-thing with one find-concept, which forms tied try-thing chains and tied find-concept chains, further conjoining things and concepts.
About trees, there are pure-trees and tie-trees. Tie-trees consist of lower things or lower concepts that are tied, and thus are trees with layers of tied-thing-chains. Each layer has the same baseline as every other layer, which lets us call it a tree rather than just an array. Tie-trees differ from pure-trees in that pure-trees do not contain any ties on any given layer, as in the the analogue of a deck of cards.
And so as another corollary to the conjunction-proposition, which implies that our soul’s urge wants to conjoin our will and intellect, we now introduce the tie-tree-proposition which implements that urge of the soul by grouping and learning tied-things and tied-concepts. Tie-tree-proposition states that wholes of tied-things are grouped and learned, and types of tied-concepts are grouped and learned. Such action by our soul of producing ideas to execute these propositions is the result of the transitive nature of its urge.
Tie-tree-proposition creates the natural mind. It does so by executing the conjunction-proposition which calls for conjoining things and concepts. By linking ideas to the tied-wholes of the try-and-find action-chain a correlation-loop of try-wholes and find-types is made. Also, by linking ideas to the chains of tied try-wholes and chains of tied find-types described in the previous chapter, the soul makes ramified trees of ideas which model four thought-modes of mental structures. We show how those structures interact in a reflex-loop to produce mental life.
Soul makes try-and-find chains by grouping try-wholes and find-types with action-moments of the action-chain. To further conjoin things and concepts, soul also learns and groups these tied-wholes according to the tie-tree-proposition that groups and learns tied-wholes and tied-types. By this means soul converts a moment by moment association between try-wholes and find-concepts into a dynamic tree of correlation over time of what is tried and what is found. A tree of correlations between what muscles are moved and what sensations are perceived is created. This loop is a discrete degree higher than the action-chain loop of try-wholes and find-types. It models small, transient moments of sub second magnitude, and also extended moments of minutes or even hours, if the ties of wholes and types persist that long. Such correlations model conjunction of what we see with where we look, where to scratch with where we itch, how tight to tense our vocal chords to match what we hear from a tuning fork, when to step to set pace with the marching ranks. In other words, rhythm and harmony. Notice there are two kinds of correlation tree, one the will has, and another the intellect knows. Thus what will has gives us a feeling for rhythm, and what the intellect knows gives us perception of pitch and timing.
Applying tie-tree-proposition to the try-and-find action-chain, tied-things (action-moments) are grouped in Table 17, Idea-dot Ties, and are learned in Table 18, Correlation Concept-tree. Because try-wholes and find-concepts are associated by the action-moments, applying this tie-tree-proposition to the action-chain correlates the association of these two thought-modes over chains of moments. This provides both will and intellect with intimate conjunction with each other on the lowest, corporeal, plane of our mind.
Darn it! A stone in my shoe. I can’t see it, but I know it’s a stone. It will make a hole in my sock if I don’t remove it, and then I’ll have to “darn it” (ha-ha). It took very little thought to correlate the sharp pressure I felt on my foot from a piece of road gravel. With each step the correlation was reinforced. What I have is correlated in my will with what I know, and what I know is correlated in my intellect with what I have. With each step the correlations get broader and higher.
It is too complicated at this point to show all of the joints (points of conjunction) that result from applying the tie-tree-proposition to a baseline of tied-wholes or tied-types. But it is good to be aware of the fact that there are such joints working beyond our simple expressions to thoroughly integrate tied-wholes and tied-types at all levels. Table 19, Integrated Correlation-tree, just gives an example applying the proposition to each level, alternately learning with types and grouping with wholes. As this is performed the meanings become more abstract as higher levels appear.
Tie-tree-proposition also applies to the tied-thing-chains of try-wholes that appear over extended moments of time, and to the tied-type-chains that also appear over extended moments of time, as shown in Table 15, Idea-dot Ties and Table 16 – Mind’s Threshold. There are four kinds of these tie-trees. The wholes and types they contain are called thought-modes. (1) If they are based on tied try-wholes that are grouped, they are called motives. (2) If they are based on tied find-types that are learned, they are called qualia. (3) If they are based on tied find-types that are grouped, they are called images. And (4) if they are based on tied try-wholes that are learned, they are called habits.
We notice that as we look from one object on the road to another object, not only do our eyes move together, but our head turns, and maybe we even stop walking to look more closely. There is more than a chain of try-wholes directing our eyes to focus on an object, there is a tremendous tree of motives.
Table 20, Motives, shows a map of the structures that provide the mind with the thought-function of emotion. Try-wholes that group idea-dots to make the body move overlap, and are therefore tied over moments of time. Thus they are a tied-thing-chain. This models physical motion. When we apply the tie-tree-proposition, we not only get a chain of tied-wholes, but find that those wholes are also tied, making a tied whole tree (tied-thing-tree).
What happens here is that our soul’s urge has flowed down through our will into the motor system of our corporeal mind where it can move the body by having try idea-dots. Our will may not know what idea-dots to have at the time being. Repeated effort to move makes other groups of try idea-dots, and thus resulting in motion of the body. That motion is continuous because the groups of idea-dots are tied. Now our soul wants to have an idea of what it is doing, which it can do by grouping tied try-wholes into a try thing-tree. In this way it can integrate the various moments, or try-things, into generalized effort which we call a motive. How generalized the integration is depends upon where in a given whole tie-tree a given motive is. If a motive is higher in the tie-tree it commands more idea-dots. The ability of our natural mind to make motives gives our will the thought-function we call emotion, as will be discussed in the next chapter.
Table 21, Qualia, shows a map of the structures that provide the mind with the thought-function of apperception. Find-types that learn idea-dots the body has activated overlap, and are therefore tied over moments of time. Thus they make a tied-type-chain. This models sensory perception. When we apply the tie-tree-proposition, we not only get a chain of tied types, but find that those types are also tied, making a tied type-tree.
What happens is that our soul’s urge has flowed down through our intellect into the sensory system of our corporeal mind where it can sense the body by learning find idea-dots. We may not know at first what an idea-dot means. When an idea-dot is first learned by a find-type it is meaningless. But by being learned, it becomes a symbol of a find-type. There is then an element of meaning given to it as a symbol by concurrent association with a type in the find-concept. Every alternate moment, a new find-concept is learned, providing another abstract meaning for that idea-dot. The more often a given idea-dot is learned, the more meaning it gains by such association in various concepts. Thus as a tied-concept-tree grows, each type in that tree has a unique baseline of idea-dots, and a unique meaning which we call a quale. An often used analogue for a quale is the experience of the color red. That is not a thought, but the experience of a property of an idea. Or, is it the experience of an idea of a property? It provides our intellect with the ability to discriminate various experiences so that we can learn the properties of things. Where emotion integrates, apperception in this way differentiates.
Table 22, Images, shows a figure of the structures that provide the mind with the thought-function of imagination. Find-types that learn idea-dots the body has activated overlap, and are therefore tied over moments of time. Thus they make a tied-type-chain. Although our intellect knows these chains of experience as qualia, our will does not have them. They slip into our memory without being noticed. To bring them to the attention of our will, our soul invokes the tie-tree-proposition which groups tied-concepts. By grouping the tied-concepts, the wholes of those groups of find-types are also tied. And in turn, those are tied and so grouped forming a tied-thing-tree. Each thing in such tied-thing-tree we call an image. It is an image because any tied-whole in that tree has a baseline of qualia that give the parts of that image properties as described in the preceding paragraph. When we have an idea of something and know the properties of all of its parts, then we can imagine it. But if the properties of the parts are unknown, then we cannot. We can imagine a deck of cards if we know what the cards are like; they are stiff little rectangles of paper with designs on them. Without some properties of the cards, the idea of the deck cannot be imagined.
Table 23, Habits, shows a map of the structures that provide the mind with the thought-function of intention. As in the emotion table, try-wholes that group idea-dots to make our body move overlap, and are therefore tied over moments of time. Our mind employs the tie-tree-proposition to get our intellect to learn the tied-thing-chain. This grows into a tied-thing-tree, each of whose wholes we call a habit.
The difference between a motive and a habit is the difference between what we make an effort toward, and what we know to make an effort toward; for a motive is in the will, being a whole, and a habit, that knows what to do, is in the intellect, being a type. To know what to try to move is different from deciding to move it. After we have learned how to move we use that memory automatically to ignite our motive, because they become correlated. The ability of our corporeal mind to make habits gives our will the thought-function called intention, as will be discussed in the next chapter.
To summarize the above tables, our soul’s urge to conjoin the will’s things with the intellect’s concepts creates over time four tie-trees. Two are tied-thing-trees topped by wholes of the will, which we call a motive and an image; and two are tied-concept-trees topped by types of the intellect, which we call a habit and a quale. These four tie-trees are called thought-modes because they are used for thinking. Table 20, Motives, maps how our will constantly constructs tie-trees from try groups of try idea-dots to make motive thought-modes. Table 21, Qualia maps how our intellect constantly constructs tie-trees of types of find-idea-dots to make qualia thought-modes. Table 23, Habits, maps how our intellect constantly constructs tie-trees of tied-types of try idea-dots to make habit thought-modes. Table 22, Images, maps how our will constantly constructs tie-trees of tied-wholes of find idea-dots to make image thought-modes. These four kinds of thought-modes made by the soul are the tools for our animal nature, or natural mind, used by its reflex-loop as discussed now below. Later, in the following chapter, they will be shown to be the basis that will lead us to modeling four thought-functions of the rational-mind that we call emotion, intention, apperception, and imagination. But now consider how these thought-modes actually work to make the reflex-loop.
Proposed reflex-loop as pictured in Table 24, Reflex-loop, relates tie-tree thought-modes sequentially as follows: habit → motive → quale → image → habit.
These four tie-tree thought-modes of Table 24, Reflex-loop, then self-assemble into the rest of the reflex-loop thus:
Whether from learned habits acquired from trial and error or from instinctive habits from heredity, our nature is predisposed to behaving in predetermined ways. The cause of our behavior may not be known, but as long as we are alive, we certainly will behave. The reflex-loop must be seen as active, for its tie-trees evolve from the try-and-find action-chain, making them active structures, not static (see Tables 20, 21,, 22,, and 23). Direction is implied throughout that action by the temporal sequence of the action-chain which alternates between try-wholes and find-types (Table 16). The sequence goes from try to find in one moment and from find to try in the next. This acts as a sort of check valve at the threshold-field level that imposes direction on the chains of tied try-wholes and the chains of tied find-types. Such direction takes effect at every level of the tie-trees, even though they are abstracted from the action-chain itself. However, the tied try-wholes chain is out of step with the tied find-types chain. Therefore qualia and habits are out of step with motives and images. This results in a sequence as shown in Table 24, making it a loop.
Consequently, as intellect learns tied try chains and the motives that drive them, it is looking at their activity. As it categorizes those activities, it knows their sequences. Being out of step with the will, intellect anticipates the next motive from memory, and by that anticipation, programs motives for the succeeding moment. Such inertia is why habits work.
Tied try-wholes are seen as efforts to move. Suppose two tied try-wholes activate one motor nerve, then a chain of them would activate a series of motions. When they are grouped by the tie-tree-proposition, a tree of them might model the action of a whole muscle or two, with a series of motions, depending upon what habit happens to program them. The consequences of this series of try-wholes are loops of a correlated series of find-types. From that correlation, will associates try-wholes with find-types, and intellect learns that association.
Just as the tie-tree-proposition broadened correlation of try-wholes and find-types by building correlation-trees, so it broadens and elevates the meaning of qualia in the intellect by building concept-trees which classify and memorize (learn) sense experience
A chain of tied find-types is a concept. It is a concept independent of the corporeal correlation clock, even though it is sequential, for its sequence is not measured per se—it has no metronome, as it were. Yet when a chain of idea-dots is learned, each one acquires a symbolic meaning that associates it with the other idea-dots of the same type. Each type in a type-tree is an abstract meaning of every idea that it knows. Therefore, each type that knows a given idea-dot is an abstract meaning of it. The higher the type in a type-tree, the more abstract is that meaning. As moments pass, the meaning of a given idea-dot can change because it becomes the symbol of more and more types. Thus an idea-dot sensitive to one retinal cone grows in meaning as it is learned by vast numbers of types over time. But its meaning will be limited to those types that experience dictates. If the cone is responsive only to red light, the meaning of its idea-dot will develop a similar quale to all other red sensitive cone idea-dots. Color red would be only one meaning for that idea-dot. Position in the retina would be another, and intensity may be another, etc. This scenario applies to all senses, and at all levels on the tied qualia tree.
Images are what the will gets from the intellect, for tie-tree-proposition also acts through will to convert concepts of sense experience into images. Thus the tie-tree-proposition applied to the qualia tree groups every tied-type on every level of that tree. All qualia are in the domain of the intellect, being types that know perceptions. When tied qualia are grouped, the whole that groups them is in the domain of the will. The will has symbols of properties. Groups of symbols of types are images. These images are above the level of the corporeal clock, but yet they are dynamic, being based on the action-chain. Tied qualia are ever moving. If one stares at an object without some kind of motion, the object soon disappears. Our will demands action.
Habits are what intellect knows about will’s motives. Concurrently tie-tree-proposition acts upon the intellect to convert motives to concepts. These concepts in intellect are intimately correlated with the images in will at their correlation-loops’ baselines. We propose that it is this correlation of an image of qualia with previous motives that works like a synapse to provide the soul with a path for the subsequent motive.
Thus the reflex-loop is closed. Notice that the tie-tree-proposition can be applied to all levels of tie-trees. Thus types can learn images and wholes can have habits. Intellect can know types of images, and thus categorize images. Will can have groups of habits, both good and bad, as we know too well. Our model of the reflex-loop suggests that the four thought-modes of motives, qualia, images, and habits are distinct, whereas actually they are interwoven at all levels. The resulting complexity can be confusing unless we focus our concerns only on specific situations within those vast trees.
On this walk, we do not turn onto Kirk Road that winds along the Maiden Creek valley. Rather, since it is a cool, sunny day, we decide to go way up the foothill overlooking the little town of Kempton to see the gorgeous landscape of woods, fields, rolling hills, and mountains. From here the world seems much larger than when viewed in the woods. Yet we cannot see the detail. Looking down at Kempton, it looks like a small bunch of toy houses with the silos of its grain mill claiming dominance. The rocks crowning Pinnacle Mountain are clearly visible nearby, obscuring Hawk Mountain eight miles away, part of the Blue Mountain ridge that runs endlessly along the border of Appalachian Range. It is well named Blue, for as the first large mountain on the range it can be seen from great distances, but easily mistaken for a bank of blue-gray clouds along the horizon.
Up to this point in this work we have been modeling structures in our mind by applying the axioms of mentics to our introspections. By reflecting upon how our ideas interrelate and function we have defined structures that give us mental relationships that can be pictured in diagrams and described in alphabetical expressions. These help us to think about what is going on in our own minds. However, now we find it more difficult to introspect. It is as if we can see the mountains far away, but only their general shape that is hard to distinguish from clouds.
In the previous chapter we mapped in Table 23 the reflex-loop that modeled the natural mind’s automatic, cyclic intercourse between will and intellect. This implies our animal nature. Bodily appetites try to find stability in every aspect of daily life. On the attraction side, symmetry, rhythm, familiarity, and friendship keep us trying for more of the same things. On the avoidance side we find that eating turns off hunger pangs, balance keeps us from falling, self defense or fleeing keeps us from getting hurt. The fittest try-wholes automatically provide survival of the fewest find-types. Our reflex-loop is the proposed law of evolution of our natural mind. It works automatically by rules. We can see it because we can look down on our natural mind and inspect it.
No, we have not been looking in at it from outside. When we introspected we were looking down from inside our mind. We were actually “superspecting”. Our natural, animal mind was obviously being examined by some higher mind that could see it from above and could supervise it. We thought about it. We figured out how it works. We rationalized it. We even modified it. And so there must be two minds in us, a natural mind connected with nature, and a rational mind connected with reason. Most of what we have done so far in this work has been done by the rational level of our mind – not the rational by itself, but by means of the natural mind as a tool. All four thought-modes of thought have been employed, qualia, images, habits, and motives. With them we can perform induction. But that reflex-loop of the natural mind is not what discovered mentics, it was a rational train-of-thought looking down from a higher level that discovered it. It takes deduction for that, and deduction requires a higher perspective.
To organize objective data, physics finds it necessary to use the non-deterministic concept of probability in statistics and quantum mechanics. Similarly, to organize subjective data, mentics finds it necessary to use the non-deterministic concept of choice in reason and freedom.
Our introspection tells us that there is more than a reflex-loop going on in our mind. We are able to reflect and hope. Thought does not seem to be blindly automatic. There seems to be a higher thought that monitors our reflex-loop, a thought that can supervise that loop and direct it, a thought that can promote motives that are higher and broader and more fitted to survival, or that can opt for less fit short term and lower motives, a thought that can figure out how to optimize continually and indefinitely the conjunction of will and intellect, if it wants to do so: a thought that has choice. We can choose to pay attention to this or that, be it an emotion, an intention, an imagination, or an apperception. Our attention can switch from concentration on a minute particular to a universal principle. We feel, rightly or wrongly, that we can choose where to direct our attention. However, these observations are not superspection. They are truly introspective events, for the train-of-thought is looking into itself to see how it works. It is looking in and up. Someday we may find out how to superspect our rational mind from a level that is even higher than itself, but for now we must depend at this level upon our introspection.
Table 25, Train-of-thought, proposes a structure for a higher mind that models our ability to choose what to think about and to know what there is to think about. By knowing what there is to think about we can have a choice. Of all the things there are to think about, the one we choose basically constitutes our reason for choosing. We choose an idea because we want it. After we have chosen an idea we can justify it by elaboration, but essentially the choice’s reason is what we chose. Choice and its reason boil down to the same idea. They are our current thought-moment. The two chains mapped in Table 25 are (1) a thing chain called attention-chain, and a concept called reason-chain. They have the same baseline, namely the chain of thought-moments called train-of-thought. Attention-chain and reason-chain are identical except for one feature: an attention whole, such as 1C in the table, has all past thought-moments, but at the same thought moment, 3c, reason type 4N knows each past thought-moment in the train-of-thought.
Thus attention-chain belongs to the will and has the whole rational mind, but reason-chain belongs to the intellect and knows all of the rational mind. Incidentally, although attention also knows the whole rational mind, knowledge being transitive, yet it cannot organize it. Will depends upon intellect for that.
The entire structure consisting of the train-of-thought, attention-chain, and reason-chain is referred to as the rational mind due to its ability to find reasons and to choose to pay attention to them, a combination we propose as the process of reasoning. Suppose that a reason for attention is any symbol that the top type knows. The more abstract the reason, the more reasonable it is. Thus the higher the better. This is because in a given structure only the top idea knows every other idea in that structure. In the reason-chain, a reason knows the choice of the previous thought-moment and thus it knows the types of all lower thought-moments in the train-of-thought. Since it is the type of the previous thought-moment, it is thus the abstract idea of it. Looking at the thought-moment, it is a part of attention, having been chosen by it, and is a symbol of reason, being the reason that was chosen. Each thought-moment is thus memorized into the intellect’s train-of-thought concept-tree.
Take a look at the global view of what the soul does; see Table 26, Reflection-loop. Here is a reflection-loop that is like the reflex-loop of Table 24, Reflex-loop, from the soul’s point of view. The soul perceives qualia and has images of experience; it knows habits and has motives of action. Each of these thought-modes is based upon local, instantaneous motor and sensory activities that are integrated by tie-trees into broad, prolonged, and abstract thought-modes of thought. The action-moments overlap, providing panoramic experiences over many hours. The soul looks at these thought-modes from above with its attention-chain and reason-chain. Attention and reason can intercept the automatic operation of thought-modes in the reflex-loop by exercising choice. They create apperception from qualia by classifying all experience in an organized concept-tree. From images they create imagination by recalling and rearranging images in memory. From habits they create intention, and from motives they create motivation, which expresses the urge to carry out our intention. They perform all of these miracles in the train-of-thought merely by learning and grouping thought-modes of the reflex-loop including memories of these stored in the intellect’s vast array of concept-tree memories.
From this global view we ask, why does our soul want to intercept our reflex-loop? Its intellect is what provides the input to the reflex-loop by reading find idea-dots in the sensory system. If some find idea-dots provide qualia that have not been correlated with try-wholes in memory, then no habit exists in memory to govern our response to the sensation. This brings to attention of thought the opportunity either to accept these qualia merely as a new experience and live with the consequence, or to pay further attention to that experience to provide a rational category that accords with broader past-time experience.
If, at some given moment, qualia are successfully categorized by intellect, then the reflex-loop would proceed to having the will group them to convert them into an image. If a suitable category cannot be found for the resulting image, then again, intellect confronts thought with a choice, either to treat this as a new experience come what may, or try to figure out how to categorize it. In other words, if we feel and recognize an experience but cannot recognize it as something we know, then it draws our attention to figure it out, either to identify it or consider it a new kind of experience. But even as a seed type our intellect needs a bed to plant it in. It must be some kind of some thing.
When intellect is engaged in classifying qualia or images, habit waits for directions. The plan of action is suspended. However, if attention chooses to forgo reflection, then habit logs in the concept of the current moment as a correlate of the try-whole that preceded it. We do what we usually did in similar situations.
As a possible alternative to a habit, intellect may nominate a category for qualia or an image. Any category is a type in intellect that is the top idea of a concept-tree. Attention of the will can focus on any type at any level of that tree. When it does so, that type becomes the intention of the subsequent moment, future-time, and is known as the habit for future-time reflex-loops.
We see from the four preceding paragraphs that a moment of thought has a choice at each point in the reflex-loop. The mental act of reflection occurs when we stop to think. The try-and-find cycle, and the expansive consequences of tie-trees of thought-modes that result in reflex-loops, can be interrupted. There are many reasons we get for interrupting them. All of those reasons come from our reason-chain. But they only interrupt our reflex-loop if we want them to. And we only choose to interrupt it if we have some intentions in our intellect that the reflex-loop does not fulfill. The suffix -tion in the reflection-loop implies action of choice in train-of-thought upon the four thought-modes in the reflex-loop.
Attention can select any idea that the present-time reason knows. Present-time reason is the type of the present-time thought-moment, and it knows everything in the mind that is happening or that ever has happened (see Table 25). Therefore attention can select as the next thought-moment any thought-mode, past-time or present-time, or any thought-moment, past-time or present-time, including the current type of all thought-moments. If attention focuses upon the vast tree of our past-time trains-of-thought, it can build structures upon the baseline of the reflex-loop that are not natural, but rather synthetic. A marvelous example of this is the archetype.
Table 27, Object & Archetype, shows an amazing capability of the rational mind to conceptualize and realize (make to appear real ) ideas that are only in our mind (as is the case, of course, with all ideas). Here, by the process of conjunction, both recognition and recollection are effected.
The act of reflection by our attention that leads to the train-of-thought selects ideas from various sources, including (1) current thought-modes from the reflex-loop, (2) memories of thought-modes, which seem to identify with habits, (3) ideas known by thought-moments from our current reason (the type of current thought-moment), in other words, (4) any idea that current reason knows.
Part One established structures for modeling our mind, and this Part Two has attempted to construct a model that describes our personal introspective observations. We think these models will also work for other people. This chapter reviews the structures that lead up to our model of the natural level of our mind, and introduces the prospect of modeling the rational level of our mind based on the train-of-thought that was proposed in Chapter 15.
In Part One we modeled the idea of a thing with its whole and all of its parts collectively, expressing an idea’s urge to have. From that came the type that models a concept with each of its symbols sequentially, and thus individually, expressing an idea’s urge to know. Thing-trees and concept-trees expanded the meaning of these two structures, allowing us to propose a model of our mind. The mind had a top idea, soul, whose purpose was to conjoin things and concepts under its domain in order to unify the two aspects of its urge to know and to have other ideas. The natural mind model does this by correlating groups and types of corporeal idea-dots, and then grouping and learning them to make tie-trees that give us the reflex-loops of our natural mind. Table 28, Mental Structure, shows the structure of our mind on four levels, corporeal, natural, rational, and spiritual.
Although the mind is constructed by the action of the soul’s urge flowing downwards, its construction begins at the bottom, as with building a house. We will review the process of that construction from our mind’s foundation in the threshold-field of idea-dots at the bottom of Table 28, Mental Structure, line 10. Think of the ideas as the building materials for construction, with idea-dots being the footing. Find-types are like the bricks, and try-wholes are like the mortar. We will play the part of the soul that directs the project and ends up living in the house.
Line 9 of Table 28, Mental Structure, mentions groups of idea-dots (a) that have been selected by try-wholes to move the body, and (b) that have been learned by find-types to sense body stimulations.
Line 8 shows (a) the try-things that the try-wholes made by grouping idea-dots, and (b) the find-concepts that the find-types made by learning idea-dots. These things and concepts are purely corporeal, being based on idea-dots of the threshold-field. They perform their activity because they are parts of an action-chain, a result of our Try-and-find-proposition: The tied-thing-chain sequentially associates one try-whole of idea-dots with one find-type of idea-dots. That chain associates one try-whole with one find-type every action-moment, because the soul wants to conjoin wholes and types. The soul also made the action-chain for this job by conjoining wholes with types, in accordance with the Action-proposition: The soul conjoins a type sequentially with a whole in a tied-thing-chain.
As moments pass, a try → find group is followed by a find → try group, and that by another try → find group, etc. Our soul has a terrific opportunity to conjoin try-wholes and find-types by correlating their two chains. This creation of the correlation-loop models the structure of the corporeal mind.
Line 7, Table 28, Mental Structure,, shows the two chains. They are chains because motions and sensations of the body are continuous, and therefore the try-things are tied and the find-concepts are tied.
Now our soul pulls out all stops to conjoin wholes and types in accordance with the Tie-tree-proposition. Tied-wholes are grouped and learned, and tied-types are grouped and learned. This describes the soul’s will in grouping and its intellect in learning tied-wholes and tied-types. It turns our simple correlation of try-and-find ideas into correlation-trees, a thing-tree for the will (Table 17, Correlation Tie-thing-tree), and a type-tree for the intellect (Table 18, Correlation Concept-tree).
Line 6 of Table 28, Mental Structure, shows another consequence of the tie-tree-proposition. As mentioned, the corporeal level develops two chains, a chain of tied try-wholes and a chain of tied find-types. Because they are tied they are grouped and learned, resulting in four tie-trees of thought-modes. Row 6(a) lists a tree of motives, 6(b) a tree of habits, 6(c) a tree of images, and 6(d) a tree of qualia. Two of those trees are conjunctions of the other two trees: habits are what the intellect learns about the will’s try-things, and images are what the will has from the intellect’s find-concepts. All of these trees are interwoven intimately in a similar way as are the correlation-trees suggested by Table 19, Integrated Correlation-tree. Based on the reflex-loop of Table 24, Reflex Loop, they provide an automatic process for learning habits that correlate motives and perceptions.
Line 4 of Table 28, Mental Structure, shows what happens when the rational mind reflects upon any of the thought-modes. Train-of-thought-proposition says: Attention of the will chooses a reason of the intellect as a thought-moment in the train-of-thought. Reflection is the act of choosing to think about what goes on in the mind. When we choose to think only about a motive, we feel an emotion. When we choose to think only about a habit, we contemplate our intention. When we choose to think only about an image, we exercise our imagination. When we choose to focus only on a quale, we experience apperception.
The trees of thought-modes are not necessarily distinct when integrated, but this simplified summary gives us an overview. Looking at the reflex-loop from the rational level turns it into a reflection-loop of Table 26, for any thought-mode can be interrupted by our soul’s attention, modifying our thought and behavior.
Line 3 of Table 28, Mental Structure, shows the software that makes a train-of-thought possible, as shown in Table 25, Train-of-thought. Reason is the type of a given thought-moment. Using this as a definition, the intellect has classified the previous choice, that is, it has made our present-time thought a symbol of previous choices. Thus our intellect adds this choice to its chain of past-time choices lower than our present-time thought. With such a perspective, our attention then has a greater scope. It can see the present-time moment in the light of past-time choices concurrently with present-time thought-modes, including sensations. The conjunction of choice with a reasonable view of the relevant past-time and present-time enables a choice for the next thought to be made, either approving the past-time choice by selecting the present-time reason (that includes present-time experience), or choosing some other thought-function from the past-time that ignores present-time thought. We see such self-examination as being instantaneous and continuous. From our freedom to choose our thoughts in the light of our reason, our soul constantly struggles to bring our motives into correspondence with our apperceptions by improving conjunction of things and concepts.
Why does our soul strive for conjunction? It is an idea, and an idea has an urge to know and have other ideas to express itself. To express both aspects of its urge we offered the Will-and-intellect-proposition: Soul has a thing array and intellect has a concept array each extending to a base of idea-dots. These two aspects of the soul’s urge leave the soul’s expression with a split personality. Will and intellect need to be conjoined to properly express the soul. For that we offered the Conjunction-proposition: The soul has an urge to conjoin things of the will array with concepts of the intellect array.
Spirit expresses its soul’s urge to have by its prime thing array called will and a expresses its soul’s urge to know by its prime concept array called intellect as appears on line 2 of Table 28, Mental Structure,. Without each of these the soul would not be fully expressed. But they need each other to fully express the spirit’s soul.
Line 2 of Table 28 - Mental Structure shows our will’s prime thing array that inspires its attention-chain shown on line 3, and also shows our intellect’s prime concept array that inspires its reason-chain of line 3. These two chains that are so intimately locked together at baseline provide the freedom and reason necessary for thought, and thought is necessary for reflection. Without reflection the process of conjunction of wholes and types would be merely mechanical.
Propositions in Table 29, above, are numbered according to the order of appearance in our discussion that followed Table 28, Mental Structures, which went in an inductive order from level I to level IV. Induction always progresses from the particulars, or concrete ideas (parts) to the universals, or abstract ideas (wholes), which is synthetic order. Growth of mind is synthetic. At the risk of needless repetition we will now run through those same propositions again from a deductive, top-down perspective, keeping the same numerical designations. Deduction always progresses from generals, to particulars, which is analytic order. Direction of influx is always deductive.
Soul has a thing array and a concept array each extending to a base of idea-dots. Presuming soul is an individual mental thing, we choose to model our mind as a thing that consists of a whole and its parts. That whole we call its soul, for it is the abstract unity of the mind. We find that the properties of things and the properties of concepts are expressive of two aspects of our mind, those aspects being will and intellect. The top ideas of those two aspects of mind are therefore a whole and a type, where the whole array consists only of wholes with their parts, and the type array consists only of types with their symbols. Our soul, in its urge to join its will (which consists of things having an urge to have) with its intellect (which consists of concepts having an urge to know), creates throughout its mind an attraction of wholes and types. This attraction takes on specific forms, which we express as collateral propositions to the conjunction-proposition discussed in Chapter 10, and as follows.
The soul has an urge to conjoin things of the will array with concepts of the intellect array. Table 29, Mind Propositions, looks at the mind’s structure shown in Table 28, Mental Structure, from the viewpoint of the soul’s urge to conjoin wholes and types, and thus group and learn ideas, to create things and concepts, and consequently a train-of-thought. There are three modes of conjunction. Concepts and things conjoin when: (1) A whole is also a symbol of a type, or when (2) a part is also a type, or when (3) a symbol is also a part. Notice that a type is defined as already being a whole having only two parts, namely, a symbol and its meaning. And so a type is always also a whole with an intrinsic aspect of conjunction. Incidentally, if a whole is also a symbol, it is merely known; if a part is also a type, it already is, as are all types, a special kind of whole.
The soul conjoins a concept sequentially with a whole in a tied-thing-chain. The resulting action-chain is one mentics structure that brings together the wholes and types quite dramatically. It models concepts both of time and of space, and brings them together as a model of motion. Although motion per se cannot be modeled by mentics, action can, and it is an even more universal concept than motion, since the concept of motion is a type of concept of action. Therefore the try-and-find action-chain serves as a rather concrete instrument for conjoining the will and intellect.
The tied-thing-chain sequentially associates one try-whole of idea-dots with one find-type of idea-dots. This action by the action-chain of proposition #3 provides conjunction of wholes and types by association rather than by direct linking. As moments pass, tied whole chains of try-wholes develop and tied type-chains of find-types develop. The whole and type of each moment along these chains are associated so that the chains themselves are intimately conjoined.
Tied-wholes are grouped and learned, and tied-types are grouped and learned. This proposition takes on four forms at the natural level consisting of motives, habits, qualia, and images, as has already been shown in Chapter 14. These thought-modes contain a conjunction of tied wholes and tied types in the will and in the intellect thus:
a) Conjunction of intellect with motives of will: When tied try-wholes are grouped they make motives trees (Table 20, Motives), and when learned make habit trees (Table 23, Habits). Motive trees consist of tied-wholes. Habit trees consist of tied-types. And so also motives in motive trees are learned by means of our tie-tree-proposition. Thus intellect conjoins with will not only by knowing the habits on the level of try-wholes, but also knowing habits on all levels of motivation. Such conjunction provides intellect with a very intimate knowledge and memory of motives at every level.
b) Conjunction of will with qualia of intellect: When tied find-types are learned they make qualia trees (Table 21, Qualia), and when grouped make image trees (Table 22, Images). Qualia trees consist of tied-types. Image trees consist of tied groups. And so also qualia in qualia trees are grouped by our tie-tree-proposition. Thus will conjoins with intellect not only by having the images on the level of find-types, but also having images on all levels of qualia. Such conjunction provides will with very full images of every magnitude.
Attention of the will chooses a reason of the intellect as a thought-moment in the train-of-thought. This proposition models reflection, for it enables the higher, rational mind to interrupt the lower, natural mind so that we can think about what it is doing. In that way it converts the reflex-loop into a reflection-loop by converting a quale into an apperception, an image into an imagination, a habit into an intention, and a motive into a motivation. Thus the train-of-thought learns rationality and freedom.
This review serves to emphasize that it is from the conjunction-proposition that all the other propositions of Table 29 are deduced.
Now that we have modeled a structure of the mind, let us provide the model with an appropriate analogy.
We know we have a body, that is obvious. We have grown up with it. We can see, feel, touch and move it. We also know we have a mind. If we had no mind, we would not know that we have a body. It is the mind that has the ability to know. However, knowing the mind is somewhat more difficult. It needs a mirror to see itself. What do we use for a mirror? How about using the body for that! The body makes a terrific analogue of the mind. Our plan for considering the body as an analogue is not to define any particular functional relationship between their structures, although such seems obvious, but our purpose here is to provide an analogy that can help us picture the workings of the mind which is so intimately conjoined with its body. Such intimacy is bound to serve as a tool for seeing a reflection resulting from the general functional relationships we observe.
In our effort to understand the mind we have made structures to model ideas, their relationships, and activities. From those structures we put together a framework to model the mind as a whole (Chapter 10, Table 14). On that framework we constructed a complex model of the mind (Chapter 16, Table 28, Mental Structure). This current chapter compares the mentics model of the structure of our mind with a corresponding model of the structure of our body. Think of the soul as the top whole of the mind. The whole of our mind corresponds with the whole of our body. A person is often referred to as a soul, and so this corresponding analogue should be easy for us to work with.
In our mentics model the soul as a whole has two parts, a thing array, or will, and a concept array, or intellect. These mental systems compare with the body’s ramified structure of the cardiovascular system and the nervous system. The body organs that top these systems, heart and brain, typically are used as analogues of love and intellect.
The thing array ramifies into many branches of subservient wholes, just as the cardiovascular system ramifies into many subservient arteries. The thing array of the will divides repeatedly until its parts terminate in the try idea-dots of the threshold-field. The corresponding arteries in the body ramify until they terminate in the capillaries of the body’s muscle tissue. The transitivity of the influx of the soul’s will carries the urge to have and to know all the way down to the try idea-dots just as the body’s blood carries sugars and oxygen down to the capillaries in the muscle tissues. The veins will be discussed soon.
But first consider the soul’s intellect. Its concept array classifies and archives what it knows all the way down to the threshold-field of idea-dots (nexus with the body) where it produces the property of sequence for the tied try-and-find action-chain. In that action-chain, the try-things of the will are independent of the find-types of the intellect; both tied-things and tied-concepts form chains independent of each other although associated by their tied-things at the mind’s threshold with the body. Analogous to the intellect, the sensory nerves ramify all the way down to their receptors, often located at the body’s nexus with the environment. These are independent of the capillaries of the cardiovascular system, located nearby, not joined to them.
The four kinds of tie-trees constitute the four thought-functions, emotion, habit, image, and memory (qualia). We see the will feeding thoughts which are emotions to the intellect to be learned as habit. This can model the blood being pumped from the heart to the lungs. The intellect, in turn, feeds types, which are concepts of experience, to the will to have them as images. This can model the return of the blood from the lungs to the heart. The blood returned to the heart is not the same as that which it sent to the lungs, for carbon dioxide has been exchanged for oxygen by exposure to the body’s environment, just as the emotions to act have been converted to sensations by exposure to the idea-dots at the mind’s nexus with the body.
It is not surprising that one’s mind corresponds with one’s body, since they are intimately tied together. The mind responds to the body, and the body responds to the mind. The correspondence is functional. We would expect the physiology of our body to make a beautiful analogy of a model of our mind. Table 30, Correspondence of Mind & Body is an attempt at starting such a correlation.
In the heading of this table is a note that says that in mind and body every system pervades every organ, and that therefore, which organ is a system’s prime functionary is not absolute. In the mind, the conjunction of wholes and types implies that the will and intellect each pervades every moment and state of mental experience just as the blood and nerves permeate every corner of the body down to the level of the cells. This does not mean that the capillaries permeate the cells or that a nerve terminates in every cell. Yet the blood plasma permeates each living cell and the nerve endings respond to heat, pressure, and such in the cellular environment. We ask, “How far can we carry the mind-body analogy?”
Table 30 proposes only a general correlation of mind and body in the various systems and organs. With a background in physiology and cognitive science combined with some aptitude for introspection, we believe one could use such a body analogue to detail mentics structures and thereby help create a new Psychology. That new field will be characterized by not excluding from its data base the most significant facts available, namely, subjective experience.
Again we are strolling along Kirk Road that follows Maiden Creek as it meanders. We are walking one foot after the other, breathing in the varying fragrances of the swamp, flowers, and woods. We look around and see the towering trees with rustling leaves and hear the symphony of the birds’ songs that are accompanied by rattling cicadas and tom-tom of a distant dog barking. These are things we notice. We pay no attention to our heart beating, our keeping balance while walking, our digestion and who knows what else our mind manages. All of these actions and sensations are happening all at once. Yet in spite of the turmoil, we are calmly enjoying our walk. We pay attention only to our interests. We cannot see our reflex-loops working, but obviously our habits continue to join what we experience with what we do without distracting our attention from a pleasant walk.
As we move along, nearby objects seem to move more than the creek does far below. We reflect on how relative motion results in the growth of individual tie-trees of two kinds, tied-thing-trees (including images) and tied-concept-trees (including intentions). We stop walking and sit on the metal guide rail beside the road to rest. As a car approaches on this lonely road, we wave to the driver. He returns our greeting! What? He returns our greeting? How interesting! When our will opts to wave a hand, we get an image confirming that we did wave our hand. But how did our motive cause the driver to return the amenity? Our intellect has to open a new category of intentions. There are intentions that are not of our own will. Quickly an immense concept array of foreign motives develops (one that no doubt initiated in infancy). We find each other’s hand and share a tender smile. Soon we are walking in cadence. Harmony with each other opens a door to harmony with everyone else. Should we all walk in cadence? With other wills and intellects out there they must also have souls. We can construct arrays in our intellect that model a cultural will of art, and a cultural intellect of science. Can there possibly be a cultural soul?
Thus our soul has another way to know than by emotions which categorize those of its own will as intentions. It categorizes sensory experiences. As it does so, it learns that in addition to being real objects out there there are also other minds out in the big wide world of try-and-find. This knowledge at first is merely factual. Facts of experience are categorized and thus cataloged. This activity not only provides data for our will, but as the will makes images, the intellect classifies those images as types of images. At some point in the process, the attention can reach the need to recognize that a data set from experience needs to be logged as an intention outside our own will, outside of self (apart from our own spirit). Life teaches us that we do not always find what we are in the habit of finding. This can be a very difficult lesson to learn, but one that cannot be avoided. Check with Helen Keller on this. She demonstrated that the essence of communication is more mental than it is physical (The Story of My Life, by Helen Keller), and more rewarding than expected.
This chapter is inserted here to provide a few directions that further research in mentics can take. The mind has evolved great flexibility for taking almost any direction it wishes. Certain directions are of more interest than others, depending on who is conducting the search, and here are a few that we authors consider stepping stones to further progress with mentics.
Words are wonderful mirrors for the mind. How do we model the word dog? We can model that word in various degrees of detail, depending upon where we assume a baseline of ideas. For now, let us presume that the baseline is archetypes of alphabetical symbols. Each symbol would be an object consisting of a thing-tree that includes all the features of the letter, and types that categorize each feature as an attribute. (One might think of a digital icon that maps each pixel as an attribute.) Objects of our alphabetic archetypes can then spell dog by learning it, which provides sequence to the objects, precluding, for example, the sequence god. One can immediately recognize the letters in proper sequence, even if one is slightly dyslexic. See Table 31, Model of a Word.
Learning phrases, sentences, and so forth is the same process as learning words. It is just a matter of developing types and archetypes of objects to use as symbols, and arranging them using things and concepts in the train-of-thought. Also, the same process is involved with other language systems such as speech, digital text composition, sign language, etc. We expect grammar, logic, and other related lingual fields might develop mentics models.
Of all the fields of mental discipline, mathematics has been advanced farthest. If mentics can reasonably model mind, it must also be able to model its functions, including mathematics. Math usually starts with arithmetic, and arithmetic usually starts with the process of counting. To count we start with things that are of the same type, which we define as a set. We can count the parts of wholes if their parts are of the same type, not otherwise. We can add things, as in Table 32, by grouping them. By forming a thing-tree of numbers we can demonstrate equality of layers in a thing-tree. See Table 32, Arithmetic.
But equality is of course not confined to numbers as in arithmetic. We expect that mentics structures will be found to cover all aspects of thought. Phenomena such as equality can be traced to the premises of mentics and from there to all aspects of its application. When an idea as a whole groups its parts so that they concur, there is an equality created between the whole and the group that defines the aggregate of parts as a group. This equality goes far beyond the structure of set. It even reaches into the symbolic structure of the type and creates an abstract persistence in meaning of the symbols throughout any concept.
Then there is the phenomenon of inequality. If a whole A becomes equal to its group B, we think, “A is B”. But what if A is not B. How do we model that relationship? That, also, is not limited to mathematics, nor to logic, nor to emotion. It also must be traced to the premises of mentics. Any limitation or exclusion placed upon an idea, in its relation to other ideas, and thus again to any structures of related ideas, can be considered a negative. In our prime assumptions we assume restrictions, some of which are definitive, some logically deductive, and some logically arbitrary. One definitive negative is that an idea cannot have two links, for if it did it would then be two ideas. One logical negative is that in view of only one link, an idea cannot link to itself, for if it did it would be irrelevant to any other ideas. One arbitrary negative might be that a part of a whole cannot link to other parts of the same whole. Such arbitrary negatives can be justified in modeling the mind, for mentics, like any science, must use both induction and deduction to describe reality. There must be theories for deduction, and theories are arbitrary from the viewpoint of acts, even if they accurately represent them. We look forward to mentics modeling of negative emotions and negative reasons.
Here we are back again on the road for our daily one hour walk. We reflect on our soul and its purpose in life. If conjunction of things and concepts is indeed our soul objective, then we can see why this walk is so enjoyable; we can see it provides our soul with a chance to have conjunction on all levels of our mind.
Our correlation-loop of try-and-find looks → sees, breathes → smells, listens → hears, walks → moves. “Ah! Here are some wild berries!” It also hungers → eats. Experiencing cause → effect in the corporeal mind is sweet pleasure to the soul at its foundation by correlating try-things of the will with find qualia of the intellect.
Every movement is correlated with some sensation, and as tie-trees grow the images that sprout from sensory perception become correlated with motives, creating habits in the natural level of cause → effect. Reflex-loops grow for automating our reaction to sensory experience with motives for walking, breathing, singing, even talking. We are creatures of habit, and enjoy being so, for as we dance through life our soul is conjoining images of our intellect with habits of our will. This habitual conjunction of things and concepts in the reflex-loops goes on without our effort or concern, leaving us able to enjoy the rhythm of just being alive. That is, until a bitter berry draws our attention away from the reflex-loop!
Attention indeed! Without it the automatic pleasures of habits, good and bad, are cold and dark. A life of reflex is empty without reflection. It would be like riding a subway train rather than driving a car. We have to go where it takes us. If we can drive, we can choose where to go. And we do choose, within the limits of our experience. As we walk, we reject the bitter berry, examining its form in order to avoid its type in future-time. We thus create a new habit. But that is the least of our reflection. For the higher motives we have been attending to are concerned with mentics.
As we go along with our reflex-loop automatically churning away below our conscious attention, we search for answers to what the mind is. We choose this model and that until we find one that serves our introspection. When we find one, we have conjoined our motive to model an introspection with a model that fits. Wow! We have conjoined a thing (our introspective observation) with a concept (a working model). Eureka! Conjunction has served our soul again, here on a higher, rational level of our mind.
The soul may reach even higher levels of satisfaction. Our joy in finding models of our own mind has its limits. For what good are such models except for ourselves? But maybe these models can find application to other minds, too. Or possibly even to a social mind referred to above in a passing conjecture. Presumption of existence of souls will be justified if our efforts to launch mentics turn out to be successful, and the progress to such a goal constitutes one pursuit of happiness.
Being a universally interdisciplinary subject, mentics must withstand the rigors of scrutiny in every category of academic endeavor. We authors of Mentics are not specialized in any other particular field. We believe that this discipline has broad application to all fields, and we hope that specialists in other fields will use mentics in their study of the mental realm. The development of this method of modeling mind is not finished, and, like mathematics, it may never be finished reaching its objective.
There might be many aspects of logic that mentics will model, for logic deals not only with validity, but also with the normative formal principles of reason, in other words, intellectual lingual thought in general.
Mathematics, like mentics, is based on introspection and uses logic in depth. Mentics appears to model some of the concepts underlying arithmetic, the calculus, and various other aspects of quantitative analysis. We hope a specialist in mathematical theory will attempt to further model such structures.
Having modeled the process in mentics for creating symbols such as letters and words, and having a structure for the train-of-thought, we look forward to having someone model sequences for grammatical structures of sentences and composition. After all, language is intimately tied in with human thought. We talk to ourselves incessantly while thinking, sometimes even orally. Language is important in thinking as well as in communicating.
The analogy of computers to our minds is compelling. The calculator was invented to do work for the mind, and therefore functionally its software corresponds not only to bodily neural functions, but also to mental functions as modeled by mentics. Computer software simulates many of the processes of thought to the extent that we credit it with memory, desire, and often with stupidity and cruelty. However, like the body, the computer is merely an extension of the mind and a tool for implementing thought. As a reflection of the mind it is useful in portraying mental structures. We do not expect artificial intelligence (AI) to replace mental intellect, but do expect mentics to help correlate virtual images with actual mental reality, and thereby improve the correspondence between the two.
Human society can be thought of as being based on people trading things. But essentially the trading is mental, since everything we know is mental. Communication drives society. As mind is better understood, so is society. But also, as society is better understood, so is mind. Viewed from within, society and mind are interdependent. The human form, which imprints itself on the individual mind, imprints even more on the social mind as individual minds integrate into a culture of mutual services. Mentics is as much (if not more) a tool for sociology as it is for psychology.
One objective of Mentics is to provide for study of the mind a discipline that does not depend primarily upon numerical data from the study of neurology and behavior.
As mentioned in the Introduction, mentics is not a philosophy, it is a tool for modeling mind as mathematics is a tool for modeling matter (see also the Addendum, - Descartes vs. Swedenborg).
We authors acknowledge that the axioms given in Mentics reflect some of the basic universal doctrines that Emanuel Swedenborg (1688‒1772) presented during his period of “enlightenment” subsequent to his careers as engineer, politician, scientist, and philosopher. These axioms are capable of modeling by deduction many teachings about the nature of the human mind. They reflect his doctrines of discrete degrees, influx, heaven, creation, choice, and even an idea of God (Divine Love and Wisdom, Em. Sw., orig. Latin published in London, 1763). Such doctrines are useful in focusing on essential concepts without diluting or muddying them with personal experiences and opinions. These abstractions help one think deductively from principle rather than just inductively about principle.
In the above fields, or in any area one pursues, the driving force is one’s attention, and thus the urge to know. That urge is at the core of all learning. It is the energy that makes us what we are. Without it we are deaf, dumb, and blind. We are also ignorant, lazy, and alone. Mentics charts the path from an urge to know to a life of mental wealth, activity, communication, reflection, and enjoyment. That path is being plotted with clear, unambiguous terms that anyone willing to reflect can follow. Although this is just a map, it can help one get where one tries to go. Let us continue mapping, and then follow it.
After choosing to doubt everything that he had previously thought to be true in order to determine what is indeed true, philosopher Rene Descartes (1596‒1650) stated, “But immediately upon this I observed that, while I thus wished to think that all was false, it was absolutely necessary that I, who thus thought, should be somewhat; and as I observed that this truth, I think, hence I am, was so certain, and of such evidence, that no ground for doubt, however extravagant, could be alleged by the Skeptics capable of shaking it, I concluded that I might, without scruple, accept it as the first principle of Philosophy of which I was in search.”
It is not without scruple that I, Oliver R. Odhner (1926‒ —), ignore my own doubt concerning my qualification to doubt that revered Philosopher Descartes. However, as a student of the also revered Emanuel Swedenborg (1688‒1772), I am inclined to adopt a principle of Philosophy that supersedes the Cartesian proposition.
It is reasonable, I agree, to claim that where there is a predicate there must be a subject; if I think, I must exist. To conclude that I exist because I think seems to be implied by Descartes. What is it that thinks? Swedenborg’s first principle points to love and wisdom as the esse and existere of reality. The esse is the substance, or essence of a thing, and the existere is its form, or existence. He asserts that the esse is the cause, and existere is the effect. Thus love is the cause of a thing, and wisdom is its effect. Thus also, affection, or desire, is the cause of a thing, and thought its effect. In my own words, then, Swedenborg is saying that I am a desire to think, or else I would not have any thought. There is no effect without a cause. Can the process of doubting arrive at love as a first principle?
The field of cognitive science seems to have a rather naturalistic meaning for the word cognition. This is a consequence of the philosophy of science being emphatically inductive. If mind and body are seen as different substances, their interaction is difficult to investigate. Thus dualism and introspective data tend to be rejected.
In Mentics we try to emphasize the subjective perspective of observation, since first-hand data of mental phenomena is necessarily introspective. Those data manifest the desire to know, which mentics presumes is the only thing that knows. There is a desire, and that desire is to know and have other ideas. The desire we call an urge, which is the idea itself. Its urge to have reflects the idea’s substance, or essence, and its urge to know reflects its form, or existence.
A computer is presumed to not possibly have an idea; the best it can do is store and manipulate data. The same can be said of the brain as a device for thought. From this presumption mentics could be said to have a dualistic base. However, the dualism of mentics is a practical matter rather than dogmatic. It is a system for modeling mind from the inside by means of the axiom that an idea is an urge to know and have other ideas. From this axiom many mental constructions and processes can be modeled. The relationship of mind to brain is defined, not by philosophy, but by practice. Whatever mentics can model we consider mental. Whatever the empirical sciences, (in such fields as anthropology, behavioral psychology, sociology, neuropsychology, language, and artificial intelligence) can model of mental reality we consider to be physical and corporeal analogies.
And so what can mentics model? The answer to that depends somewhat upon what the subject (that is, the person that does the introspecting) believes. It can range from modeling awesome concepts of God and creation all the way down to the motives and sensations that one interprets as life in one’s material body of time and space.
Although I think of myself as the primary author of Mentics, A Mind Modeling Method, I humbly must admit to having borrowed the values and taken advantage of the support of the following people, each of whom is an object of my love and appreciation:
My Creator, who guided every footstep of my trains of thought and who supplied the inspirations expressed thereby in the long journey to this accomplishment.
Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), whose variety of careers and prolific publication in fields of engineering, civil government, science and technology, philosophy, and theology has impressed me, especially his work entitled Divine Love & Wisdom that presents awesome universal doctrines of creation.
My father, Hugo Lj. Odhner, also prolific author of many profound books and of an academic course entitled The Human Organic on the subject of universal principles of a true philosophy.
My beloved wife, Rachel, who persisted with patient cooperation to assure our mutual consensus as we each introspected our own minds, coordinated our findings with those current in the field of Cognitive Science, and not least of all, proofread and amended every essay I wrote in the evolution of Mentics. She well deserves the title of Coauthor.
Two of my sons, Geoffrey and Roy, whose professional computer skills were essential to the long development of our Higher Meaning web site and to the publication of our book both online and on paper. Our grandson, “Toby” O. G. T. Powell, has quite recently and willingly agreed to take over from me as Web Master.
Finally, I prize my growing list of over 60 names of gracious people who have shown the interest and patience to listen to my addicted ramblings about mentics as I force their way into almost every conversation. Topping that list is Reuben Bell, physician and priest, whose professional support through the years has been valuable and who has kindly prefaced our book.
Oliver R. Odhner