--- In [email protected], "jim_flanegin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>
> I've been noticing lately the difference between thoughts as they
> are ordinarily recognized, and those apprehended at a more
> fundamental level. Thoughts on the surface level of thinking will
> typically contain just the one thought; "I need to go to the
> store", "The sum of 57 and 85 is 142", "That person approaching is
> smiling at me". Constructs may then be built from the assemblage
and
> relationships of these single thoughts, but nonetheless they remain
> lovely, linear and singular. In contrast, there are thoughts, too,
> apprehended at a more fundamental layer of their emergence, which
> contain entire perspectives, entire worlds within them.
>
> When I encounter such a thought, I am astonished at the amount of
> information it contains, and all of the information I am able to
> unravel from it once I express it in a linear fashion. Many of my
> posts here are the results of such thoughts, appearing first as a
> concentrated singularity, but then sometimes unraveling into
several
> paragraphs or more. I haven't been able to see them as a precise
> shape yet, just before unraveling, because the process is one of
> intuitively expending the discrete energy of the thought through
> expression until it is exhausted, like pouring out a glass of water
> along a straight line until the glass is empty. Unlike a surface
> thought, a singularity, these more subtle thoughts already contain
> all of their associated structures and constructions inherent in
> their seed form.
>
> I think it would be fascinating to see the spherical energy of the
> thought, its exact shape, prior to the unraveling process. I'd like
> to know how all of that energy is stored, precisely, and what it
> looks like. Does it look like an atomic structure, with a
> concentrated core, surrounded by shells of decreasing energy, or is
> it more like a coiled spring—the energy inherent in the shape
> itself? To be continued. :-)
You've described my own experience, except that
for me (and maybe you left this out for simplicity's
sake) it's more of a spectrum. Most of my thoughts
are nonverbal (which is odd, given that I'm so verbally
oriented!). It's only when they're pretty well
unraveled that they become linear enough that they're
susceptible to being put into words, and then only
when some intention to do so is involved.
At the other end of the spectrum are those highly
complex and subtle thoughts you describe, but there's
also a range in between of less complex, less subtle,
but still nonverbal thoughts. These in-between
thoughts constitute the bulk of my operational
thinking.
I can't "see" the shapes of the really subtle
thoughts either, except to sense that they're
distinctly three-dimensional ("dimensional" being
to some extent a metaphor here), and there are
times when I suspect further dimensions may be
involved. These I find extremely difficult to
unravel into a linear form, and when I try to put
them into words, I frequently end up with vast
tracts of impenetrable text that *still* don't
completely capture the original thought. Very
frustrating, especially for a professional
editor!
