Conceptual Forms | Your Mind and How To Use It #1

Written by on June 22, 2021

“Mind, except in reference to its own activities, cannot
be defined or conceived. It is known to itself only through
its activities. Mind without mental states is a mere
abstraction—a word without a corresponding mental
image or concept. Sir William Hamilton expressed
the matter as clearly as possible, when he said : “What
we mean by mind is simply that which perceives, thinks,
feels, wills, and desires.” Without the perceiving,
thinking, feeling, willing, and desiring, it is impossible
to form a clear conception or mental image of
mind; deprived of its phenomena it becomes the merest
abstraction.”

– William Walker Atkinson

 

There are 2 forms of existence that we know of. Something can exist in physical form, or something can exist in a conceptual form. There are things which exist in both of these categories. An example would be the concept of a horse, and a physical horse. We know horses exist and we know the concept of a horse exists because when you read the word horse, you likely imagined an image of a horse. Everything that exists physically, will tend to also have a corresponding concept.

Things which exist conceptually, don’t always have a corresponding physical existence. We can imagine the concept of a horse, and physical horses exist. But we can imagine a unicorn, which does not have a physical form of existence. This shows us that conceptual forms can be broken down into 2 categories. Things which exist conceptually and have physical correlations, and things which only exist conceptually.

There are then 2 flavors of conceptual forms which have physical correlations. Some have a direct one-to-one comparison. The concept of a horse, and the actual horse. But then there are concepts which exist to describe something nonphysical that can be observed within physical things. These concepts have no direct physical form, but have observable correlations within physical objects.

Take the concept of energy. Energy exists as a concept, but it isn’t a solid thing that you can pick up and hold, or put a saddle on and ride, like the horse. But we can observe and measure energy within physical objects. 

Like energy, personality is a concept which doesn’t have a direct physical form. But again we can see examples of someone’s personality in that person’s physical behavior. It’s an immaterial concept with observable correlations in something physical. You wouldn’t say that instance of behavior or action you observed is interchangeable with the total personality. Not like you would say with the horse and the idea of the horse. Any instance of behavior would contribute to the pattern which we call someone’s personality but an instance of behavior is not the personality itself. Archetypes would also fall into this category as they are an observable pattern relating to a conceptual form.

The mind is also one of these concepts because it is used to map out something that has observable correlations in the physical brain, but the mind itself is not physical. The brain can be reduced to atoms, but the mind cannot be reduced to atoms.