Presence of mind

“ But though the sensations cease, the possibilities remain in existence; they are independent of our will, our presence, and everything which belongs to us. We find, too, that they belong as much to other human or sentient beings as to ourselves. We find other people grounding their expectations and conduct upon the same permanent possibilities on which we ground ours. ”

“ When ideal presence is complete, we perceive every object as in our sight; and the mind, totally occupied with an interesting event, finds no leisure for reflection of any sort. This reasoning, if any one hesitate, is confirmed by constant and universal experience. ”

“ It is needless that the thought or the personality, holding the transferred picture, should be individually and consciously present. Though bodies are leagues apart, and the circumstances forgotten, they float in the general atmosphere of human mind. ”

“ Or does one seriously think he understands better how the knower 'connects' its objects, when one calls the former a transcendental Ego and the latter a 'Manifold of Intuition' than when one calls them Thought and Things respectively? Knowing must have a vehicle. Call the vehicle Ego, or call it Thought, Psychosis, Soul, Intelligence, Consciousness, Mind, Reason, Feeling,—what you like—it must know. ”

“ Thus the ideas of mind and matter, of subject and object, of the Ego and external world are really evolved from the aggregation of our mental state which are the only realities so far as we are concerned. ”

“ It is obvious that the world is not the same for all of us; but that it is for each one of us simply the world of his individual perceptions.
As Many Worlds as Minds
The whole subject of sense-impressions, [Pg 53] sensation and perception may, therefore, be looked at from the standpoint of the mind as an active influence, as well as from the standpoint of outside objects as the exciting causes of sense-impressions. ”

“ Such a conception would require that every specific state of consciousness, every idea, every thought, perception, sensation and feeling, after it had passed out of mind for the moment, should enter a great sea of ideas which would be the sum total of all our past experiences. ”

“ By the ego of which he treats, I understand him to mean all that we can arrive at by an analysis of what takes place in the body and its functions, and of "what is given in consciousness." This phrase—"what is given in consciousness"—reveals to us his purpose to reduce consciousness from a self-conviction and cognition of one's own existence to a mere passing group of feelings, which constitute "the ever-changing states of consciousness" that we "call mind." ”

“ The Brain is a center of consciousness with avenues of perception and impulse and departments that by aggregation, separation or association, enable the Individual Intelligence to determine the relation in time, or duration, force and orderly relation of perceptions, desires, motives, actions (or thoughts and feelings) as to sequence or results.
This whole conscious realm is the Mind. It is the inner chamber of the Soul. It is in no sense an entity. The actor, the real entity, is the Individual Intelligence. ”

“ Let us say "external objects take effect upon me, and perception is the result." We now then ask, To what period of our life is this proposition meant to have reference? Does the philosopher of "mind" answer that it may be applied to us during any period, from first to last, of our existence? ”

“ By the Sensation, we mean the whole state of consciousness, under an actual or present impression of sense, as in looking at the moon, in listening to music, in tasting wine. By the Idea is meant the state of mind that remains after the sensible agent is withdrawn, or that may be afterwards recovered by the force of recollection. ”

“ The notice is the consciousness, and the consciousness is the notice.
Thus far, therefore, it appears, with abundant evidence that Reflection is nothing but Consciousness; and Consciousness is the having the sensations and ideas. But what will be objected is, that we not only have Ideas; but we are capable of forming the idea of that particular state of mind which exists when we have an idea. ”

“ The attributes of minds, as well as those of bodies, are grounded on states of feeling or consciousness. But in the case of a mind, we have to consider its own states, as well as those which it produces in other minds. ”

“ The question how the human mind, regarded as a thing of definite or indefinite characteristics, comes to have the filling-in which we call experience, opens out, when duly considered, into the much wider problem as to the relation of any individual consciousness to the sum total of things, a relation which may be either cognitive, or practical, or religious. ”

“ If we regard the human subject, in the ordinary psychological way, as a being whose conscious life runs parallel with the highest physical processes of his organism, we get a view of the relation between the intellect and the will which is far more just, at once to the natural history of the mind, and to the deeper meaning of the inner life of our consciousness. View man as a natural being, and you find him adjusting himself to his environment, acting, as they say, in response to stimuli. ”

“ Do you believe, then, that by some subtle influence, whose nature is unknown to us, we may have a strange consciousness of the presence or the approach of some people, conveyed to us by neither the hearing nor the sight, but rather as if we felt that they were near? ”

“ Now that cognitive experience which for itself is rational and full of insight, yet which a later judgment of the same mind, or a judgment of another mind, characterizes as whimsical, is what the criticizing mind can not get hold of and make its own. It remains the private experience of another, a mental state, a state of consciousness. ”

“ That consciousness, which is the Ego, may exist in the prison of the body with appreciable differences in the quantity held by its many leaseholders; and so, too, mind, which begets that consciousness has varying degrees of strength, force, and productivity. ”

“ This theory of the knowledge of what self once was conscious of, in the modes or qualities of self, contrasted with the more direct sort of knowledge of consciousness, suggests a variety of questions, and, among others, an inquiry into the laws according to which those objects of the mind that are at first observed, in a direct experience of the inner and outer world, become, as objects of memory and imagination, converted into mental modes, and pass into the current of our associated thoughts. ”

“ If we now change the point of view, and ask, what makes me always the same person to myself, we introduce, in addition to what there was in the other case, the entire series of my own past states of consciousness. ”

“ It is as if there were in the human consciousness a sense of reality, a feeling of objective presence, a perception of what we may call 'something there,' more deep and more general than any of the special and particular 'senses' by which the current psychology supposes existent realities to be originally revealed. If this were so, we might suppose the senses to waken our attitudes and conduct as they so habitually do, by first exciting this sense of reality ”

“ The consideration of the mind, as one substance, capable of existing in a variety of states, according as it is variously affected, and constituting, in these different states, all the complex phenomena of thought and feeling, necessarily involves the consideration of consciousness, and of personal identity. ”

“ The metaphysician, fully admitting the distinction we have been insisting on, may say, "But this discrimination is itself a mere analysis of mind. The 'state' of which the being is conscious is mind; and the fact of consciousness, with the being to whom it belongs, is also mind. ”

“ Therefore are the spiritual and the material, the inner and the outer, human experiences always correlated with the mind function and conditioned, as to their conscious realization, by the mind activity. ”

“ One must have perceptions, and thought’s severest wrestlings—cogitatio and meditatio—before reaching that first stage of wide and sure intelligence, which relates [Pg 364] to the creature world, and affords a broad basis of assurance, whence at last the soul shall spring to God. Intellectual perceptions and rational knowledge, and all the mind’s puttings together of its data in inductions and deductions and constructions, form a basis for contemplation, and yield material upon which the emotional side of human nature may exercise itself in yearning and devotion. ”

“ In proceeding to examine and compare the mental phenomena, the first circumstance that strikes us, prior to any attempt to arrange them in classes, is, that the mind which exhibits these is susceptible of a variety of feelings, every new feeling being a change of its state; and, indeed, it is by such changes alone that it manifests itself, either in our own consciousness, or in the actions of our fellow men. ”

“ This opinion is almost legitimised by current language. When speaking of our states of consciousness, we generally say, “I am conscious; it is I who have consciousness,” and we attribute to our I, to our Ego, to our personality, the rôle of subject. ”

“ It is much confused in modern discussions, and the word "mind," which formerly always meant the operations of the intellect only, has come in recent times to be used in the sense of feeling only, the thinking process itself being described as a form of feeling. ”

“ Thoughts regarding the human brain, and the central point of view in which man stands with regard to the whole universe; glimpses of pre-vision from this sun and point of sight through an infinite expanse into the realms of all life, are predominant in my soul. Shall I ever be in full possession of myself, ever fully possess the world of thought which flashes through my soul? ”

“ I now then proceed, after these remarks on our consciousness as momentary, to a most important inquiry, which arises necessarily from the consideration of the successions of our momentary consciousness, and must be considered as involved in all our attempts to arrange them,—the inquiry into the Identity of the Mind, as truly one and permanent, amid all the variety of its fugitive affections. ”

“ In contemplating the relations between body, soul, and spirit, between Universal Mind and individual mind, the methodised study of which constitutes Mental Science, we must never forget that these relations indicate, not the separateness, but the unity of these principles. We must learn not to attribute one part of our action to one part of our being, and another to another. ”

“ An idea of a particular individual, for example, has one meaning for one person and another meaning for another according to the associated mental experiences of each. These experiences form the setting or context which determines the meaning, point of view, and attitude of mind towards any given object or situation presented to consciousness. ”

“ We come now to consider the mental apparatus which is at the disposal of the self: to ask what it can tell us of the method by which she may escape from the prison of the sense-world, transcend its rhythm, and attain knowledge of—or conscious contact with—a supra-sensible Reality. ”

“ During that long period of time, the most delicate gradations of human personality, divinised, idealised, were presented to the contemplation of the consciousness which gave them being, in appropriate types. ”

“ On the principles which I am defending, a ‘mind’ or ‘personal consciousness’ is the name for a series of experiences run together by certain definite transitions, and an objective reality is a series of similar experiences knit by different transitions. ”

“ On what occasions do we commonly find a mind conversing with another mind not on the same plane with itself?—with a mind inhabiting in some sense a different world, and viewing the environment with a difference of outlook greater than the mere difference of character of the two personages will account for? ”

“ Chapter 2 The World a Reflex of Mental States What you are, so is your world. Everything in the universe is resolved into your own inward experience. It matters little what is without, for it is all a reflection of your own state of consciousness. ”

“ A Mind at the Mercy of Associations.--We will consider, then, the nature and the functions of attention. The mind--with the possible exception of the state of coma--is never idle; ideas are for ever passing through the brain, by day and by night, sleeping or walking, mad or sane. We take a great deal too much upon ourselves when we suppose that we are the authors and intenders of the thoughts we think. ”

“ As sight, hearing, perception, involve, in a single word,—process both mental and corporeal,—so, I have no doubt, that idea, though now confined more strictly to the feelings of the mind, was long employed with a more vague signification, so as sometimes to mean the mental affection, sometimes the organic affection, sometimes both;—in the same manner, as at present we speak of sight, sometimes as mental, sometimes as organic, sometimes as both. ”

“ What, then, that we observe, can give us any reason for believing that anyone else has certain particular perceptions, thoughts or feelings? It has, I think, been very commonly assumed that the observation of my own perceptions, thoughts, and feelings, can, by itself, give me such a reason. ”

“ When we say of any mind, that it is devout, or superstitious, or meditative, or cheerful, we mean that the ideas, emotions, or volitions implied in those words, form a frequently recurring part of the series of feelings, or states of consciousness, which fill up the sentient existence of that mind. ”