So it seemed that it is not necessarily what the word described that was more complex, but the way the word described it. But why warm or cool? I wondered if other people had similar feelings.

The Greek and Latin words that exist as an influence in Modern English are mostly classical, that is to say that they are distinct from the vulgate, the language of the people. Before the English Renaissance their usage was largely confined to scripture, the written word as used by the Church. But in the early English Renaissance and most noticeably after the invention of the printing press this classical written language became far more integrated with the spoken to become the Modern English that we use today. Modern Romance languages also have this entanglement with the classical but are predominantly formed from the Latin vulgate. I’d noted that the word ‘classical’ itself is derived from a particular group of Roman citizens, classis. And from this word comes our concept of class and classification. Looking for synonyms of the word ‘class’, I could find none with an Anglo Saxon origin.

Modern archaeology is adding to our appreciation of the sensitivity of early northern European and Celtic cultures which were predominantly oral and evanescent. We are realising that their achievements have been largely occluded by the classical, which was predominantly literate and so more enduring. This may be well trodden territory, but it is significant, to me at least, that despite this growing awareness, there’s still an embedded, almost instinctive assumption that the concept of ‘civilisation’ is the gauge of a culture’s worth. There is also an assumption that a civilised perspective and language has authority over what it, by its own definition, would be called an “uncivilised” perspective and language. Which would seem to be saying no more than that an educated perspective has authority over an uneducated one. But the word ‘cultivated’ also signifies a developed mind. It derives from the low (non-classical) Latin cultus meaning: care, till, worship. Whereas ‘civilisation’ comes from the Latin word civis, meaning no more than ‘townsman’, one who is governed by the law of his town. In very early Rome, all Romans were patricians. Plebeians lived outside of the protected environment.

The differentiation of the Roman classes and their languages would almost certainly have had a tribal origin. In the same way that the English class system and its linguistic differences can largely be accounted for by tribal conquests going back to the Norman Invasion. It is amazing to consider that a thousand years after this invasion, a distinct upper class, originally Norman French pronunciation and vocabulary is still shared (or affected) by social elites throughout the country. While regional accents and vocabularies remain audible witnesses to subjugated ancestors. These distinctions still have the power to cause suspicion and resentment even though their origins are long forgotten. I wondered if a greater awareness of these origins would help free us of the stubborn remnants of these debilitating prejudices.

This seems tangential to my Latin/Anglo Saxon distinction. But it encouraged me to realise that however deep the roots of preconceptions may be, inquiry had a chance of exposing them.

I found myself writing this obvious statement: “An oral culture transmits its knowledge and interpretation of reality predominantly via the spoken word – a literary culture predominantly via the written word”. The obviousness of this hides an enormous assumption. It is that the spoken word and the written word are somehow equivalent in conveying meaning. I considered the nature of the spoken word.

I realised that a spoken word is not only the signifier of a thought or a thing but it is itself a real, dynamic existence. In the time and space that a word is spoken it is simultaneously in the mind of the speaker, in the air between the speaker and the hearer and in the mind of the hearer. It is not merely a vehicle for the communication of an idea; it is, in a true sense, a connection between individuals. The spoken word cannot exist separately from its pitch, timbre, volume, rhythm and many other qualities that convey meaning, both analysable and un-analysable.  A further and equally obvious distinction from the written word is that when spoken, a word cannot exist without a voice. The voice informs the word with a vast spectrum of information about the speaker, including their demeanour, sincerity, character, sex, age, physicality, background etc. Moreover in oral cultures and in non-telephone conversations today, the word that connects a speaker to a hearer is never disembodied.  So all the previously identified emotional, mental and phenomenological content is further informed and qualified by information about the speaker. To the power of all this complexity is added the power of the presence of the listener which necessarily informs the speaker’s awareness which further informs the way the speaker’s voice is used and their choice of words. Unlike the written word, the spoken word is never simply understood – it is directly experienced and (in at least the old sense of the word) enjoyed.  It is only by conceptualising the spoken word that it can be said to become an entity that could have an existence separate from its speaker or its hearer.

In describing the incomprehensible complexity of the spoken word I had identified the source of the power of the written word. It was in the exclusion of this complexity. The mind is removed from the infinite network of resonances and information and it is free of the need to grasp ideas in the instant they are uttered. The page is a clean laboratory of thought where the mind can objectively observe patterns and relationships (i.e. find meaning) far more efficiently than would be possible in the phenomenal, here and now soup of speech. And in this purely mental environment these abstract meanings can themselves be juxtaposed with other meanings extending the complexity of signification. So by eliminating a spoken word’s phenomenal aspect and using only its conceptual aspect in writing, the mind has far greater influence over the ideas that words represent.

The power of poetry lies in using the conceptual control of writing while retaining the phenomenal complexity and resonance of speech.

This may be obvious to a scholar (or it may be bunkum) but in making the distinction between spoken and written words for myself, my impression of warmer and cooler words didn’t seem so strange. The spoken word is inseparable from a living organism. The written word is an abstracted tool. So was it my experience of the use of words as spoken or written that gave them these sensory associations? Or were the words themselves intrinsically warm or cool?

I imagined the earliest discoverers of written words must have regarded them with awe and as having a magical potency. Like the discoveries of mathematics and geometry, it must have seemed like the gods were revealing themselves. Free to stop time and actually look at words rather than just to hear them would have enabled priests and thinkers to enter new dimensions of thought. The earliest writing was logographic – symbols of words not elements of spoken sound. The remnants of logographic writing can still be seen in Oriental languages today. But the Greeks and Romans had complete alphabetic writing (including vowels) so when the juxtaposition of new ideas occurred to them, new portmanteau words could easily be created to identify these concepts. Consider the Latin word contemplare for example, coming to our language as ‘to contemplate’ but in its original sense meaning ‘with a holy place’. Such a creative understanding of the process of thinking must have seemed to be a gift from the gods. A gift that was honoured and repaid with its concretization as a single word. The concept could then be used as an abstract element to construct other complex ideas. As the words were already composed of alphabetic (sound) symbols the compound nature of the concept could be disregarded. In fact it would be necessary to forget that they were manmade compounds if the mind was to use them efficiently to create more conceptual constructions. You don’t break bricks to build walls.

I imagined that the immense utility of this aid to thinking would have been irresistible and these potent verbal compounds, because they were already strings of sounds, would then have been easily incorporated back into spoken language. Just as classical Latin was reintroduced to spoken English via the printing press, which at the time would only have been accessible to an elite. Likewise, in early Rome these powerful words were still esoteric knowledge for the use of priests and law makers and the administrators of social order, the patricians. Classical Latin, which must once have had a purely verbal and tribal origin, had made an evolutionary leap. Thought could now inhabit a realm unconstrained by physical nature. Concepts could generate exponentially, apparently needing no sustenance other than thought itself. Not even a listener. All the thinker needed was the leisure to think. This sacerdotal activity, originally to the glory of the gods, now brought glory to Rome. Organised thinking allowed science, architecture and technology to proliferate, bringing unimagined domestic and military benefits. The mind seemed to be transcending nature not just in the realm of thought but in the physical world as well.

Of course this was not all brought about by the power of the written word alone. By symbolising existence and reconstituting those symbols with the use of geometry and mathematics as well, it was possible to bring about a new world of comprehension and power. And this new world was not merely metaphorical as the growing Roman Empire demonstrated.

The word ‘word’ comes from the root WAR, to speak. So in its original sense a written word is not a word at all, but the symbol of a word. The primordial habits of thinking of a word as the representation of something experienced would bring with it the assumption that any word, written or otherwise, which had its own sound, must represent something with a real existence. Whereas in fact the synthetic words actually represented not something that was experienced but something that was thought. An idea or a concept. Exquisitely useful as it may be.

In this context, my statement that “a literary culture transmits its knowledge and interpretation of reality predominantly via the written word”, does not seem so banal. Ideas about the nature of reality are being passed on through a language that conflates descriptions of experiences with descriptions of thoughts. Progressively, a classical or classifying consciousness is defining not only the realm of thought but existence itself in this compound language. This would have seemed to confirm the belief that the Stoic ideal of man completely transcending his own animal nature was attainable.

With successive generations this filtered interpretation of reality became more and more denatured. Eventually it would inform not just cultural but human values. It became concretized in both the physical and mental environments. The seeds of the cruelty of Rome were sown. The products and structures of civilisation would take on a greater importance than its inhabitants. The mechanisms of justice took precedence over justice itself. Social organisation which had evolved according to the needs of its constituents must now be engineered according to the rules of its administrators. Sentiment becomes ‘mere sentiment’. Wisdom and compassion must be excluded from judgement because judgement can only be validated within the definable and all defining, all providing dimension of concepts. And personal individuality which was once experienced and embraced as what it is and what it can only be, an unintelligible part of an unintelligible whole, becomes just an irrelevant and inconvenient ambiguity.

Eventually Rome itself became a concept when its civilisation became the sole object of its own veneration. As a result the very idea of civilisation was disposed of for a thousand years in Western Europe.

Just as I was thinking how far away this all was from my inquiry into my understanding of words, and further still from the original riddle of the object, I realised that I had come full circle. My object was just like a spoken word – it was generated by an intention and it communicated that intention - but in being expressed it became something much more than the intention. The differing aspects of the object demonstrated that perception can only exist from a single standpoint and is therefore necessarily partial and incomplete. These were the conceptual aspects of the object. Only these could be analysed. The object as a whole, like a spoken word was beyond analysis. For it to be understood it needed to be experienced and enjoyed. It signified nothing beyond itself. It is what it is. This was the meaning of my blessed riddle.

‘Cretans always lie. I am a Cretan.’ The mother of all paradoxes ceases to be a paradox at all. It becomes a simple statement of an easily comprehensible common sense observation:

The expression of a truth can never be the truth itself.

I think the dog has caught its tail.

Nonsense

“It is what it is,” was the uninspiring pronouncement I’d made at the beginning of the inquiry. The same statement was my conclusion. It appears that I knew before what I know now. Which suggests that my time could have been better spent. However what I actually knew before was a place on a map, a concept. Having made the journey, disregarding my own advice, the place is no longer a concept, it is now an experience.

I believe that place is the land called Nonsense, a land discovered by the great Wittgenstein. He called it Nonsense for the same reason that Columbus called his discovery the Indies. At the time he believed he had circumnavigated the globe. Wittgenstein discovered the land of Nonsense but even in his later years I can find no record of him setting foot or exploring the interior. Why would he? “Whereof we cannot speak, we must remain silent.” He clearly didn’t share my enjoyment of the experience of the spoken word.

My souvenir of the journey was an axiom: “The expression of a truth can never be the truth itself.” An axiom is defined as ‘a statement of self-evident truth’. I confess I am not clear what self-evident means. It sounds to me suspiciously like a grandiose and bullying way of saying that something is obvious. But to say something proves itself, I find hard to comprehend. I do indeed understand my statement to be obvious. Can a picture be the thing it portrays?  Can the expression of anything be the thing that it expresses? My souvenir certainly looked like an axiom to me. However, if my axiom was an axiom, it presented a conundrum: it was an axiom that was simultaneously a paradox. It would be natural to dismiss this as mere perversity, but such a view would not be a refutation. Philosophy is used to dealing with self-referencing paradoxes. But I am not aware of anything quite as troublesome as this: an axiom that stated that there was no such thing as an axiom. This is not so much a problem for me as I am an artist, contradiction is my bread and butter. However it seemed rather problematic for logic because an axiom is the starting point for any logical deduction or inference. So just like my earlier understanding of intelligence, my axiom must be false. Now all I had to do was understand why. It seemed the dog was about to eat its tail.

I would understand if academic philosophers leave the room at this point. If they haven’t long ago.

According to my own apparently impossible realisation, I cannot say that any statement is true. At best it can only represent the truth. So apparently even my hard won truism, “It is what it is” was not itself the truth. This is not what is stated by the laws of logic at all. The first law of logical thought, the Law of Identity states: an object is the same as itself. This law is not a philosophical nicety. It is a corner stone of Western civilisation - and has been for over two thousand years. The laws of logic underpin all aspects of Western science, philosophy and mathematics. All the understanding that we have of the physical universe would be different and diminished without it. Only someone who does not know what they are talking about could question it. It seems that I am that person.

I considered the statement: “the first law of logic is ‘self-evidently’ true”. A self-evident truth is a truth that is universally recognised. If such a thing as universal recognition is possible then by implication it is also possible that there can be such a thing as universal delusion. It was once self-evident that the sun rises and sets. But we now know that it does no such thing. Of course, just because we were once universally deluded it does not follow that we are always universally deluded. However it does follow that because we were once universally deluded we know with certainty that we are capable of being universally deluded. Logic demonstrates that the first law of logic is an axiom because everyone agrees it is an axiom. Logic cannot demonstrate that it is true. Fortunately for Western civilisation there is pretty much universal assent that the law is true. The reason for this assent is because it works. It is useful. It consistently prophesises outcomes. Unfortunately for Western civilisation there is one voice of dissent, at least one voice that I can hear. To my hearing that voice is logic itself.

A≠A

The A on the left of the inequality sign is on the left of the inequality sign - the A on the right is on the right. If it wasn’t for the first law of logic, logic would say that they cannot be identical because they are not in the same place. If something exists, where can it exist other than in time and space? If it exists in time and space how can it exist in two places simultaneously? Therefore the two A’s must be different. I cannot see why this is not what is called ‘self-evident’. But clearly, I am not a logician. If they do not exist in time and space, and they are just symbols, then shouldn’t they at least behave as though they exist? Otherwise what are they symbols of?

Let’s say that both As represent the cup of coffee on my desk. The proposition is that “the cup of coffee is identical to itself”. The coffee is steaming. Particles of moisture are continuously drifting away from the cup. So when is the cup of coffee identical to itself? At some infinitesimally small point in time when there is no molecular or atomic activity? Even an empty cup only exists as a web of ever shifting subatomic activity on a speeding planet. So what is this point in time when there is no change in the nature of the cup? When is it identical to itself? Can such a point in time exist? Surely only in the realm of concepts or ideas not in the realm of things. And surely it is only as a concept or an idea – an identity dependent on an identifier - that any ‘entity’ can be said to be identical with itself. At what non-existent point in time can I myself be said to be identical to myself?

If the law of identity is a law then it should be able to explain these anomalies. If it cannot explain them then why should these anomalies be any less significant than those other minor annoyances like the ship’s mast disappearing over the ‘flat’ horizon – or the moons of Jupiter as seen through Galileo’s telescope.

Logic demonstrates to me that an object can never be identical to itself. Only a concept or an idea can be said to be identical to itself. Therefore logic demonstrates to me that the first law of logic is false. The small question remains as to why do the laws of logic work? Why do they so consistently predict outcomes in the physical world if they are only true in the world of concepts?

Here is how I understand this apparent paradox to be resolved:

Without thinking and without a faith in the reasoning of other thinkers, the earth, as far as I could have been aware of it a couple of millennia ago, was stationary and flat. However, even today with my current knowledge, in my everyday physical life, I still inhabit the earth as if it was stationary and flat. And in my everyday life, it behaves as if it was stationary and flat. It is only when I consider it or when some technological aid changes my perception of the earth, that I think of it any differently. It’s only then that I am aware (or care) that it is in motion and round. So yes, its motionlessness and flatness is a false notion based on partial reasoning and a limited perspective – but it is still the self-consistent reality that I inhabit. It is a necessary and functional but only partial perspective.

The laws of logic are the man made expression of reason – they are not reason itself. As a self-consistent reality at a certain level of awareness they have apparently infinite utility. It is this realm of utility that we currently call reality. But in the past, using observation and reason, man has proved himself capable of recognising that what is assented to as a law of nature is in fact a law of man. They are expressions of the truth not the truth itself.

“We define our own reality” is a truism. We understand it only as a concept, a place on a map. For that reason we define our own reality but do not do it consciously. The ultimate utility of reason, cleared of the manmade borders of the laws of logic, is to let us take the journey. To experience what we already know: to let us consciously and actively define a more comprehensive reality.

Reason can give us the courage to take that journey. It can assure us that we will not fall off the edge of the world. And by inference, reason demonstrates the certainty that Nonsense is not nowhere – it is just the name we give to an undiscovered country.

---

The interior

Currents in language had guided me this far. Perhaps now I could find a river that would lead me into the interior.

I’d said before that the synonyms that I had listed ‘choose/decide’ etc. seemed to differ from each other not in what the words signified but in how they signified. I realise now that the salient word here is ‘seemed’. There are regional words in spoken English that share meanings - but apart from these, are there really any words in our language that are simply redundant? Is there such a thing as an absolute synonym?

think	reason	reckon	rationalise	cerebrate	cogitate
puzzle	conceptualise	apperceive	conceive	consider	contemplate
deliberate	reflect	ruminate	speculate	meditate	intuit
ponder	fancy	muse	imagine	empathise	realize

I found it astonishing to consider what these words reveal about an earlier appreciation of the different types of mental action. Could anyone today even begin to distinguish these processes without this legacy? Some distinctions may be less significant than others, some more obvious - but this array of words bears witness to the great spectrum of mental actions. It also affirms the profound insight of our ancestors. If any of these words was truly redundant then is it likely that it would still be active in our vocabulary?

I wanted to understand the significance of these distinctions. For instance, what is the difference between a ‘thought’ and a ‘concept’? ‘Thought’ has obscure origins but is associated with the root TONG – ‘to think and to feel’. ‘Concept’ from concipere means ‘to take in and hold something’. This suggests to me that a thought is a mental experience, while a concept is the mental object that is made when I have that experience. These are very different meanings - but surely a thought/concept itself is a single existence whatever names it may be given. Was it fanciful to think that these words testified to some lost knowledge of how the mind works?

A strange notion occurred to me: could these mental ‘entities’ be understood in the same way that a sub-atomic entity is currently understood - as having two simultaneous natures? A wave nature and a particle nature. A curious notion but it corresponded with the idea of the different modes of thinking that I’d recognised. One, the wave or vibration, the mental experience, - and the other, the particle, an object – a mental image from a single perspective. This also seemed to correspond to my understanding of the distinction between the spoken (vibrational) and the written (particular) word. To ‘think’ certainly has a different connotation from another word used as a partial synonym, ‘to cogitate’. In Latin cogitare means ‘to agitate together’. What was it that was being agitated together? This strengthened my impression of the wave nature of thoughts and the particle nature of concepts. What else did this wave/particle correspondence suggest? An uncertainty principle? That thought’s behaviour could somehow be affected by being observed? However strange this may sound, to a materialist, someone who believes only in the existence of matter, the proposition that thoughts and electrons share the same dual nature should be easy to accept.

Having had this notion of a possible correspondence with Quantum Theory I went looking for and found an embryonic field of study called Quantum Mind Theory. Unfortunately, I am allergic to algebra and completely dismayed by calculus, so I have never been able to understand any serious physics. But I felt I should at least attempt to tackle this important subject. In the first paragraph of a paper on the theory I found this sentence: Fractal quantum computation is realized by a cNOT-operation with percolation of the control q-bits into sub-spaces of a nascent fractal. I wished Quantum Mind Theory the best of luck. If there was this kind of relationship to be found then I would need to find it in my own simple way.

The circle below is a uniform grey. This does not occur in nature. All things as they’re experienced in the real world exist in three dimensions and appear to some extent modulated.

Roll over the image to put the circle into a modulated context. The circle has not changed but it can no longer be seen as flat and uniform. This is a phenomenon known as lateral inhibition. It occurs in the retina and it creates contrasts that do not exist objectively.

My perception is more protective than I realised. For the sake of comprehensibility, it presents me with distinctions that do not exist in reality. In the above example the effect is to give something the appearance of having depth when it doesn’t. For the sake of ‘clarity’, perception overrules common sense.

Like an inhabitant of the flat earth, I am a victim and a beneficiary of a functional, utile but only partial perspective. What need do I have to consider that there is an alternative more comprehensive frame of reference? What need do I have of a globular earth? No reasonable need at all. Except that as a member of my species I have no choice. I am compelled to think. According to most linguists it is the meaning of my species: MAN means ‘to think’ it is the word’s  Sanskrit root. As we have seen, there are many modes of thinking. History teaches me that it is how I think that defines my reality.

A thousand years ago the rational mind was a servant to faith. In Europe that faith was mediated by an institution. A gate to heaven was erected and a human being held the keys. As symbols these may have brought peace of mind and a sense of order. The still point of certainty was made comprehensible. As symbols their resonance with the subtler aspects of consciousness, such as imagination and intuition - gave these ideas meaning and value. But when the expression of any truth is conceived of as truth itself – its potency is lost. Living metaphors became fossilised superstition. From a rational perspective it seemed that reason itself was being marginalized. This brought about a battle for the survival of reason and eventually the war cry rang out: cogito ergo sum. At last a ‘self-evident’ truth. If I can doubt my own existence then I have at least one certainty - I doubt. Therefore I am. If all other meaning is obscured then this is always with me. Doubt itself became the new certainty, the unassailable still point. Great minds rallied to the cry and through Descartes’ technique of methodic doubt our understanding of the universe was eventually reconstituted within an intellectually cognisable frame of reference. That definition restored what is called the light of reason and the intellectual achievements of the last four centuries are its glories. The utility of this mode of thinking is unquestionable. And may it ever be so. However its power is the same as that of the written word in that its efficiency depends on excluding what cannot be contained within its frame of reference. It is only the cogitating intellect, the aspect of man that doubts, that is validated by this certainty. When this becomes the only certainty then the complementary modes of comprehension - imagination, intuition and empathy, become the new marginalized faculties.

Such cultural forces must influence the way I think today. They affect my natural temperament in the same way that my physical environment affects my physical constitution. Therefore my way of thinking is not purely my own.

The notion that we have only a partial perspective of reality can be disconcerting and that is why, quite rightly, most of us do not think about it. But most of us do, at least occasionally, have a sense of meaninglessness and feel the need to distract ourselves from reality through our chosen instrument of oblivion. And most of us feel that we probably have a more acute sense of this meaninglessness than our ancestors. Yet we live in an age in which we have never had so much protection from the caprices of nature - despite the threatening ‘revenge of Gaia’. It seems most probable that this protection is actually the cause of our increased alienation. Our organs of perception have evolved over millions of years to inform us about a natural environment with natural dangers and natural rewards. Yet most of our waking life is spent experiencing what other human beings have constructed. And now, without precedent in our evolution, a major proportion of our experience is completely disembodied via the media. So apart from our personal relationships, the vast majority of what we experience is synthetic. The rhythms and resonances that we have inhabited since the beginning of evolution are now mostly absent or present only as synthetic representations. If we can accept that we are as much an organism as a consciousness then we must acknowledge that we have become aliens in our own world. The sadness in the face of the gorilla in the zoo is the sadness of our own species.

However, unlike the gorilla, we made the cage. And we must have the key.

We have seen how perception is capable of overruling common sense. It is only relatively recently that common sense has become such a vague and homely concept. It has become irrelevant to a serious understanding of the world. As a concept, today, if it means anything at all, it would be understood as just ‘plain sense’ or ‘obvious thinking’. This is evident in the phrase, ‘Well, that’s just common sense’, which is to say no more than anyone could have thought it. It is precisely because we have had to adopt an unbalanced use of our mental and emotional faculties to make sense of an environment in which man made concepts predominate, that the coherence of the faculties has faded from consciousness. I believe it can be demonstrated that common sense is itself that coherence. From a conceptual perspective, it may be understood as the sum of our faculties. But considered within a more comprehensive frame of reference, common sense may be understood as an actual existence of which our various mental faculties are simply aspects.

Roll over the image again and watch the object revolving. Why should I consider the four shapes that I identified to be discrete at all? Aren’t they simply points on the continuum that is the whole object? None can exist without the others. Each is only an aspect of the whole. All that can be said is that at the cardinal points they are distinct and recognisably different. I considered the four seasons. They have their equinoxes and solstices – but as the earth is in a continuous orbit, then these only exist at notional points in time which have no actual duration. As with the law of identity, their ‘existence’ is only a concept or an idea. At what point can I say that my mind stops cogitating and starts imagining or intuiting or empathising? Like the seasons, there is no question that these faculties exist, summer is not spring. And there cannot be one season without another. But how can they be said to be separate? If our mental and emotional faculties were not separate then it would help explain the origin of the great spectrum of words that were describing them. Like colours, we can never name the infinite gradation of hues. There are primary, secondary, tertiary, infinite distinctions. However their separation into discrete entities is solely conceptual. Their separateness exists only to accommodate a classifying mode of thought. So it is possible that even with our understanding of our own minds, for the sake of ‘clarity’, common sense is overruled.

Restoring common sense, a mode of comprehension that the intellect cannot conceive of as existing, may seem absurd. But if the last century has proved anything at all it is that intellectually incomprehensible change is inevitable, whether it is for good or bad. It has also proved that the intellect itself plays an essential part in producing that change.

The image below illustrates how the mind can create the illusion of an active and actual existence. Click anywhere in the square to see the pattern clearly.

As you probably realise there is no real movement, it is a still image. The appearance of activity is caused by the activity of your eyes, which are hardly ever still.

For me, what is most significant is that my mind believes itself to be still. So the perceived motion is attributed to external reality – not to myself. Just as we once conceived of the earth’s motion as the sun’s motion. If my mind is not inactive then it must be moved by something that it itself is unaware of. If that something is not my own will then what is it? Is it the forgotten animal still scanning for predators or prey? Whatever it may be, how can I say my mind is not governed by some unrecognised necessity and that my mental autonomy, like my mind’s stillness is merely an illusion?

Click the image again to reveal it. Now choose one of the dark spots at the centre of any of the circles and fix your gaze on it for a few seconds.

The rotation should stop. The true, motionless nature of the image is revealed when the compulsion to shift the gaze is controlled. Through stillness the will has unmade the illusion.

This illustrates the ultimate power of the cogitating intellect: the power to cause its own inaction. By temporarily abdicating its autocracy a more comprehensive reality is experienced. Like the body, it is restored to order by rest. This is well understood in Eastern thought where stilling the mind is an essential part of a balanced existence. It is only to the modern western mind that this simple and natural process is associated with mysticism. Understandably the intellect tends to be resistant to this experience as it seems to indicate its own negation. But with very little consideration it can be shown that the opposite is true and that intellectual efficiency is enhanced by temporarily surrendering its control.

The greatest intellectuals are called discoverers of truth not makers of it. All the heroic work of analysis, reasoning and experimentation proceeds from their momentary glimpses or intimations. Understanding is the recognition of the relationship between elements - the realisation of the wholeness that coheres particulars. The intellect cogitates, it doubts, it perceives distinctions. It aspires to comprehend by its continual activity which is its attempt to escape the limits of a single, partial perspective. Like a dog sniffing here and there until the scent is recognised. But ultimately it is the subtler aspects of comprehension that find correspondences and meaning. Imagination, intuition and empathy. They do this in an instant because that is the only way that wholeness can be comprehended. Not from a perspective at a point in time and space - but outside of it. All the clichés about human creativity now seem less trite: “One per cent inspiration...”. “The Eureka moment”. “It came to me in a flash”. “It suddenly occurred to me”. This seemingly non-dimensional context is where we find not only understanding but also happiness . ‘To put out of place’ is the original meaning of the word ecstasy. “Time flies when you’re enjoying yourself.” These are the moments when we forget that we are limited to a dimensional existence. Or looked at in another way, when we remember that we aren’t.

Escape from time and space seems fundamental to our desires. Why should we be happy when time flies or miserable when it drags? Why should we feel fulfilled when we feel connected with each other or our environment and unfulfilled when we feel isolated? Why must we seek oblivion if we cannot find peace? Surely the simplicity of these questions is not a sign of their triviality but of their profound importance.

When regarded as the actual and active coherence of our faculties, common sense becomes what it is -  comprehension without perspective. It is the capacity to recognise truth without reference to our own intellectual perspective - or the corroboration of others. As such, the possibility of a single ‘subjectivity’ that is shared by all of us becomes conceivable. To use such a sense would be to experience our common humanity. And, unbound to a single perspective in time and space, it recognises the interrelationship and mutual dependency of all the elements of nature. Including our own intellect.

This interpretation of common sense may bear a resemblance to other characterisations of such an existence described in philosophy, psychology and religion. However if this principle is as fundamental as I believe it to be, I see no reason why it should only be understood via scholarship or abstruse doctrines. In my own untutored opinion it was an everyday part of our ‘vulgate’ past and was once known in Old English as wit which meant both ‘to see’ and ‘to know’. From the ancient root WID has come the words ‘vision’, ‘wisdom’, ‘wit’, and ‘witness’. In his book “On Dialogue” it has been identified and described by the physicist David Bohm as “participatory thought”. He reminds us that it is fundamental to “pre-literal” cultures. The negative remnants of this phenomenon can still be seen in mass political and religious cult gatherings where the collective psychic energies of the participants are channelled by dominant individuals to their own ends and are often directed against other groups of individuals. A more life affirming manifestation is still experienced by us in everyday social and cultural gatherings. In the theatre a particularly powerful example of this is known as “the shared experience”. When theatre is at its best, the audience will suspended their disbelief and individuals are simultaneously conscious of a single ‘reality’. Suspension of disbelief is the partial abdication of the intellectual perspective. The imagination, intuition and empathy of the individual become active for the purpose of entertainment or a temporary release from reality. But in the communal exercise of these subtler faculties another reality is experienced. The simultaneous experience by diverse individuals of a common frame of reference. This cannot be measured or quantified or even defined and so the shared experience does not qualify for the intellectual imprimatur, it cannot be called an ‘objective’ truth. But who has not at some time experienced it? However briefly. In the shared experience the individual’s common sense is confirmed and resonates with the shared Common Sense.

As sunlight is to our physical existence so Common Sense is to our mental existence. And just as sunlight is the forgotten origin of the energy of fossil fuels, Common Sense, far from being irrelevant to human intelligence, is its cause and its source of power. Just as the immeasurable resource of solar and other renewable energy might still yet be employed to save our physical world from disaster, so too could the mental resource of Common Sense be released to preserve and develop our mental and emotional existence – if reason will allow it to be. Without Common Sense a solely intellectually cognisable order becomes an end itself. And like the Roman Empire, it is capable of bringing about its own destruction. But the Roman Empire didn’t dominate the entire globe and humanity survived its implosion. Our predicament is different. I’m sure that I am not alone in believing that unless the authority and resolving power of Common Sense is restored we may lose the only hope we have for the survival of our species.