PART 3:

THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION
(23Feb97)

As discussed, however imperfectly, in the Introductory materials to this series of essays, it was discovered that consensus realities and their broadly-shared concepts are sources of the greatest deterrents and distortion regarding the superpower faculties.

The principal reason seems to be that certain concepts are misconceptions or are absent -- and in either case the mental information processing grids of the individual so affected respond as if they have viruses in them.

The result can consist of anything imaginable -- from the highest, most vaporous kinds of illusion down to and including complete closure or black-out of the cognitive processes.

There is the added complexity that viruses can mutate with wild frequency, or become immune to conceptocides in the way cockroaches can do.

So the best way to deal with them is not to rationalize in their presence, not to try to correct them in anyway, but by the simple cave-man tactic of pounding them to death with the proverbial club of increased and more exact understanding.

If this tactic is successful, one is somewhat likely to experience Metanoia shifts -- Metanoia to be extensively treated in a following essay.

In any event, when the misconceptions or absence of correct ones are cloned into the think-processes of everyone, anyone, the misconceptions , etc. act as viruses that either confuse or misdirect various kinds of information in ways that seem entirely appropriate, logical, rational, correct and so forth.

If something like this is not possible, then the think-systems are caused to shut down. In familiar terms, this is often expressed as "my mind is drawing a blank" or "I haven't the foggiest notion of what is meant."

Since most consensus reality information is simplified and generalized with regard to larger and larger consensus realities, the confusions and misdirections are not usually noticed.

It isn't just that misconceptions come into existence or that some of them are inadequate. Perhaps the biggest of the central problems is that they are "understood" as if they ARE adequate and well conceived.

In this state of false understanding, they are then cloned into the think processes of others where they function like information viruses.

Most people will abandon false understandings if and when they realize their falseness. But this seems to be linked in some direct proportion to whatever complexity is involved.

Having realized something about the deterrent nature of conceptualizations, it then seemed necessary to isolate those most fundamental with regard to the superpower faculties, and then inspect how they were understood.

Various lists of nomenclature were produced as a result.

For example, certain fashionable terms were found to be oxymorons, but which are none-the-less understood as if they make real sense -- PRE-cognition, and POST-cognition, for instance.

Another kind of list contained terms drawn from theories, not from direct evidence, but which terms became broadly utilized as if they represented direct evidence, not theory -- TELEPATHY and PSYCHO-KINESIS being two of these.

(NOTE: A number of terms that fall into these two categories will be dissected in essays ahead.)

Then, and as we have already seen, there were terms extremely ambiguous regarding their definitions, but broadly utilized anyway -- presumably not because anyone really understands them, but simply because they are verbal currency which fit into and reflect the major consensus realities everyone seems to have cloned. An "everyone is using it, so it must be OK" kind of thing.

Finally, there was a list of terms taken as reflecting extremely obvious and self-evident truths, so much so that everyone utilizes them with a cast-in-cement conviction of their correctness and their utterly unchallengeable reality as well.
What these particular terms refer to and conceptualize is completely taken for granted, and all of them underpin consensus realities extending far outside of the much smaller ones typical of superpower phenomena.

This is to say that such terms are broadly based in overall cultural usage in that they are closely associated with "basic images" of the human being is.

Even though their meanings are taken completely for granted and thus hardly ever inspected, two of these particular terms are entirely troublesome -- so much so that unless they are properly defined and understood they will derail any and all cognitive approaches to the superpower faculties.

The second of these terms will be considered elsewhere. The first will now be examined.


Perception
That term is PERCEPTION -- and everyone, absolutely everyone takes it for granted that they understand perfectly well what it means.

Right? Well, if anything is understood about perception, it is only the via consensus reality format of it.

IT MUST BE EMPHASIZED THAT VERY FEW OF THE FACTORS DISCUSSED BELOW HAVE ORIGINATED FROM MY OWN STRESSED BRAIN -- WITH THE EXCEPTION OF WHAT CONSTITUTES MY ATTEMPTS AT SARDONIC HUMOR.

Most people utilize the concept-term PERCEPTION as if they comprehend what it means and refers to, and most people will say they do understand it.

But if you ASK a few people what it means, well, now occurs a pause, sometimes followed by: "Well, let' s see ... (a hiatus of verbiage) .... " .

Sometimes someone will respond: "It means what I perceive, that's perception." Or: "It's what I see." Others might say: "OK. I guess I'd better look it up."

Looking it up might not get you anywhere -- except back into the general consensus reality regarding what perception is thought to consist of.

But something now has to do with where you want get to, want to achieve. And so something must be distinguished here.

That our species has perceptions is not the issue, for it IS self-evident that we have them -- unless they are dysfunctional, at which time we are blind or oblivious in this or that regard. And here it should be admitted that certain misconceptions can "blind" us to any number of things. If, for example, we think that psychic perception is BASED in perception, then this will blind us regarding any realization that it is NOT.

In any event, it is obvious that living organisms that depend for survival on acuity of certain gross perceptions would not survive unless they had them. Just try to imagine a living organism with no perceptual faculties, and zippo, almost certain extinction.

In other words, PERCEPTION is so fundamental to our species that it is practically synonymous with FUNCTIONAL LIFE itself -- and that life, or at least the living of it, becomes increasingly dysfunctional as the perceptual faculties themselves become (or are).

And since perception is so fundamental, we think that perception must be the answer to everything.

This remains a convincing truism -- until the question arises why we DO NOT perceive something when enough evidence is present to indicate that we should. Regarding this I refer back to the Patagonian thing narrated in Part 1{INSERT LINK HERE}.

In the contexts of all of the foregoing, then, it would appear that without perception we are nothing. And so the CONCEPTS regarding perception may be the most fundamental ones upon which ALL other concepts are extended from. This, unless and until one comes to learn and accept that there is more to perception -- at which time it becomes apparent that perception is NOT perception, but something entirely different.

In any event, such certainly IS the case regarding the whole of psychical and parapsychological research in which perception holds center stage, and as is also the case regarding creative, inventive and problem-identification activity.

If you DELETE the concept-term of PERCEPTION from psychical research and parapsychology, their entire cognitive edifices will go poof, having instantly vaporized.

If you delete perception in any kind of wholesale way, there also go the arts, science, certainly any hope of diplomacy or any other kind of information transfer, and there goes any contact with the past or the future.

About the only thing remaining will be one's immediate appetites, and even these won't be perceived for very long.

Thus, perception is a f-----g serious issue. And this is the reason why I will lean completely on published scientific documents, omitting entirely my own perception of perception.

If perception is not what is generally thought, it thus follows that a simple definition of PERCEPTION is not only not sufficient or meaningful, but that it will act as a virus, as all simplified information packages usually do.

To establish that our species does have perceptions and let it go at that is nowhere enough -- and, in demonstrable fact, might be dangerous.

And in any event, anyone hoping to "develop" access to their superpower faculties and activate them doesn't stand one chance in Hell of doing so in the absence of very refined comprehensions of the nature of perception.

In this sense, Superpower Development 101 WILL necessarily consist of learning everything known about perception, of which there is quite a lot -- but hardly any of which can be stuffed into an over-simplified format.

The research involving collecting together what has been known, what is known, and what is yet to be known about perception has been excruciating and taken a great deal of effort.

But in the researching one occasionally runs across various condensed statements such as: "You ARE your perceptions...", "What thine perceptions are so shall ye be...", and so forth, until one can get the approximate idea that one's perceptions maketh one, and that one's non-perceptions non-maketh one.

The enduring axioms "I think, therefore I am" or "As I think therefore I have been and will be" are not quite on the mark. You see, thinking takes place after perceptions do, and so what more matters is the quantity AND the quality of how many perceptions one has or doesn't have in activational status. And it is this which makes one into an I AM entity.

This becomes somewhat understandable by jumping the gun a little here.

The only information our systems can make perceptions out of is the information ADMITTED into those systems. If our information transferring systems are somehow barriered against admitting certain kinds of information, then that information will not be perceived.

In converting all of the above considerations to the issue of the superpowers of the human biomind, all of them in the primal or first instance of their activity are some kind of information-dealing faculties -- as are ALL of the biomind's powers per se. All other attributes must then be drawn from these information-dealing faculties, for if those didn't exist, then neither would the attributes.

It must then follow that if certain of the superpower faculties are inactive, then all of their possible attributes and extensions will also be inactive.

And perception is an attribute of the information-dealing systems, and in no case is a primal or first instance of anything.


All Perception is Indirect Perception
Among the first of the gargantuan problems to wrestle with is that it is commonly thought and accepted that there is a direct connection between the perceiver and what is perceived.

And indeed, one can often hear people saying something along the lines of "Well, I had direct perception of it, and so I know what I saw."

No one who has cloned this idea can be blamed for having done so. It is a cultural artifact (in the modern West at least), and no effort is taken to correct it, at least as regards public consumption.

On the other hand, what perception actually consists of IS more or less known in scientific realms devoted to studying it. But this knowledge is more or less sequestered to certain kinds of specialists some of which I'll discuss after the working parts of this essay have been completed.

In English, the concept of "direct" perception seems to go somewhere back in time to a point that seems unidentifiable.
However, most modern definitions do not specify that perception is direct. Such is implied, or assumed, or taken for granted.
For example, the original 1828 Noah Webster's gives for TO PERCEIVE:

"To have knowledge or receive impressions of external objects through the medium or instrumentality of the senses or bodily organs."
"To know: to understand: to observe."
"To be effected by; to receive impressions from [something]."

All of which, of course, are referred to as PERCEPTION(S) -- but without any reference as to how the perceptions come about.

In English, the general concept of perception has not changed very much since 1828 -- even though accumulating evidence and knowledge since then has established that the general concept is complete nonsense. For example, to merely observe or receive impressions does not automatically equate with knowledge or understanding.

The pre-1828 actual etymology in English of TO PERCEIVE and PERCEPTION has not been established very well.

The approximate dates of the earliest noted uses in English of these two terms are the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries -- but which seems a bit late for such fundamental conceptualizing nomenclature.

If we carefully inspect the earliest recorded etymological basis, we can find not one, but two major concepts regarding what we today have collapsed into just one, and which is entirely misconceived.

One the one hand, there was a similar archaic term, PERCEANT (apparently derived from Old French PERCER (to pierce)) which meant penetrating, keen, piercing -- the "keen" motif implying some kind of penetrating/piercing/discriminative faculties.

On the other hand, the two terms PERCEANT and PERCER are later thought to have been derived from the Latin PER + CAPERE -, PER meaning "by or through," CAPERE meaning to take -- ending up with "to take by or through" (something?).

However, to "penetrate-pierce keenly" and to "take [in?] by or through" are two entirely different concepts, the first being an active-like out-flowing, the second being a passive-like in-flowing.

Now, the standard definition of A PERCEPTION is an attainment of awareness or understanding, while the most used definition of TO PERCEIVE is to become aware of through the senses.

And so some dreaded complexities arise, whether we like them or not.

First off, in common parlance, one can hear others saying that he or she (or IT if it be a pet or animal) "has piercing perceptions." On the other hand, sometimes people say that others are "a victim of their perceptions" -- with the proviso, of course, that oneself is not such a victim either of one's perceptions or lack of them.

Furthermore, awareness of and understanding are really two different things -- for one can be aware of something and not understand it at all, or understand something in the complete absence of awareness about what is being "understood."

But in spite of this essential confusion regarding awareness and understanding, both the active out-going and the passive in-taking formats of perception imply direct routes between the perceiver and what is being perceived.

The active out-going format also implies a "search, discover, and pierce" activity. The passive take-in-through (the senses) format implies a "sit back and receive" activity.

As these two concepts stand, then, a direct link out to or receiving into is implied.

In any event, if we persist in utilizing the same word after realizing there may be THREE kinds of perception states or conditions, we should enumerate the three as general types of it.

• Passive, in-flowing perception

• Active, out-going perception

• Not much of either

And if the existence of the third type above is admitted and plotted on the standard Bell curve, it might turn out that the majority of the so-called "normal" are made up of this type.

You see, having perceptions either of type 1 or 2 might mean that one perceived too much, or perceives what others do not. And in either case, one would tend to depart from the "normal."

In this sense, then, we would be obliged to posit the existence of at least two types of superpower faculties which function differently:

• The passive PERCAPERE type where the experiencer simply in-takes perceptions (this type would consist of a one-way flow into one).

• The active PERCEANT type where the experiencer out-goes in the way of piercing and keenly obtaining perceptions of -- and then, of course, along a return route of some kind of in-flowing regarding what has been pierced and keenly obtained.

To digress for just a moment, in this regard, the processes of Controlled Remote Viewing (CRV) are of the active PERCEANT type as distinguished from the passive PERCAPERE type.

When the essential downfall of CRV occurred about 1988-89, it did so because of the failure to maintain the two seminal distinctions -- i.e., by retreating back into the dominant concept of perception as only in-flowing.

But the reasons for the failure to maintain the distinctions are very easy to account for. You see, the conceptual consensus reality regarding perception is that it consists only of in-flow "of impressions." (I'll unfold ahead and in other essays the humorous and comic aspects of this failure.)

Meanwhile, back in the main theme of this essay, it's worth pointing up that since in-flow of perceptions IS the prevailing conceptual reality, when anyone submits to "psychic" or "RV" tutoring, one naturally anticipates that their passive in-flow perceptions will be enhanced. If one reads a book about how to become more psychic, one will unknowingly expect to read about in-flowing perceptions. And to be sure that is what the book will deal with.

You see, psychics RECEIVE perceptions.

It's also worth noting that those "psychics" who say they "receive information or pictures" must be the passive type of PERCAPERE perceptionists. So if they are any good at their "craft," then their perceptual systems must be well-rigged along the passive receiving end of perceiving.

However, a "psychic" asked, for example, to locate a missing person or a dead body hidden probably would have to be well-rigged regarding the active out-going PERCEANT type, i.e., the "pierce, search and keenly-find thing."

Functional examples of this type seem a rarity, and which may be why not many have emerged to aid law enforcement activities. Some do exist, however.

In any event, one can now see that all perceptions may not equal all perceptions, since there are at least two different kinds of them, with more to follow.

In this sense, then, a very important distinction begins to appear on the horizon of the over-generalizing concept of perception: how, or in which manner, the perceptions come about or result.


Is Perception a Thing In Itself, or
Is It the Result of Processes that Make It Possible?
Obviously, perceptions of any kind do NOT just come about and that's the end of that story.

Functions and processes are involved, and it is the nature and character of these which is almost totally missing within the general concept of what perception consists.

The most prevalent consensus reality concerning perception is basically modeled upon concepts regarding what eyesight was once thought to consist of -- and still is in most over-simplified reality formats.

The seventeenth-century French mathematician and philosopher, Rene Descartes, seems to have been the first to put in print the idea that the eye acts as a lens that focuses on the elements of the external world and directly projects them to a kind of projection screen somewhere at the back of the brain where they are "seen" as reflections of what is out there.

In this concept, then, a direct, one-to-one relationship between outer and inner images was thought to be the case -- and what is "seen" via this one-to-one relationship was thought of as "perception."

The first noted uses of "perception," however, are dated during the twelfth century and used in forms meaning "receiving, collecting rents." So a perception back then referred to rents, or to anything received. "Perception" also referred to receiving of the Eucharist or sacred elements.

It wasn't until about 1611 that the term had become converted into meaning a perceiving, apprehension, understanding. But even then, a perception also meant "perception of profits."

The inner core meaning of perception, then, has focused on receiving, and in general consensus realities to this day we "receive perceptions" however else PERCEPTION may or may not be defined. And perception IS defined in quite a number of ways -- which ultimately leads to ambiguity as with all words that have an increasing number of meanings, some of which may be the opposite of others.

In that eye-perception has been the dominant model for perception during the modern period, it's worthwhile walking step-by-step through its so-called "mechanics" or "mechanisms." "Functions" would be a far better term as we shall see ahead.

To begin with, it is commonly thought that the eye sees images of the objects they scan or focus upon.

However, the eye itself does not form images. Rather it is composed of a collection of extremely tiny light-sensitive parts, called rods and cones, etc., that detect various kinds of light reflecting off of various kinds of objects and things. Taken altogether, these can be called "photosensors."

What the light-sensitive parts are thus "seeing" is not an image but interactions between the objects and the light they are reflecting. The interactions of the reflecting light are known as "interference patterns."

• So what is actually going on, as step 1, is that interference patterns of light bouncing off of objects are taking place, and is these patterns that are picked up by the light-sensitive parts of the eye -- and which at this point should be referred to as a "light interference pattern detector." So, the light-sensitive parts of the eye are also light interference patterns.

  
  That reflecting light patterns are the essential ingredient becomes quite clear if you step into a completely darkened room and close the door behind you. Zippo! No interference patterns, no "eye vision."
   

• As step 2, the light-sensitive parts of the eye are not actually "parts," but at least a hundred million light-sensitive cells, each of which, or teams of which, are precisely geared only with regard to this or that particular kind of light within the light-interference patterns.

  
  This is to say that the patterns themselves have now been broken down into a hundred million separate light segments or aspects. Another way of putting this is that the light has now been broken down and divided up into a vast number of extremely minuscule "dots."
   

• As step 3, EACH of the dots is immediately converted into a particular kind of electrical signal pattern, a hundred million of them.
   

• As step 4, all of these minuscule electrical signals are transmitted in a rapid but hyper-organized way via a complicated system of "relay" cells to another complicated set of relay cells alongside the brain-stem.

  
  A complicated set of nomenclature for these relay-transmitting cells has been developed. But basically they belong to the ganglion system of cells, each of which, or sets of which, are interested solely in specific signals. Some of these have to do only with dividing differences of contrasts of light and shade; others have to do with dividing the signals into further categories of color.
   

• As step 5, at this point each of the signal dots have been "cued" as to where they belong and interface among all of the signals.
   

• As step 6, the whole of this is now forwarded or transmitted to the cells of the cortex lining the surface of the back parts of the brain -- i.e., transmitted to the back of your "head." The sectors of the cortex having to do only with "vision" are referred to as the visual cortex -- even though what we refer to as vision doesn't exactly take place among them.
  
  Even though the mass of signals have arrived at the visual cortex, "vision" does not yet take place.

  
  If all this is complex enough so far, what now takes place gets really complex.
   

• As step 7, the more "simple" cells "respond" to particular simple features of the incoming signals, at which point the signals begin to take on what we refer to as information.
  Some of the cells respond to straight lines, curves, given kinds of angles, or a dividing line between areas of light and darkness.
  
  If these have more complex or more specific relationships arrangements, more "complex" counterparts to the "simple" cells are required. The complex cells respond, for example, to given shapes of given colors. Other specializing complex cells are interested in whether no motion is involved or if motion is involved. Some of the complex cells only respond to motion moving to the left; others only to motion moving to the right. Others have to do with up/down motion. And on and on and on. Some cells are interested only in what is signaled is dead or alive.

  
  However, even though the "information" is somewhat organized into "bits" at this point, "image" or "image-perception" does not yet occur.
   

• As step 8, the whole of the output of the simple and complex cells is forwarded to MEMORY STORAGE where, apparently, the bits are compared to bits stored in memory. This process goes on until the incoming bits find a "match" in memory storage, or a "match" that is nearest to/similar to the incoming bits. When compatible bits are located and compared to the incoming bits, what is called "recognition" now begins to take place.
   

• As matches are found, and as step 9, what apparently is somewhat akin to a hologram begins to form, in which all of the incoming bits compatible with memory storage bits are now...

   

• Reconstructed or Fabricated...
  into, as step 10, the "image" that is now formed or projected into the hologram -- and which in our modern epoch is referred to as "mental image picture."

If all goes well enough from step 1 through step 10, then we have what we mistakenly call "eye vision" -- but which, beyond any scientific doubt now, is an interiorily reconstructed "hologram" of some kind -- "hologram" being the best term to date. The holograms that don't completely form up (for any number of reasons) are what we call "impressions" in order to distinguish them from an "image."

But there IS one factor that makes it seem there is a one-to-one relationship between the actual object being "seen" and the hologramic reconstruction of it.

This factor is the utterly mind-boggling speed that incorporates steps 1 through 10. Although the speed of the "recognition" sometimes varies in minuscule ways, the whole of all this takes place within nanoseconds or even in fractions of them.

Now, there remain some enormous complexities. The entirety of what happens via steps 1 through 10 is scientifically understood, mapped and predictable.

At least two important factors are yet missing.

In spite of the enormous research funds to discover what it is, no one knows what MEMORY is or where it is "stored."
Not known either is where the reconstructed holograms form, and why they do.

What IS known, though, is that everything we "perceive," absolutely everything, is "information" that has been reconstructed into formats recognizable only against memory storage.

And what is also known is that step 10 is the LAST step in this processes, not the second step. And whether concerning eye vision or not, everything that manifests in our heads takes place because of all ten steps, whether concerning our ideas, imagination, illusions, concepts, "understanding," and ALL other perceptual whatnot.

When, then, a psychic (or anyone) says they are receiving impressions or images, nothing of the kind is the case. They may indeed be receiving "signals." But the impressions or perceptual images are reconstructions based on,

(a) the signals that can be matched with

(b) similar signals already in memory storage.

If the matches are only partial, then an "impression" results.

If the matches can fit together easy enough, then a perception-image or thought-idea results.

If no matches occur, then whatever the incoming information consists of, it simply drops "out of sight," is not "recognized," or remains invisible not even stimulating fractional conscious awareness. Except regarding that phenomenon we like to call "intuition" -- and intuition is most usually spoken of as "feeling," not perception.

It is well worth noting here that "recognize" in its most literal sense actually means to RE cognize something. RE cognize actually means to RE formulate in "the mind." And in fact this is an entirely suitable definition for a perception -- something that has been re-constructed so as to be re-recognizable and hence cognizable.

A perception, then, is a re-recognizable formulation made possible by a reconstruction of information -- the reconstruction, however, being in accord, and ONLY in accord, with each individual's memory storage.

In any event, what we call "perceptions" don't exist as such. What CAN exist, however, are reformulations and reconstructions of information "in our heads" the end-products of which we call perceptions.

Well, has the foregoing been complicated enough? Wait until you "perceive" what lies ahead in about or four paragraphs.


The Distrust of Perceptions
Very little of the foregoing has dwindled down into general consensus realities (since it can't really be simplified). But the fact that ALL perceptions are NOT direct ones, but ARE indirect reconstructions in and by "the mind," has been scientifically understood for quite some time. And understood as well by scientific intellectuals and philosophers, even in the two decades just prior to the turn of the twentieth century.

From this understanding emerged the mysterious maxims: "One's perceptions are not to be trusted" or, "Don't put too much faith in your own or anyone's perceptions," etc.

These maxims were, and still are, opposed within more fundamental consensus realities by posing the following question: "Well, if we can't trust our perceptions, then what can we trust?"

Since familiar consensus realities incorporate the majority, and even large parts of unsuspecting subgroups, well, the business about "receiving" perceptions goes on as usual.


More Complexities
In an earlier essay, the Patagonian syndrome was reviewed. The source of this syndrome can now somewhat, but possibly not completely, be explained by referring to steps 8 and 9 of the perception-making processes, these steps having to do with matching incoming information to similar elements in memory storage.

The Patagonians literally could not visually see the larger ship anchored out in the harbor.

If the elements of the pre-conscious perception-making processes can be trusted, then one can say that the Patagonians had no memory storage regarding the topics of large, ocean-going vessels.

The incoming information signals then could not be matched to anything in memory storage, and so the signals themselves could not be formatted into images that could achieve conscious awareness.

The shaman remedied this by referring to similar shapes, etc., with which the Patagonians were familiar -- which meant he rerouted the invisible and invisibilizing information through information points already in memory storage. This apparently allowed the information processing systems of the Patagonians to remix and rematch -- and the BEAGLE faded up into view.

Whether this constituted a conversion of already installed information processing grids or formatted a completely new one is of interest, but somewhat irrelevant to the larger picture -- as will be discussed in an essay yet to come in this series. It is far more to the point to consider image stocks in memory and how they are acquired.


Image Stocks In Memory
The general prevailing idea regarding perception is that everyone is capable of "seeing" the same thing, at least relatively speaking.

But the evidence is very good regarding two factors that are always pertinent:

What is in stock in memory is very likely to consist of a "dictionary of possibilities" or "slide library" intimately associated not with one's mind potentials, but with one's conceptualizing LANGUAGE basis. As the little-known French philosopher and student of perception puts it: ". . . it is from an electrical pattern taken from this personal slide-library that, with only marginal amendments, eventually appears in your `mind's eye'."

On the other hand, what is not in stock in the memory library is quite likely not to have a linguistic nomenclature, but will also result in invisibility of information.

Our nomenclature stock is established and maintained by the consensus realities that do so -- with the exception of "street-talk" and fashionable but unofficial ways of referring to something. For example, "vibe sensing," and to "psyche out" someone or something.

These two unofficial nomenclature bits represent quite valid potentials, but usually it isn't realized that the end-products of these also will consist of reconstructions, not direct one-on-one perceptions.

Anyhow, to get more directly to the point, we have already reviewed the issue of SNOW. Can you identify ten types of snow?
In English we refer to a camel and know what THAT creature is, a camel, right? Well, we do have in our memory slide-libraries two stored images of a camel. And so when we see one of the creatures or hear a camel mentioned either of the two electrical patterns taken from our slide-library will appear in our minds' eyes.

The first stored image will be of a camel; the second, less official image, will be of "humping" -- whatever that means to any given individual -- because camels have humps and also hump all the time.

In the case of Bedouins, however, the sight of or reference to a camel can trigger off any one of dozens of different mental images. These correspond to a consensus reality containing different Arabic words corresponding to different types of camels, their age, size, sex, whether they spit a lot or not, whether their temperaments are agreeable for human usage, what their droppings can be used for, their different kinds of stubbornness, and so forth.

Yet, in English-speaking realities, a camel is a camel, except of course in those sciences which map the distinctions among them.

And what of clouds? Can you identify ten types of them? An experienced and learned meteorologist sees as many as he has names for. To most Americans, all Chinese look alike at first, as do Americans to Chinese. These Chinese however can identify as many types of Chinese as there are provinces.


Formatting A Concept-Making/Image-Making Memory Library
In the light of all the foregoing, perception is not perception, but the result or end product of all those non-conscious processes that end up with what we call "perception" -- and the whole of which is not anything direct, but rather a re-experiencing made possible by one central factor. Memory comparisons. And the whole of this is so complex that we will dissect its most important pieces via essays ahead.

Neurobiologists and neuropsychologists are somewhat agreed that there are at least three major kinds of memory formatting, each of which is complex enough, but each of which can be described in general.

Universal memory formatting, "universal" meaning present in everyone. This, however, does not mean intellectual or experiential acquisition. Rather it refers to a type of memory that seems inherent at the species level, is somehow genetically transmitted. It forms the general basis, for example, of general if simple recognition of external factors, all languages, and the inherent pattern in each individual to format a basic memory library in the first place.

It is out of this formatting that our general "perceptions" can be reconstituted and reconstructed so as to take on concept-image formats.

The basic distinction of this memory formatting is that it is NOT acquired after birth. It is inherent at birth.

The first level of acquired memory formatting is based on experiencing, on what happens to us after birth, providing the experiencing "stimuli" are strong enough and repeated enough. Experiencing is usually encoded into memory storage as emotions or emotional content, and usually divided into two basic sub-formats: painful and pleasurable.

The second level of acquired memory formatting is achieved, if it is, via learning about something indirectly. The first step in this formatting apparently has to do with cloning the language of one's environment, and which means cloning not only the nomenclature but its meanings assigned by the consensus reality involved. If the language basis cloned itself consists only of over-simplifications, then these too will be what is cloned. In any event, whatever IS cloned seems to be entered quite easily into permanent memory storage -- and for better or worse.

It is the two levels of acquired memory, largely of and via the emotions and intellect, which can be a help or a hindrance regarding many things and many matters. For they are largely responsible for what is or is not recognized or recognizable.

With regard to the central topic of this series of essays, the faculties of the superpowers apparently belong not to any format of acquired memory, but to the general and inherent species memory.

All the evidence in this regard is very strong
One of the most fundamental clues is that the superpowers often spontaneous emerge into activity and then resubmerge regardless of any acquired experience or learning.

Two other clues are also available, if time is taken to notice them.

Acquired experiential memory can either reinforce or negate contact with the superpower faculties, depending on how, to what degree, and within whatever consensus reality environment they are experienced.

Acquired learning memory via the intellect can also reinforce or negate them, depending on whether such learning can be conceptually engineered to match the inherent structure of the faculties, or if such learning induces conceptual displacement or cognitive noise regarding the inherent structure, thereby causing malfunction or cognitive invisibility.

In any event, at their most basic levels of activity, all three of the memory formatting categories enumerated above appear to be NOT matters of "perception" in the first, most primary instance. Perception can be the RESULT of all three separately or combined. But, and as the maxim goes, if one works only with and via results, then one has put the cart before the horse. Horses don't push carts.

At base, all three of the major categories (there are many other sub-categories) regarding the all-important memory "library" are information processing and information transfer categories.

This clearly implies that each specimen born of our species is an information processing being, body, mind, experiencer, receiver, entity, evolutionary product, spirit, soul, idiot, genius, or whatever one wants to IMAGE.

Since this is abundantly the case, we will temporary leave behind the bedraggled term "perception" for a while, and turn much needed attention to information theory and information transfer processes and their problem.

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