Perception of 2nd Density Beings

Any relevance of this post to life is that all living beings share the same world, but each one of us has vastly different perceptions of this world.

The question is: if animals could not perceive the world as humans do, could it be possible that human beings also could not perceive the world as some higher beings living among us could? Put in another word- is it possible that we live and move among beings that we cannot perceive? Just as the 2nd dimensional beings could not perceive third dimensional beings (humans) in the first video you posted.

Extract of P.D. Ouspensky Tertium Organum, which gave an account of how animals perceived the world around them.

Start of extract.

The basic unit of our perception is a sensation. A sensation is an elementary change in the state of our inner life, produced, or so it appears to us, either by some change in the state of the outer world in relation to our inner life, or by a change in our inner life in relation to the outer world. …It is sufficient to define a sensation as an elementary change in the state of the inner life. Experiencing a sensation, we assume it to be, so to speak, a reflection of some kind of change in the external world.

The sensations experienced by us leave a certain trace in our memory. In accumulating, memories of sensations begin to blend in our consciousness into groups according to their similarity, to become associated, to be put together, or to be contrasted. Sensations, usually experienced in close connection with one another, will arise in our memory preserving the same connection. And gradually, out of memories of sensations there are formed representations.

Representations are, so to speak, group memories of sensations. In the formation of representations, the grouping of sensations follows two clearly defined directions. The first direction is according to the character of the sensations: thus sensation of yellow colour will be linked with other sensations of yellow colour, and sensation of acid taste, with other sensations of acid taste. The second direction is according to the time of receiving the sensation.

When one group, forming one representation, contains different sensations experienced simultaneously, the memory of this definite group of sensations is attributed to a common cause. The “common cause” is projected into the external world, as the object; and it is assumed that the given representation reflects the real properties of this object.

Such a group memory constitutes a representation, as for instance, the representation of a tree — this tree. Into this group enters the green colour of the leaves, their smell, their shade, the sound of the wind in the branches, and so on. All these things, taken together, form as it were, the focus of rays emitted by our mind and gradually focused on the external object, which may coincide with it either badly or well.

In the further complexities of mental life, memories of representations undergo the same process as memories of sensations. In accumulating, memories of representations or “images of representation” become associated along the most varied lines, are put together, contrasted, form groups and, in the end, give rise to concepts.

Thus, out of the various sensations experienced at different times (in groups), there arises in a child the representation of a tree (this tree), and later, out of the images of representations of different trees is formed the concept of a tree, i.e. not of this particular tree but of a tree in general. The formation of concepts leads to the formation of words and the appearance of speech.

Speech consists of words; every word expresses a concept. A concept and a word are really the same thing, only the one (the concept) stands, as it were, for the inner aspect, while the other (the word) stands for the outer aspect. The word is the algebraic sign of a thing.

In our speech words express concepts or ideas. Ideas are broader concepts; they are not a group sign for similar representations, but embrace groups of dissimilar representations, or even groups of concepts. Thus an idea is a complex or an abstract concept.

At the present moment an average man, taken as a standard, has three units of mental life — sensation, representation and concept.

Observation further shows us that in some people at certain moments there appears, as it were, a fourth unit of mental life, which different authors and schools call by different names, but in which the element of perception of the element of ideas is always connected with the emotional element. If Kant’s idea is true, if space with its characteristics is a property of our consciousness and not a property of the external world, then the three-dimensionality of the world must in some way be dependent on the constitution of our mental apparatus.

Concretely, the question may be put in this way: What is the relation of the three-dimensional extension of the world to the fact that our mental apparatus contains sensations, representations and concepts, and that they stand exactly in this order?

We have a mental apparatus of this kind and the world is three-dimensional. How to prove that the three-dimensionality of the world depends on this particular constitution of our mental apparatus?

If we were able to alter our mental apparatus and observe that the world around us changed with these alterations, this would prove to us the dependence of the properties of space on the properties of our mind. If the above mentioned higher form of inner life, which now appears only accidentally depending on some little-known conditions, could be rendered as definite, as precise, as obedient to our will as a concept, and if, through this, the number of characteristics of space increased, i.e. if space, instead of being three-dimensional, became four dimensional, this would confirm our supposition and prove Kant’s idea that space with its properties is the form of our sense perception.

If we could reduce the number of units of our mental life and deliberately deprive ourselves or some other man of concepts, leaving his or our mind to operate by representations and sensations alone; and if, through this, the number of characteristics of the space surrounding us diminished, i.e. if for that man the world were to become two-dimensional instead of three-dimensional and, with a further limitation of his mental apparatus, i.e. with depriving him of representations, it were to become one-dimensional, this would confirm our surmise and Kant’s thought could be regarded as proved.

Thus, Kant’s idea could be proved experimentally if we were able to ascertain that for a being possessing nothing but sensations the world is one-dimensional; for a being possessing sensations and representations it is two-dimensional; and for a being possessing, in addition to concepts and ideas, also higher forms of perception, the world is four-dimensional.

Kant’s proposition regarding the subjective character of the idea of space could be taken as proved if:

a) For a being possessing nothing but sensations, our entire world with all its variety of forms appears as one line; if the universe of this being had one dimension, i.e. if this being were one-dimensional by virtue of the properties of his perception; and

b) For a being possessing the capacity of forming representations in addition to his ability of experiencing sensations, the world had a two-dimensional extension, i.e. if our entire world with its blue skies, clouds, green trees, mountains and precipices, appeared to him merely as a plane; if the universe of this being had only two dimensions, that is, if this being were two-dimensional by virtue of the properties of his perception.

More briefly, Kant’s proposition would be proved if we saw that for a given subject the number of characteristics of the world changed according to the change of his mental apparatus.

It does not seem possible to carry out such an experiment of reducing mental characteristics, for we do not know how to restrict our own or someone else’s mental apparatus with the ordinary means at our disposal. Experiments of augmenting mental characteristics exist but, for many different reasons, they are not sufficiently convincing. The main reason is that an increase of mental faculties produces in our inner world so much that is new, that this new masks any changes which take place simultaneously in our usual perceptions of the world. We feel the new but cannot exactly define the difference.

A whole series of teachings and religious and philosophical doctrines have as their professed or hidden aim precisely this expansion of consciousness. This is the aim of mysticism of all times and all religions, the aim of occultism, the aim of the Eastern Yoga. But the question of the expansion of consciousness requires special study.

In the meantime, in order to prove the contention stated above about the change of the world as a result of a change in the mental apparatus, it is sufficient to examine the hypothesis about the possibility of a lesser number of mental characteristics.

If we do not know how to carry out experiments in this direction, perhaps observation is possible. We must ask ourselves the question: Are there in the world beings whose mental life is below ours in the required sense?

Such beings, whose mental life is below ours, undoubtedly exist. They are animals. We know very little about what constitutes the difference between the mental processes of an animal and the mental processes of a man; our ordinary ‘conversational psychology’ is altogether ignorant of it. As a rule we entirely deny the existence of reason in animals, or, on the contrary, we ascribe to them our own psychology, but ‘limited’ — though how and in what respect it is limited, we do not know. And then we say that an animal has no reason but has instinct. But we have a very hazy idea of what instinct may mean. I am speaking now not only of popular, but also of ‘scientific’, psychology.

Let us, however, try to examine what instinct is and what animal mentality is like. In the first place, let us examine the actions of an animal and determine in what way they differ from ours. If they are instinctive actions, what does it mean?

We distinguish in living beings reflex actions, instinctive actions, rational actions, and automatic actions. Reflex actions are simply responses by motion, reactions to external irritations, always occurring in the same manner, irrespective of their usefulness or uselessness, expediency or inexpediency in a given instance. Their origin and laws are the outcome of the simple irritability of the cell.

What is meant by irritability of the cell and what are these laws?

By irritability of the cell is meant its capacity to respond by motion to external irritations. Experiments with the simplest living one-cell organisms proved that irritability is governed by strictly definite laws. The cell responds by motion to an external irritation. The force of the responsive motion is increased with the increase of the force of irritation, but it has not been possible to establish the exact ratio. In order to provoke a responsive motion, the irritation must be sufficiently strong. Every irritation experienced leaves a certain trace in the cell, rendering it more susceptible to further irritations. This is proved by the fact that to a repeated irritation of an equalforce the cell responds with a stronger movement than to the first irritation. And, if irritations are further repeated, the cell would respond to them with an increasingly stronger motion, up to a certain limit. Having reached this limit, the cell becomes tired, as it were, and begins to respond to the same irritation by increasingly weaker reactions. The cell appears to become used to the irritation. It becomes for the cell part of its permanent surroundings and the cell ceases to react to it, for it reacts only to changes in the permanent conditions. If from the very beginning the irritation is too weak to produce a responsive motion, it still leaves a certain invisible trace in the cell. This is shown by the fact that, by repeating weak irritations, it is possible to make the cell react to them. Thus in the laws of irritability we see what seem to be the rudiments of the capacities of memory, fatigue and habit. The cell produces the illusion of a being, which, if not conscious and reasoning, is at least capable of remembering, capable of forming habits and of getting tired.

If we are almost deceived by a cell, how much easier it is for us to be deceived by an animal with its complex life. But let us return to our analysis of actions.

By reflex actions of an organism are meant actions where the whole organism or its separate parts act as the cell does, i.e. within the limits of the law of irritability. We observe such actions both in man and in animals. A shudder runs through a man from sudden cold or from an unexpected touch. He blinks if some object quickly approaches or touches him. If a man sits with his leg hanging loosely, his foot jerks forward if the tendon immediately below the knee is hit. These movements happen independently of consciousness and may happen even contrary to consciousness. As a rule consciousness perceives them as an already accomplished fact. And these movements need not necessarily be expedient. The foot will jerk forward if the tendon is hit even if there is a knife or fire in front of it.

By instinctive actions are meant actions, which are expedient but performed without any consciousness of choice or consciousness of purpose.

They arise with the appearance of an emotional quality in a sensation, i.e. from the moment when the feeling of pleasure or pain becomes connected with the sensation.

And indeed, before the appearance of human intellect, ‘actions’ in all the animal kingdom are governed by the tendency to obtain or keep pleasure, or to avoid pain. We may say with the utmost certainty that instinct is pleasure-pain which, like the positive and negative poles of an electromagnet, repels and attracts an animal in one or another direction, thus forcing it to perform a whole series of complicated actions, at times so expedient as to appear conscious; and not only conscious, but based on a foresight of the future almost bordering on clairvoyance, such as the migration of birds, the building of nests for the young still unborn, the finding of the way south in the autumn and north in the spring, and so on. But in actual fact all these actions are explained solely by instinct, i.e. by subordination to pleasure-pain.

In the course of periods in which thousands of years may be counted as days, there was evolved in all animals, through selection, a type that lives according to this subordination. This subordination is expedient, i.e. its results lead to the requiredaim. It is quite clear why this is so. If the feeling of pleasure proceeded from something harmful, a given species could not live and would soon die out. Instinct is the guiding factor of its life, but only so long as instinct is expedient. As soon as it ceases to be expedient, it becomes the guiding factor of death, and the species very soon dies out. Normally, ‘pleasure-pain’ is pleasant and unpleasant not for the usefulness or the harm it brings, but as a consequence of it. Influences, which had proved useful to a given species during its vegetable life, begin to be experienced aspleasant with the transition to animal life; harmful influences are experienced as unpleasant. One and the same influence — say a certain temperature — may be useful and pleasant for one species and harmful and unpleasant for another. It is clear, therefore, that subordination to ‘pleasure-pain’ should be expedient. The pleasant is pleasant because it is useful; the unpleasant is unpleasant because it isharmful.

The next stage after instinctive actions consists of rational and automatic actions. By rational action is meant an action known to the acting subject before it is performed— an action that the acting subject can name, define, explain and whose cause and purpose he can point out — before it has taken place.

By automatic actions are meant actions, which have been rational for a given subject but have since become customary and unconscious through frequent repetition. The automatic actions learned by trained animals were previously rational not in the animal but in the trainer. Such actions often seem quite rational, but this is pure illusion. The animal remembers the order of actions and so its actions appear to be thought out and expedient. And it is true they were thought out, but not by it.Automatic actions are often confused with instinctive actions; and indeed they do resemble the instinctive, but at the same time there is an enormous difference between them. Automatic actions are created by the subject in the course of his own life. And, before becoming automatic, they must for a long time remain rational for him or for another person.

Instinctive actions are created during the lifetime of a species and the capacity to perform them is handed down, in a ready-made form, through heredity. Automatic actions may be called the instinctive actions, which a given subject has evolved for himself. Instinctive actions cannot be called automatic actions evolved by a given species, because they never were rational for separate individuals of that species, but are the result of a complex series of reflexes.

Reflexes, instinctive actions and ‘rational’ actions may be regarded as reflected, i.e. as not independent.

The first, the second, and the third come not from man himself but from the external world. A man is merely a transmitting or transforming station of forces; all his actionsbelonging to these three categories are produced by impressions coming from the external world. In these three kinds of actions man is actually an automaton, either unaware or aware of his actions. Nothing comes from himself.

Only the highest category of actions, i.e. conscious actions (which, generally speaking, we do not observe, since we confuse them with rational actions, mainly because we call ‘rational’ actions conscious) — depend not only on the impressions coming from the external world, but on something else besides. But the capacity for such actions is very rarely met with and only very few people have it. These people may be defined as the higher type of man.

Having established the difference between actions, we must now return to the question: How does the mental apparatus of an animal differ from that of a man?

Of the four categories of actions only the two lower ones are accessible to animals. The category of ‘rational’ actions is not accessible to them. This is proved, first of all, by the fact that animals do not speak as we do.

It was shown earlier that the possession of speech is indissolubly connected with the possession of concepts. Consequently, we may say that animals do not possess concepts.

Is this true — and is the possession of instinctive reason possible without possessing concepts?

All that we know about instinctive reason tells us that it operates while possessing only representations and sensations, and on the lower levels possessing only sensations. The mental apparatus which thinks by means of representations must be identical with instinctive reason which enables it to make that selection from among the available representations which, from outside, produces the impression of reasoning and drawing conclusions. In reality, an animal does not think out its actions, but lives by emotions, obeying the emotion that is strongest at a given moment. Although it is true that in the life of an animal there may be very acute moments, when it is faced with the necessity of making a selection from a certain series of representations. In that case, at a given moment, its actions may appear to be reasoned out. For instance, an animal, faced with danger, often acts with surprising caution and intelligence.

But in reality the actions of an animal are governed not by thoughts but mostly by emotional memory and motor representations. It has been shown earlier that emotions are expedient and, in a normal being, obedience to them should also be expedient. In an animal, every representation, every remembered image is connected with some emotional sensation and emotional recollection; there are no unemotionalcold thoughts or images in the nature of an animal. Or, if there are some, they are inactive, incapable of moving it to any action.

Thus, all the actions of animals, at times very complex, expedient and seemingly rational, can be explained without assuming the existence in them of concepts, reasoning and mental conclusions.

On the contrary, we must admit that animals have no concepts. The proof of this is that they have no speech. If we take two men of different nationalities, different races, each ignorant of the language of the other, and settle them to live together, they will immediately find means of communicating with each other. One would draw with his finger a circle; the other would draw another circle alongside the first. This is enough to establish that they can understand one another. If a thick stone wall were to separate people, again it would not deter them. One would knock three times; the other would also knock three times in reply — communication is established. The idea of communication with the inhabitants of another planet is based precisely on the system of light signals. On the earth it is proposed to make an enormous luminous circle or square. It should be noticed on Mars or somewhere over there and should be answered by a similar signal.

With animals we live side by side, yet we are unable to establish such communication with them. Evidently, the distance between us is greater, the difference deeper than between people separated by ignorance of language, stone walls and enormous distances.

Another proof of the absence of concepts in an animal is its incapacity of using a lever, i.e. its incapacity of arriving independently at an understanding of the significance and the action of a lever. The usual argument that an animal does not know how to use a lever simply because its organs — paws, etc. — are not adapted for such actions, does not bear criticism, because any animal can be taught to use a lever. This means that organs have nothing to do with it. The thing is simply that by itself an animal cannot arrive at the idea of a lever. The invention of a lever at once separated primitive man from the animals and it was inseparably connected with the appearance of concepts. The mental side of understanding the action of a lever lies in the construction of a correct syllogism. Without mentally constructing a syllogism it is impossible to understand the action of a lever. Without concepts it is impossible to construct a syllogism. In the mental sphere a syllogism is literally the same thing as a lever in the physical sphere.

The application of a lever distinguishes man from the animal as drastically as does speech. If some Martian scientists were to look at the Earth and study it objectively through a telescope, not hearing speech from afar nor entering into the subjective world of the inhabitants of the Earth and without any contact with it, they would divide the beings living on the Earth into two categories: those familiar with the action of a lever and those unfamiliar with it.

On the whole the psychology of animals is very obscure to us. The infinite number of observations made of all animals, from elephants to spiders, and the infinite number of anecdotes about the intelligence, perspicacity and moral qualities of animals change nothing in this respect. We represent animals either as living automatons or as stupid human beings. We are too shut up in the circle of our own mentality. We have no idea of any other mentality and involuntarily we think that the only kind of mentality possible is the one we possess. But this is an illusion, which prevents us from understanding life. If we were able to enter into the inner world of an animal and understand how it perceives, understands and acts, we would see many extremely interesting things.

For example, if we could represent to ourselves and re-create mentally the logic of the animal, it would greatly help us to understand our own logic and the laws of our thinking. Above all we would understand the conditional and relative character of our whole idea of the world.

An animal must have a very peculiar logic. Of course, it would not be logic in the true sense of the word, for logic presupposes the existence of logos, i.e. word or concept. Our usual logic, the one we live by, without which ‘the cobbler will not be able to make shoes’ can be brought down to the simple scheme formulated by Aristotle in those writings, which were published by his pupils under the general title ofOrganon, i.e. the ‘Instrument’ (of thought). This scheme consists in the following:

A is A.

A is not not-A.

Everything is either A or not-A.

The logic contained in this scheme — Aristotle’s logic — is quite sufficient for observation. But for experiment it is insufficient, for experiment, takes place in time, whereas Aristotle’s formulae do not take time into account. This was observed at the very dawn of the establishment of our experimental knowledge; it was noted by Roger Bacon and, some centuries later, was formulated by his famous namesake, Francis Bacon, in the treatise Novum Organum — ‘New Instrument’ (of thought). Briefly Bacon’s formulation may be reduced to the following:

That which was A, will be A.

That which was not-A, will be not-A.

Everything was and will be either A or not-A.

All our scientific experience is built on these formulae, whether they are taken or not taken into account by our mind. And these same formulae actually serve as a basis for making shoes, for if a cobbler could not be sure that the leather bought yesterday would be leather tomorrow, he would probably not venture to make shoes but would look for some other more secure profession.

Logical formulae, both those of Aristotle and Bacon, are simply deduced from observation of facts and embrace nothing but the contents of these facts — and can embrace nothing more. They are not laws of thinking but merely laws of the external world, as we, or laws of our relationship to the external world perceive it.

If we were able to represent to ourselves the ‘logic’ of an animal, we would understand its relationship to the external world. Our chief mistake as regards the inner world of an animal lies in our ascribing to it our own logic. We think that there is only one logic, and that our logic is something absolute, something existing outside us and apart from us. Yet, in actual fact, it is merely the laws of the relation of our inner life to the outside world or the laws that our mind finds in the outside world. A different mind will find different laws.

The first difference between our logic and that of an animal is that the latter is notgeneral. It is a particular logic in every case, for every separate representation. For animals there exists no classification according to common properties, i.e. classes, varieties and species. Every single object exists by itself; all its properties are specific properties.

This house and that house are, for an animal, totally different objects, because the one is his house and the other an alien house. Generally speaking, we recognize objects by their similarity; an animal must recognize them by their differences. It remembers every object by the signs, which have had for it the greatest emotional significance. In this form, i.e. with emotional qualities, representations are preserved in the memory of an animal. It is easy to see that it is much more difficult to preserve such representations in memory; consequently the memory of an animal is much more burdened than ours, although in the amount of knowledge and the number of things preserved in the memory an animal is far below us.

Having once seen an object, we refer it to a certain class, variety and species, attach it to one or another concept and connect it in our mind with one or another ‘word’, i.e. with an algebraic sign, then with another, defining it, and so on.

An animal has no concepts; it has no mental algebra with the help of which we think. It must know a given object and remember it with all its characteristics and peculiarities. Not a single forgotten characteristic will come back. But for us the main characteristics are implied in the concept with which we have connected the given object, and we can find it in our memory by any of its characteristic signs.

It is clear from this that an animal’s memory is more burdened than ours, and that this is precisely the main cause that hinders the mental evolution of an animal. Its mind is too occupied. It has no time to move forward. It is possible to arrest the mental development of a child by making it learn by heart series of words and series of figures. An animal is exactly in the same position. And this explains the strange fact that an animal is more intelligent when young.

In a man the peak of his intellectual power is reached at a mature age, very often even in old age; in the case of an animal it is just the reverse. It is receptive only while it is young. With maturity its development becomes arrested and in old age it undoubtedly becomes retrogressive.

The logic of an animal, if we attempt to express it in formulae similar to those of Aristotle and Bacon, would be as follows:

The animal will understand the formula A is A.

It will say: I am I, and so on.

But it will not understand the formula A is not not-A, for not-A is a concept.

The animal will say: This is this. That is that. This is not that.

Or this man is this man. That man is that man. This man is not that man.

Later on I shall have to return to the logic of animals. For the moment it was only necessary to establish the fact that the psychology of animals is very distinctive and fundamentally different from ours. And it is not only distinctive but also very varied.

Among the animals known to us, even among domestic animals, psychological differences are so great as to put them on totally different levels. We do not notice this and put them all under one head — ‘animals’.

A goose has put its foot on a piece of watermelon rind, pulls at it with its beak but cannot pull it out, and it never occurs to it to lift its foot off the rind. This means that its mental processes are so vague that it has a very imperfect knowledge of its own body and does not properly distinguish it from other objects. This could not happen either with a dog or a cat. They know their bodies perfectly well. But in their relations to outside objects a dog and a cat are very different.

I have observed a dog, a ‘very intelligent’ setter. When the little rug on which he slept got mucked up and became uncomfortable to lie on, he understood that the discomfort was outside him, that it was in the rug and, more precisely, in the position of the rug. So he kept on worrying the rug with his teeth, twisting it and dragging it here and there, all the while growling, sighing and groaning until someone came to his assistance. But he could never manage to straighten out the rug by himself.

With a cat such a question could never even arise. A cat knows its body perfectly well, but everything outside itself it takes for granted, as something given. To correctthe outside world, to accommodate it to its own comfort, would never occur to a cat. Maybe this is so because a cat lives more in another world, the world of dreams and fantasies, than in this one. Therefore, if there were something wrong with its bed, a cat would itself turn and twist a hundred times until it could settle down comfortably; or it would go and settle down in another place.

A monkey would of course spread out the rug quite easily.

Here are four beings, all quite different. And this is only one example of which one could easily find hundreds. And yet for us all this is an animal. We mix together many things that are totally different; our divisions are very often wrong and this hinders us in our examination of ourselves.

Moreover it would be quite incorrect to assert that the differences mentioned determine ‘evolutionary stages’, that animals of one type are higher or lower than others. The dog and the monkey by their reason, their ability to imitate and (the dog) by his fidelity to man seem to be higher than the cat, but the cat is infinitely superior to them in its intuition, its aesthetic sense, its independence and willpower. The dog and the monkey manifest themselves in their entirety. All that there is in them can be seen. But it is not without cause that the cat is regarded as a magical and occult animal. There is much in it that is hidden, much that it does not itself know. If one is to speak in terms of evolution it would be much more correct to say that these are animals of different evolutions, just as, in all probability, not one but several evolutions go on in mankind.

The recognition of several independent and, from a certain point of view, equivalent evolutions, developing entirely different properties, would lead us out of the labyrinth of endless contradictions in our understanding of man and would show the way to the understanding of the only real and important evolution for us, the evolution towards superman.

We have established the tremendous difference, which exists between the mentality of man and that of animals. This difference is bound to have a deep effect on the animal perception of the external world. But how and in what? This is precisely what we do not know and what we must endeavour to establish.

To do this we must return once more to our perception of the world and examine in detail how we perceive it; and then we must see how the world must be perceived by the animal with its limited mental equipment.

First of all we must take note of the fact that, as regards the external aspect and form of the world, our perception is extremely incorrect. We know that the world consists of solids, but we always see and touch only surfaces. We never see or touch a solid. A solid is already a concept, made up of a number of representations put together by means of reasoning and experience. For direct sensation only surfaces exist. Sensations of weight, mass, volume, which we mentally associate with a ‘solid’, are in reality connected for us with sensations of surfaces. We only know that this sensation of surfaces comes from a solid, but we never sense the solid itself. Maybe it is possible to call the composite sensation of surfaces, weight, mass, density, resistance and so on — ‘sensation of a solid’. But we are obliged mentally to bind all these sensations into one and to call this general sensation — a solid. We sense directly only surfaces, and then, separately, weight; we never sense the resistance of a solid, as such.

But we know that the world does not consist of surfaces, we know that we see the world incorrectly. We know that we never see the world as it really is, not only in the philosophical sense of this expression, but even in the most ordinary geometricalsense. We have never seen a cube, a sphere, etc.; we have always seen only surfaces. Realizing this, we mentally correct what we see. Behind the surfaces wethink the solid. But we can never represent a solid to ourselves; we cannot represent a cube or a sphere not in perspective, but from all sides at once.

It is clear that the world does not exist in perspective; yet we are unable to see it in any other way. We see everything only in perspective, i.e. in perceiving it; we distort the world with our eye. And we know that we distort it. We know that it is not as we see it. And mentally we continually correct what the eye sees, substituting the real content for those symbols of things, which our sight shows us.

Our sight is a complex faculty. It consists of visual sensations, plus the memory of sensations of touch. A child tries to touch everything he sees — the nose of his nurse, the moon, the dancing spot of reflected sunlight on the wall. He learns only gradually to distinguish between the near and the far by sight alone. But we know that even in mature years we are easily subject to optical illusions. We see distant objects as flat, i.e. even more incorrectly, for relief is, after all, a symbol indicating a certain property of objects. At a great distance a man is outlined for us in silhouette. This happens because at long range we can never touch anything, and our eye has not been trained to notice the differences in surfaces, which, at close range, are felt by the fingertips.

In this connection, observations made on the blind beginning to see are very interesting. The periodical Slepetz (‘The Blind Man’) 1912, contains a description, based on direct observation, of how men, blind from birth, learn to see after an operation, which has restored their sight. This is how a youth of seventeen describes his experiences after the restoration of his sight by the removal of a cataract. On the third day after the operation he was asked what he saw; he replied that he saw a vast expanse of light with dim objects moving in it. He did not distinguish these objects. Only after four days did he begin to distinguish them, and only after two weeks, when his eyes became used to the light, did he begin to make a practical use of his sight for the discernment of objects. He was shown all the colours of the spectrum and very quickly mastered them, except the yellow and the green, which he kept on confusing for a long time. A cube, a sphere and a pyramid, placed before him, seemed to him a square, a flat disc and a triangle. When a flat disc was placed next to the sphere, he could not see any difference between them. When asked to describe his first impression of the two figures, he answered that he noticed at once the difference between the cube and the sphere and realized that they were not drawings, but could not derive from them the representation of a square and a circle, until he felt in his fingertips the same sensation as though he had touched a square and a circle. When he was allowed to handle the cube, the sphere and the pyramid, he immediately identified these solids by touch and was very surprised at not having recognized them at once by sight. He had as yet no representation of space, of perspective. All objects appeared flat to him. Although he knew that the nose projected and the eyes were sunk in cavities, the human face also looked flat to his eyes. He was overjoyed at having his sight restored, but in the beginning looking at things tired him; impressions overwhelmed and exhausted him. This is why, while enjoying perfect sight, he at times reverted to touch, as a form of relaxation.

We are never able to see even a small bit of the external world as it is, i.e. such as we know it to be. We can never see a writing desk or a cupboard simultaneously from all sides, as well as inside. Our eye distorts the external world in a certain way to enable us, in looking about, to determine the position of objects relative to ourselves. But to look at the world not from our own point of view is impossible for us. And we are never able to have a correct view of it, a view not distorted by our eyesight.

Relief and perspective — these are the distortions of the objects by our eye. They are an optical illusion, a visual deception. A cube in perspective is only a conventional symbol of a three-dimensional cube. And everything we see is only a conventional image of that conventionally real three-dimensional world which our geometry studies — and not the real world itself. On the basis of what we see, we must guess what it really is. We know that what we see is incorrect, and we think of the world as being different from the way we see it. If we had no doubts about the correctness of our sight, if we knew that the world was such as we saw it, it stands to reason that we would think of it as we see it. In practice, however, we are constantly introducing corrections into what we see.

This capacity of introducing corrections in that which the eye sees necessarily implies the possession of concepts, for corrections are made by means of reasoning, which is impossible without concepts. Without this capacity of correcting what is seen by the eye we would see the world quite differently, i.e. much of what actually exists we would see wrongly, much of what actually exists we would not see at all, and we would see a great deal of what, in reality, does not exist at all.

In the first place, we would see an enormous number of nonexistent movements. For direct sensation, every movement of our own is connected with the movement of everything around us. We know that this movement is illusory, but we see it as real. Objects turn round before us, run past us, and outstrip one another. Houses, which we drive past slowly, turn about leisurely; if we drive fast, they turn quickly; trees suddenly spring up before us, run away and vanish.

This apparent animation of objects, together with dreams, provided, and still provides, the main food for the fantasy of fairy-tales.

In those cases the ‘movements’ of objects may be very complex. Look at the strange behaviour of a cornfield seen through the window of your railway carriage. It runs up to your very window, stops, turns about slowly and runs to one side. The trees in the wood clearly run at different speeds, outstripping one another. A whole landscape of illusory motion! And what of the sun which still continues, in all languages, to rise and set, and the movement of which was at one time so passionately defended!

This is how it all appears to us. And although we already know that all these movements are illusory, we still see them and are, at times, deceived.

How many more illusions we would see if we were unable mentally to unravel the causes that produce them, and were to regard everything as existing exactly as we see it?

I see it, therefore it is.

This assertion is the main source of all illusions.

The right way to put it would be:

I see it, therefore it is not. Or at any rate: I see it, therefore it is not so.

We can say the latter, but animals cannot. For them whatever they see — is. They have to believe what they see.

How does the world appear to animals?

For animals the world is a series of complex moving surfaces. Animals live in a two-dimensional world; their universe has the appearance and properties of a surface.And on this surface there take place a vast number of movements of the most varied and fantastic character.

Why should the world appear as a surface to animals?

First of all, it is because it appears as a surface to us.

But we know that the world is not a surface, whereas animals cannot know it. They accept everything as it appears. They cannot correct what the eye sees, or cannot do so to the same degree as we can.

We can measure in three directions; the quality of our mind enables us to do so. Animals can measure simultaneously only in two directions; they can never measure in three directions at once. This is due to the fact that, having no concepts, they are incapable of keeping in mind the measurements of the first direction while measuring the second and third.

I will explain this more clearly.

Let us imagine ourselves measuring a cube. In measuring a cube in three directions, we must, while measuring in one direction, keep in mind, remember, the two others. But things can only be kept in mind as concepts, i.e. we can remember them only by connecting them with various concepts, by labeling them in one or another way.

Thus, having labeled the first two directions — length and breadth, it is possible to measure the height. Otherwise it could not be done. As representations the first two measurements of a cube are absolutely identical and are bound to merge in our mind into one. An animal has no concepts, so it cannot label the first two measurements of the cube as length and breadth. Therefore, at the moment when it begins to measure the height of the cube, the first two measurements will merge into one. An animal measuring a cube, and possessing no concepts but only representations, will resemble a cat I once observed. She dragged her kittens — there were five or six of them — into different rooms and could not collect them together again. She would get hold of one, carry it over to another and put them side by side. Then she would start looking for the third, bring it along and place it with the other two. Then immediately she would seize the first, carry it to another room and put it there beside the fourth; then she would again run to the first room, catch hold of the second and drag it somewhere else to the fifth, and so on. For a whole hour the cat struggled with her kittens, genuinely harassed, but could do nothing. Clearly she had no concepts to help her remember how many kittens there were in all.

It is extremely important to explain to oneself an animal’s relationship to the measurement of solids.

The whole point is that animals see nothing but surfaces. (This we can say with the utmost conviction, since we ourselves see nothing but surfaces.) Seeing only surfaces, animals can represent to themselves only two dimensions. The third dimension, side by side with the first two, can only be thought, i.e. this dimension must be a concept. But animals have no concepts; the third dimension appears also as a representation. Consequently, at the moment of its appearance, the first two representations invariably merge into one. Animals see the difference between two dimensions, but cannot see the difference between three. This difference can only beknown. And in order to know that, concepts are necessary.

For animals identical representations are bound to merge into one, just as for us two simultaneous, identical phenomena taking place at one point must merge into one. For animals it would be one phenomenon, just as for us all identical, simultaneous phenomena taking place at one point are one phenomenon.

Thus animals will see the world as a surface, and will measure this surface only in two directions.

How then to explain the fact that, living in a two-dimensional world, or seeing themselves in a two-dimensional world, animals orientate perfectly well in our three-dimensional world? How to explain that a bird flies up and down, straight ahead and sideways, in all three directions; that a horse jumps fences and ditches; that a dog and a cat seem to understand the properties of depth and height together with length and breadth?

In order to explain this we must return once more to the fundamental principles of animal psychology. It has been pointed out earlier that many properties of objects, which we remember as the general properties of species and varieties, have to be remembered by animals as the individual properties of objects. In sorting out this enormous store of individual properties preserved in memory animals are helped by the emotional quality connected for them with each representation and each memory of a sensation.

An animal knows, say, two roads as two entirely separate phenomena having nothing in common; one phenomenon, i.e. one road consists of a series of definite representations coloured by definite emotional qualities; the other phenomenon, i.e. the other road, consists of a series of other definite representations, coloured by other qualities. We say that both the one and the other are roads, one leading to one place, the other to another. For the animal the two roads have nothing in common. But it remembers all the sequence of emotional qualities connected with the first road and the second road and so remembers both roads with their turnings, ditches, fences and so on.

Thus the memory of the definite properties of objects, which they have seen, helps animals to orientate in the world of phenomena. But, as a rule, when faced with new phenomena, animals are much more helpless than man.

Animals see two dimensions. They constantly sense the third dimension but do not see it. They sense it as something transient, as we sense time.

The surfaces which animals see possess for them many strange properties; these are, first of all numerous and varied movements.

It has been said already that all illusory movements must be perfectly real for them. These movements seem real to us also, but we know them to be illusory, as for instance the turning round of a house as we drive past, the springing up of a tree from round the corner, the movement of the moon among the clouds and so on.

In addition, many other movements will exist for animals, which we do not suspect. Actually a great many objects, completely motionless for us — indeed all objects — must appear to animals as moving. And it is precisely in these movements that the third dimension of solids will be manifested for them, i.e. The third dimension of solids will appear to them as motion.

Let us try to imagine how an animal perceives objects of the external world.

Let us suppose that a large disc is placed before an animal and, beside it, a large sphere of the same diameter.

Facing them directly at a certain distance, the animal will see two circles. If it starts walking round them, the animal will notice that the sphere remains a circle but the disc gradually narrows and becomes a narrow strip. As the animal continues to move round it, the strip begins to widen and gradually becomes again a circle. The sphere will not change its form as the animal moves round it, but strange phenomena will begin to occur in it as the animal draws near.

Let us try to understand how the animal will perceive the surface of the sphere as distinct from the surface of the disc.

One thing is certain — it will perceive a spherical surface differently from us. We perceive convexity or sphericity as a property common to many surfaces. Owing to the nature of its mental apparatus, the animal should perceive sphericity as anindividual property of the given sphere. What should sphericity look like, taken as an individual property of a given sphere?

We can say with the utmost conviction that sphericity will appear to the animal as a movement of the surface it sees.

When the animal comes near to the sphere, in all probability what happens is something like this: the surface the animal sees springs into rapid motion; its centre projects forward, and all the other points begin to recede from the centre with a velocity proportionate to their distance from the centre (or the square of their distance from the centre).

This is the way in which the animal must sense a spherical surface. It is reminiscent of the way we sense sound. At a certain distance from the sphere the animal sees it as a plane. Approaching it and touching some point of the sphere, it sees that the relation of all the other points to that point has changed as compared with what it should be on a plane, as if all the other points have moved, have drawn aside. Touching another point it again sees all the other points withdrawing from it.

This property of the sphere will appear as its motion, as ‘vibration’. And indeed the sphere will resemble a vibrating, undulating surface. In the same way any angle of a motionless object must appear as motion to the animal.

The animal can see an angle of a three-dimensional object only if it moves past it, and in that case the object will seem to have turned — a new side has appeared, and the old side has receded or moved aside. An angle will be perceived as a turning, a movement of the object, i.e. as something transient, temporal, i.e. as a change in the state of the object. Remembering the angles met with before — which the animal hasseen as the motion of bodies — it will regard them as gone, finished, vanished, belonging to the past.

Of course, the animal cannot reason thus, but it will act as though this was its reasoning.

If the animal could think of phenomena (i.e. angles and curved surfaces), which have not yet entered its life, it would no doubt represent them to itself only in time. In other words, the animal could not allow them any real existence at the present moment when they have not yet appeared. If it could express an opinion about them, it would say that these angles exist as a potentiality, that they will be, but that at present they are not.

For a horse, the corner of a house past which it runs every day, is a phenomenon, which recurs in certain circumstances, but which still takes place only in time; it is not a spatial and constant property of the house.

For the animal an angle must be a time-phenomenon, instead of being a space-phenomenon as it is for us.

Thus we see that the animal will perceive the properties of our third dimension as movements and will refer these properties to time, to the past or future, or to the present, i.e. to the moment of transition of the future into the past.

This is an extremely important point and contains the key to the understanding of our own perception of the world; consequently we must examine it in greater detail.

So far we have considered higher animals: a dog, a cat, a horse. Let us now take a lower animal — a snail for example. We know nothing about its inner life, but we may be sure that its perception is very different from ours. In all probability a snail’s sensations of its surroundings are very vague. It probably feels warmth, cold, light, darkness, hunger, and instinctively (i.e. incited by the pleasure-pain guidance) it crawls towards the uneaten edge of the leaf it sits on and draws away from a dead leaf. Its movements are governed by pleasure-pain; it always advances towards the one and retreats from the other. It always moves on one line — from the unpleasant towards the pleasant. And, in all probability, it knows and senses nothing except this line. This line constitutes the whole of its world. All the sensations entering from outside are sensed by the snail on its line of motion. And these come to it out of time— from potentiality they become actuality. For a snail the whole of our universe exists in the future and the past, i.e. in time. Only one line exists in the present; all the rest lies in time. It is more than probable that a snail is not aware of its own movements; making efforts with its whole body it moves forward towards the fresh edge of the leaf, but it seems to it that the leaf moves towards it, coming into being at that moment, appearing out of time, as the morning appears to us.

A snail is a one-dimensional being.

Higher animals — a dog, a cat, and a horse — are two-dimensional beings. To them space appears as a surface, a plane. Everything outside this plane lies for them in time.

Thus we see that a higher animal — a two-dimensional being as compared to a one-dimensional — extracts one more dimension out of time.

The world of a snail has one dimension — our second and third dimensions lie for it in time.

The world of a dog has two dimensions — our third dimension lies for it in time.

An animal may remember all the ‘phenomena’ it has observed, i.e. all the properties of three-dimensional bodies it has come into contact with, but it cannot know that that which for it is a recurring phenomenon is in reality a permanent property of a three-dimensional body — an angle, or curvature, or convexity.

This is the psychology of the perception of the world by a two-dimensional being.

For it a new sun will rise every day. Yesterday’s sun has gone and will never recur again. Tomorrow’s sun does not yet exist.

Rostand failed to understand the psychology of Chantecler. The cock could not think that he awakened the sun by his crowing. For him the sun does not go to sleep — it recedes into the past, vanishes, is annihilated, and ceases to be. Tomorrow, if it comes, there will be a new sun; just as for us there is a new spring each year. In order to be the sun cannot wake up; it must come into being, be born. An animal (if it could think without losing its characteristic psychology) could not believe in the appearance today of the same sun that was there yesterday. This is human reasoning.

For an animal a new sun rises every morning, just as for us a new morning comes every day, a new spring every year.

An animal is incapable of understanding that the sun is one and the same, whether today or yesterday — exactly as we probably cannot understand that the morning is one, and the spring is one.

The motion of objects which, for us, is not illusory but real, such as the motion of a rotating wheel or a moving carriage and so on, must, for an animal, differ greatly from the motion it sees in all objects which are motionless for us — that motion in the guise of which it sees the third dimension of bodies. This first motion (i.e. motion which is also real for us) must appear to it spontaneous, alive.

And these two kinds of motion will be incommensurable for it. An animal will be able to measure an angle or a convex surface, although it will not understand its true meaning and will regard it as motion. But it will never be able to measure real motion, i.e. motion that is real for us. To do this it is necessary to have our conception of time and measure all movements in relation to some more constant motion, i.e. compare all movements with one. As an animal has no concepts, it will not be able to do this. Therefore, movements of objects which are real for us will be incapable of measurement, and thus incommensurable with other movements which, for it, are real and capable of measurement, but for us are illusory, constituting in reality the third dimension of bodies.

The latter is inevitable. If an animal senses and measures as motion that which is not motion, it is clear that it cannot apply the same measure to that which is and that which is not motion.

But this does not mean that an animal cannot know the character of movements proceeding in our world and conform to them. On the contrary, we see that an animal orientates perfectly among the movements of objects of our three-dimensional world. In this it is helped by instinct, i.e. capacity, evolved through hundreds of centuries of selection, of performing expedient actions without consciousness of purpose. And an animal discriminates perfectly well between movements happening round it.

But, distinguishing between two kinds of phenomena — two kinds of motion — an animal is bound to explain one of them by some inner inexplicable property of objects, i.e. it will probably regard that kind of motion as the result of the animation of objects, and will regard moving objects as alive.

A kitten plays with a ball or with its own tail because the ball or the tail runs away from it.

A bear will fight with a beam until the beam throws him off the tree, because in the swinging beam he feels something alive and hostile.

A horse shies from a bush because the bush has suddenly turned round and waved a branch.

In the latter case the bush may not have moved at all — it was the horse that was running. But it appeared to move; therefore, it was alive. Probably everything that moves is alive for an animal. Why does a dog bark so furiously at a passing carriage? We do not quite understand it. We do not see how a passing carriage turns, twists and grimaces in the eyes of a dog. It is full of life — the wheels, the roof, the mudguards, the seats, and the passengers — all this is moving, turning…

Now let us summarize our deductions.

We have established that a man possesses sensations, representations and concepts; that higher animals possess sensations and representations, and lower animals only sensations. We deduced that an animal has no concepts mainly from the fact that it has no words, no speech. We have further established that, having no concepts, animals cannot comprehend the third dimension and only see the world as a surface. In other words they have no means, no instrument, for correcting their wrong sensations of the world. Then we found that, seeing the world as a surface, animals see on this surface a great many movements non-existent for us. That is, all those properties of bodies which we regard as the properties of their three-dimensionality, must appear as movements to them. Thus an angle and a spherical surface must appear to them as motion of the plane. Further, we came to the conclusion that everything that, for us, belongs to the domain of the third dimension as something constant, animals must regard as transient occurrences happening to objects — as time-phenomena.

Thus, in all its relations to the world an animal proves to be completely analogous to the unreal two-dimensional being, which we have supposed, lived on a plane. The whole of our world appears to an animal as a plane through which phenomena are passing, moving according to time or in time.

So we can say that we have established the following: that with a certain limitation of the mental apparatus which perceives the external world, for a subject possessing such an apparatus the whole aspect and all the properties of the world must change. And two subjects, living side by side but possessing different mental apparatuses, must live in different worlds — the properties of the extension of the world must be quite different for them. Moreover, we have seen conditions — not artificial and invented but actually existing in nature, i.e. the mental conditions of the life of animals — in which the world appears as a plane or even as a line.

In other words we have established that the three-dimensional extension of the world depends for us on the properties of our mental apparatus; or, that the world’s three-dimensionality is not its own property, but merely the property of our perception of the world.

To put it differently, the three-dimensionality of the world is the property of its reflection in our consciousness.

If all this is so, it is clear that we have really proved the dependence of space onspace-sense. And, since we have proved the existence of a space-sense lower than ours, by this very fact we have proved the possibility of a space-sense higher than ours.

And we must admit that if a fourth unit of thinking becomes formed in us, as different from the concept as the concept is different from the representation, then, simultaneously with this, there will appear for us in the surrounding world a fourth characteristic which we may call geometrically a fourth direction or a fourth perpendicular, because this characteristic will contain properties of objects perpendicular to all properties known to us and not parallel to any of them. In other words, we shall see or feel ourselves not in a space of three, but of four dimensions, and the surrounding objects as well as our own bodies will reveal the general properties of the fourth dimension which we had not noticed before or which we had regarded as individual properties of objects (or their motion), just as animals regard the extension of objects in the third dimension as their motion.

Having seen or felt ourselves in the world of four dimensions, we shall find that the world of three dimensions has not and never had any real existence that it was a creation of our fantasy, a phantom, a spectre, a delusion, an optical illusion, anything you like, but not reality.

All this is far from being a ‘hypothesis’, a supposition; it is an exact fact, as much of a fact as the existence of infinity. For the sake of its own existence, positivism had somehow to do away with infinity or at least to call it a ‘hypothesis’, which may or may not be true. But infinity is not a hypothesis; it is a fact. And just such a fact is also the multi-dimensionality of space and all that it implies, i.e. the unreality of everything three-dimensional.

End of extract.

This blog post is dedicated to a FB friend, Steven Lee.