Thinking Exercise to separate Observation from Thinking
We come to the point in the book where we are ready to ask ourselves: how does the object of observation which meets thinking enter into our consciousness at all? (Ch.4 p.42)
What obscures the answer to this question is the fact that any 'world information' entering our consciousness has already been permeated by our thinking, for us to be aware of it in a knowing way - it has already become interwoven with a thinking which discerns and names objects, and reveals the connections and relationships between these objects. We are, in our ordinary consciousness, bound up in the bubble of our personal way of thinking, operating from our base of 'understanding' of the world. with concepts and ideas from our own personal treasure chests.
What then is the world? What is the 'given perception' which we think about? Rather than theorise about this world as perception, about what this 'object of observation' is, whether or not it has any objective existence before it enters our own consciousness bubble, we are here invited to observe what actually happens in our consciouness, through inner observation and thinking. We will see afterwards that Berkley proposes there is no world outside our inner process of observation, that what we called 'object of observation' is bound up within our own bubble as a thing in itself, and then that Kant proposes accepting that the world in itself exists but that we cannot, and can never access it directly. If we have understood what actually happens, empirically, we will see through the limitations of their theories.
In order to observe how the object of observation enters the stage of our consciousness to meet thinking, we will need to carry out a thinking operation - a pure thinking exercise, that is, one without sense content. This will be an exercise which doesn't at first make sense to our ordinary thinking, because it is about something not experienced in our ordinary consciousness world, that is, observation purified of thinking, and thinking witheld from attaching itself to the corresponding object. We imagine witholding our ordinary thinking, which is not visible in our ordinary consciousness, and appears to happen automatically. We will need to do a thinking operation to separate the polarities 'Thinking' and 'Observation' and see how they exist independently, and how they relate and react to one another.
How can we observe the 'object of observation', or 'what is given' as it enters into our consciousness, before we become aware of it through thinking? The author gives us precise instructions, can we think them actively? Can I, of my own free will, overcome my objections and give myself permission to imagine this exercise? Here are the instructions as I write them for myself, you can cross check with the text, and of course, write your own:
*I remove from my consciousness of the world before me (a chosen object) everything which has been added by thinking - the named objects and connections between those objects.
* I imagine for myself (and naturally I begin to imagine myself as...) a being with perfectly developed intelligent capacity, attentive, facing the world, but not yet thinking - I refrain from thinking, I hold back my thinking.
*Then I 'see' before me what is separated out from thinking, what is outside and stepping into my consciousness.
*It becomes obvious that my 'one consciousness' is composed of two things, once I have separated them out...a given content and my activity of thinking...
*...and that by really slowing things down, I can follow how the object enters the 'stage' of my thinking consciousness, how my thinking hooks up with it.
If I can think these steps strongly, I will see the logic, and with more thinking intensity, find myself having a more intense experience. (I call this experiment a 'meditation').