Perception: The Truth Behind The Normal Way of Looking at Things

Perception

Introduction

Before we begin with the movement of perception proper, it is again necessary to briefly recap what occurred to sense-certainty. The path began with sense-certainty taking its object to be an immediate, sensuous, object that was present for sense to actually sense, however it could. We humans have five senses. I will not claim that sense-certainty has five senses, since there is nothing about the previous movement that states that sense-certainty has to be human. It can be any thing that senses. It can be an animal, an extraterrestrial. Anything. The content of the "I", as we have already discussed, cannot be deduced from the word "I", much in the same manner that sense-certainty could not pinpoint any enduring content for "This", "Here" or "Now". Digression aside, we saw that sense-certainty began with that construal of the object. We divided that construal into its two component parts, Here and Now, because it corresponds to the space and time in which sense-certainty is situated. Our aim is to make our construal of consciousness as it actually appears as a phenomenon in reality. No consciousness exists as an abstract thought experiment in the absence of space and time. to reality. If we were to do that, we would be adding something in that is not supported by our original assumption, namely, that the knower is distinct from the thing known. In our case, knowledge was sense, and the thing known was the thing sensed. 

After a series of self-imposed tests, we were able to find tensions in each component of the construed object. Each component failed to show itself to be particular and immediate, and therefore the object failed to be particular and immediate, since the object was determined to be composed of these, and only these, two components. So sense-certainty took itself to be the ground of the object's particularity and immediacy. More tests revealed that sense-certainty is not a singular entity, but a collection of entities; thus sense-certainty was revealed to be neither particular nor immediate, but universal and mediated, and as such failed to be the ground for the particularity and immediacy of the object. Finally sense-certainty took what it learned from its previous experience and determined that the entire movement of sense-certainty was particular and immediate, having no concern for the tensions that had arisen. This attempt failed because it cannot be accomplished in reality, only in thought. In effect, sense-certainty tried to stop time and reduce space into a singularity, i.e. zero dimensions. This is exactly the situation that physicists describe as being the condition just before the Big Bang. Even if it were possible, we would no longer be dealing with consciousness, but with something else. Sense-certainty needs time to have movement, and space to have extension, in order for sense-certainty to be a consciousness at all. Therefore, this tactic, while heroic, failed. 

Consciousness has now before it an object which it caught a glimpse of in its previous stage. This object is a mediated universal. Thus, again, we have a form of knowing that we will henceforth refer to as perception, which is distinct from its object. Do not be tempted into conflating perception, as it has arisen from the path which sense-certainty has arrived at, and perception, as is experienced in real life just yet. Stick to the process. There exists a slight difference between perception and sense-certainty, besides the different names and the fact that one is a "higher" form of consciousness than the other. Remember that the path to absolute knowing is an ascent, you go from lower to higher. Perception has the history of sense-certainty behind it. The whole of the experience of sense-certainty is nested into the consciousness of perception; its object as mediated universal could not have been revealed to be such without the experience of sense-certainty. Sense-certainty does not have this experience behind it like perception does, but before (in front of) it. If you didn't get it the first time, feel free to go back and try again. No one will know that you did, and it makes the experience of reading about perception that much more rewarding. 

Since perception has the history of sense-certainty behind it, as a part of its recollection, it inherits all of the capacities of sense-certainty. In essence, sense-certainty sat on the side of the throne of its essence, the object as immediate particular, and object of perception is the heir to the throne. Now that the previous ruler has stepped down, perception takes its place alongside the new ruler, the object as a mediated universal, and it inherits sense-certainty's capacity to distinguish, and to identify. Further, perception inherits the capacity that sense-certainty picked up just after its second sub-shape, and allow it to develop its third sub-shape, the capacity to invert, which is just the combination of making different, identifying that difference with itself, and identifying that difference with the first identity. Perception, along with its new object, as an activity of knowing has the abilities to identify, differentiate, and invert. In regards to the situatedness of sense-certainty in space and time, perception too inherits that situation, and so too does the activity of perception occur in space in time. The only thing that perception does not inherit from sense-certainty is the untainted and supreme self-confidence that sense-certainty had, for perception inherits a kingdom which has never known unity and simplicity, harmony. Perception only imagines what a state of harmony might look like, only because it can still sense, yet it never experienced that state of harmony as a living reality. From grace it has fallen, sense-certainty has fallen because it wanted to know, i.e. wanting to have the knowledge of good and evil. Perception is the offspring of sense-certainty.  

Sometimes it is good to be serious.

This reminds us that perception is distinct from sense-certainty. While perception has the capacity to sense, it cannot be said that sense-certainty has the capacity to perceive. The latter must develop that capacity by going through the entire motion of sense-certainty. Thus, there exist a multiplicity of consciousnesses, as we showed last time while strictly confining ourselves to the terms restricted to sense-certainty, that are still in the stage of sense-certainty, while some have reached the stage of perception. Since perception fashions itself against its object, which is mediated and universal, we can say without contradiction that there exist many consciousnesses that are in the stage of perception, since all universals imply the presence of particulars. A universal cannot be a universal if it does not have particulars. It's like saying that many dogs exist, yet at the same time no single dog exists. It is ridiculous. Still, for the sake of simplicity, we will consider the movement of only one of those consciousnesses, while keeping in mind that it is valid for many.

Doing away with the religious imagery, we approach the object in its pure form. It is again helpful to make a map that traces out the path that perception will take. Perception will compare the object which it confronts, the mediated universal, with reality without intervening, just as sense-certainty did in its first sub-shape. It will allow the object to be what it is, and evaluate its movement. As a mediated universal, there must be movement, since this is how perception has inherited the object from sense-certainty. Sense-certainty was only able to discover that the object was a mediated universal by undergoing movement, thus that movement is essential to the object. It will take the object to be the essential moment, and itself to be the inessential in the relation between knowing and its object. Since perception is a whole new movement, Hegel refers to the object with new terminology, a new word, that is better able to capture the character of that object. The object will henceforth be called a thing. This kind of relating between perception, as the activity of knowing, that is, perceiving, and its object, the thing, is the first sub-shape of perception. Perception is distinct from the thing.

Like sense-certainty, it will be revealed that there exist a tension between how perception construes the thing to be, and how the thing actually is in reality, so it will slightly adjust its relating to the thing by resorting to itself. The move that allows it to reach this second sub-shape is a little different from what sense-certainty tried to do. Sense-certainty took advantage of the fact that it itself, as an activity of knowing, was originally construed to be particular and immediate. Perception holds no such presumptions about itself, as it has learned from the experience of sense-certainty. Instead, perception will take advantage of the mediated universality that now inheres within itself as an individual, and it will take responsibility for one aspect of the asymmetry that will arise in the first stage. It will consider itself responsible for the tension. In this way, it will attempt to save the thing from falling into the nothingness of abstraction, by taking upon itself the responsibility for one side of the tension. It will directly intervene on behalf of the thing, and like the second sub-shape of sense-certainty, the thing will be what it is on account of the activity of knowing, this time being perception. After doing this, it will test itself by elaborating on the consequences of having engaged in such an intervention, and new tensions will arise. Since these new tensions arose from it having taking upon itself one aspect of the tensions that arose in the first sub-shape, it figures that it will avoid new tensions arising if it takes upon itself the second aspect of the tensions that arose in the first shape. New tensions, distinct from the first set of new tensions that arose in the second sub-shape, will arise.

Once again, like sense-certainty, since it cannot avoid the fact that new tensions arise in the second sub-shape of perception no matter what it tries, so it will assume a third sub-shape by combining the first two sub-shapes. Here it will pick up a new skill, of which we do not have an English word that immediately comes to mind that describes. It is related to inversion, yet involves collapse. From this collapse, it is able to take advantage of this collapse and improve itself by integrating aspects of itself which it has previously experienced. This is a verb, and is exactly what is accomplished by the legendary phoenix.

If you're not reading, these pictures seem to be totally random. They're not.

The English word "collapse", or rather, "that which has fallen in" is related to the Latin, collapsus, which is the perfect active participle of collabor, that is con-labor, meaning, "to work with". Working with another, that is, together has precisely the positive sense that we wish to imbue in this phenomenon. This positive sense is diametrically opposed to the negative sense of "collapse". One thinks of collapsing buildings, collapsing minds, etc. The correct word, which is related to working together, is synergize. In its third sub-shape, perception picks up a new skill, the capacity to synergize, that is, it allows its two previous sub-shapes to interact in unison in such a way that their combined interaction leads to a behaviour of perception that is distinct from how they would have behaved as the individual sub-shapes that compose it. The capacity to synergize will be used again and again in the subsequent shapes. It will make a lot of what Hegel is trying to explain easier to understand.

Synergy is simply the combination of the other capacities that perception had: the capacity to differentiate, identify, and invert, and combines them in a specific way, in a specific order. More specifically, one gets synergy when one takes an identity, finds difference in that identity, identifies that difference with itself, identifies that difference with the original identity, in doing so develops an inversion, which is in its own right an identity, from which it identifies that inversion with the first, and finds that inversion is an identity identified with the original identity, leading to a new identity with identity, that is, identity with itself, that is composed of distinct identities, yet is identical to itself in a way that is different than the first identity and the inversion when it first was developed. If you couldn't follow, don't worry. The third sub-shape has a complexity that is distinct from anything that consciousness has experienced before. This will make sense once we actually go through each of the sub-shapes.

Dafuq

Perception's path will be similar to sense-certainty; once having reached the end, it will have exhausted itself, and every attempt to preserve itself will have been tried. Perception will then end up with a new construal of its object, and this object will be different from how it first appeared. Thus, consciousness will finally come to accept this new object, and from there will assume a new shape, as understanding.

Sub-shape 1: The Thing and its Properties

We begin with the movement of perception proper. Like the first sub-shape of sense-certainty, the defining feature of this subshape is the way in which perception relates to the thing. The thing is left to its own devices and is allowed to be for itself, self-relating. Perception exists as a moment that opposes the thing, yet the essential moment in this duality inheres in the thing itself. The thing is what it is, and exists on its own account regardless of whether or not it is perceived. Perception is the inessential moment in this duality. The thing is the object of perception, and perception elevates it to the status of being the standard of absolute truth. The Absolute is the Thing, the object that which is a mediated universal.

We must now elaborate on what exactly what kind of thing this thing is. It is a mediated universal. This means that it is mediated, and that it is a universal. Since it is mediated, it means that it continually undergoes a process of mediation. But mediation requires the existence of at least to entities. One entity mediates another, thus, at least two distinct things are involved in mediation. These things must be universal as well, since we discovered in the previous movement that everything is a particular. So the thing, which is a universal, in being mediated contains universals. But these universals are distinct from the thing that overarches them. Let us leave this confusion aside and come back to it after having elaborated on the universality of the thing.

The thing is a mediated universal. Therefore, it is a universal. But any universal must have particulars. A universal is a term or concept that has general application. Those particulars inhere in the universal. A universal is a general class that is instantiated by particular examples of that class. For example, there is a class of cats that contains all cats that could possibly exist. A particular cat belongs to the class of all cats. Recall from the movement of sense-certainty, furthermore, that one can only sense a particular dog, i.e. some dogs; one cannot sense all dogs ever. Therefore, since perception inherited the capacity to sense from sense-certainty, and since sense-certainty, as a singular consciousness, could only sense particulars, the particular which belongs to the universal is sensuous. 

Now we are able to clear up the confusion that was begun by our having elaborated on the notion of mediation. When we said that a thing is mediated, we meant to say that a universal contains a universal. But since a particular is in truth a universal, as sense-certainty learned, we can say that a universal contains a particular, which as sense-certainty learned is a universal. In the last paragraph, we also said that the particular universal is sensuous. It follows that the thing is a universal that contains a particular which is a sensuous universal. Henceforth, we shall refer to the particular which is a sensuous universal as property. 

Thus, the thing has emerged as a thing with properties. Perception is able to know the thing by sensing it, i.e. seeing it, hearing it, smelling it, tasting it, feeling it, etc. Perception is able to determine what a thing is only by sensing its properties, i.e. by seeing it, hearing it, smelling it, tasting it, feeling it, etc. For example, perception perceives (knows) an apple by seeing its color, its shape, by smelling it, feeling it, and tasting it. If it looks like an apple, feels like an apple, smells like an apple, tastes like an apple, then its an apple. Perception senses the thing by way of its sensing the thing's sensuous properties. It senses the property in space and time, in a Here and Now. 

So far so good. What seems to be the problem? Consider any thing with sensuous properties whatsoever. The thing is assumed to be a singular, exclusive, unity. If it is exclusive, it cannot be inclusive. Anything that is exclusive cannot include other things. Yet a thing, which is exclusive, includes properties. It has to. You can only perceive a thing if it has properties. A thing does not have just one, singular property, but many properties. The singular universal, a totality which is supposed to be at one with itself, contains a plurality of universals. One contains Many. But One is not Many, and Many is not One. We have here the old philosophical problem between the One and the Many. Plato himself tried to deal with this problem, although unsuccessfully. His entire theory of forms was undermined by this problem, and Plato himself admits this. Academic philosophers are still griping on and on about this problem, not knowing that it can never be solved. This is by nature an unsolvable problem.

Every thing contains properties, and it is only knowable by perception through its sensing its properties. Notice also that there is nothing about the sensuous properties that make it necessary that it belong to any one thing. There is nothing inherent about the property of whiteness that makes it necessary that whiteness belong to a cloud, or cheese, or a computer screen, or a zebra. There is nothing about loudness that makes it necessary for loudness to belong to noise or music. The properties are indifferent to the thing. Further there is nothing about the thing that makes it necessary to have any particular property. There is nothing about an apple, for example, that makes it necessary for it to be red, or green, or reddish green, or sweet, or sour, or soft, or hard, etc. There is nothing about cheese that makes it necessary for cheese to be white. Perception cannot account for the relationship between the thing and its properties. It does not have the tools that would allow it to. The thing is indifferent to its properties. 

Further, the properties of a thing are indifferent to each other. Properties belong to a thing as a multiplicity, as a group, but there is nothing about one property that determines the character of another. The sensuous properties overlap, but do not come into contact with one another. Consider a piece of salt. Perception knows that it is salt because it is white. It is also cubical in shape, It is also tart in taste. It is also firm to the touch. The tart taste of the salt does not affect its cubical shape. The tart taste does not affect its firmness, and its cubical shape does not affect its firmness either. Each of these three properties seem to have a character that is independent of the character of other. Notice also that this is because each property is sensed by means of different faculty of sense. Perception knows that the salt is cubical because he can sense it with his eyes; he can see that it is cubical. Perception knows that the salt is tart because he can sense it with his tongue; he can taste its tartness. Perception knows that the salt is firm because he can sense it with his touch; he can touch its firmness. These senses are distinct and take in the sensed properties in distinct manners. One cannot taste colors, or see sounds in a singular act of perception. If someone objects by stating that the phenomenon of synesthesia, where it is claimed that one can taste colors or see sounds, in truth what is occurring is a dual act of perception. At any rate, let us not concern ourselves with the activity of perception itself, but only the object of perception. 

Eating too much salt makes your body look fat.

These properties of a thing as a plurality are shown to be indifferent to one another. No one property can affect the property of another property as property. Yet, the property of a thing is known to perception only through its senses, making the property something that is conditioned by sense. Perception is able to know what property it is perceiving by sensing it. Once it is able to determine what the property is, it is able to ascertain precisely to itself what it is sensing. The property of a thing, therefore, has the quality of being determinate through the senses, and is thereby conditioned by and dependent on the senses. In order to determine something, however, one must be able distinguish it from other things. One must know what that which something is determined to be is not. We are able to determine that something is white by virtue of the fact that it is not a thing that is non-white. Everything in the universal is either white, or it is not white; this statement is true in every possible interpretation - it is a logical tautology. In order to determine a property of a thing with the senses, one must simultaneously be able to determine every property that it is not. So each property is determinate insofar as it relates to other properties. This goes for anything else. Anything whatsoever is determinate insofar as it relates to something else.

So even though on the one hand properties have nothing to do with each other since they cannot have an effect on one another, they're just a simple yet uneasy togetherness, on the other hand properties need each other in order to be determinate. Moreover, properties as a community of sensuously determinable universals are indifferent to the thinghood of a thing, as we have seen above, in reverse. We said that the thing is indifferent to properties. Regardless of how we construe it, it cannot be overlooked that properties depend on the thing in order for properties of a thing to be properties of a thing at all. Conversely, the thing needs properties in order to be a thing at all, since perception is able to perceive a things only by the collection of properties that it has. This is the kind of object for perception. It is much more complicated than the object of sense-certainty, which compared to perception is an infant.

Here is how perception perceives the thing, or moves through its senses towards the essence of the thing itself. Here, perception is testing the thing. It can move through it from two distinct starting points, and it ends on two distinct ending points. Let us move through the first point and see where we end up. Suppose that perception begins with its senses. It senses a collection of properties. It sees white and black. It feels soft. It hears purring. It has determined, through its sensing the properties and putting them together, that it is perceiving a cat. It has arrived at the thinghood of the thing that it perceives, i.e. the catness of a cat.

"Cute" is not a property. Why do girls speak like a cute thing has the property of cuteness?

Yet, the catness of a cat is something that is quite different from the collection of properties it perceived with its senses. The catness of a cat is a One, and the black, also the white, also the soft, also the purring, is a Many. In spite of the fact that the cat has catness, the cat is nothing beyond those properties that perception received through its senses. Catness refers to all possible and existing cats, which transcends the particularity of that single cat which perception perceived. Catness is an indeterminate abstraction that cannot be sensed. Perception cannot access catness with its senses. By ending up at thinghood, perception has overshot its mark. Perception can only know what it senses, therefore, since it cannot sense catness, its knowledge of the thing is not possible - it is mere fancy, a mistake. By taking this path, perception has found that the thinghood of the thing cannot be maintained, because a thing can only be that which is perceived. In other words, the thing loses its essence, which it was supposed to have all along.

Perhaps perception will have better luck if it begins with the One thing and ends with the Many properties it senses. This is the second test. It sees a cat. The cat is a particular cat which is present to for perception; the cat that is present does not transcend the particularity of that cat. The cat is a universal medium that contains many properties, and these properties present themselves to the senses of perception. Since this thinghood as universal medium is indifferent to the sensuous properties that perception perceives, and perception cannot perceive (and know) thinghood as such, it needs to take no account of it, and sets it aside. But properties are not properties if they do not belong to a whole, a thing. Properties that do not belong to a thing are a mere heap. A meaningless collection of independent, particular, sensuous, immediate matters - the object of sense-certainty. Here something happens to perception. It devolves back to sense-certainty. Once we go through the next section, we will see that the path perception took in the above paragraph led it to the domain of the understanding. It, however, had gone through the entire movement of perception, so it was not able to recognize it. Can you? That being said, perception realizes its mistake and discovers that it cannot discard the thinghood of the thing, as an exclusive One - doing so is mere fancy, a mistake. 

Consciousness has actually reverted to sense-certainty, and it traces its way back up to just before the point described in the previous paragraph. It has learned that if it leaves the thing to its own devices, the thing cannot sustain itself on its own terms. It is riddled with self-contradiction and tension that threatens to rip it to pieces, into oblivion. When I say oblivion, it is not an exaggeration. Perception reverts to sense-certainty, and the third sub-shape of sense-certainty involves an attempt by consciousness to stop time and reduce space to a singularity, thereby obliterating itself. Consciousness would rather only go through that ordeal only once, not again.

First, perception learns that the movement of the thing, on its own independent of perception, has two holes: one that leads up to who knows where, the other that leads down to sense-certainty. Second, perception learns that its own activity is not merely a simple apprehension that is uninvolved in the movement of the thing. It learns that it can perceive the thing correctly and incorrectly; it is prone to making mistakes, and those mistakes can be costly to fix. Sense-certainty had no idea that it can make mistakes. One can never be mistaken about what immediate and particular matter they sense, but one can be mistaken on what mediated universal they perceive. This mistake perception commits leads to it being deceived by itself. Perception learns that it is susceptible to deception. Having learned this, perception maintains that the thing is the true, Absolute Essence. Despite having caught a glimpse of something beyond that Absolute, it cannot comprehend it since it cannot sense it; it considers it to be a mistake, when it went "up", a figment of its imagination. Perception takes responsibility for mistakes and fancies, the errors it commits when perceiving the thing. Thus, it relates to the thing in a new way having learned these new things from its experience of the thing. Perception has left behind it its first sub-shape, and assumes its second sub-shape.

Sub-shape 2: Seeking the Truth of the Thing and its Properties, and Avoiding Deception

Perception is able to identify itself as the source of the mistake when it comes to its perceiving of the thing. It is not enough to identify and acknowledge a mistake. One corrects it as well as soon as he is able. Perception, once having seen itself as the source of its mistake, and the nature of its mistake, it corrects it. Thus, the tension inherent in the thing exists on account of perception. Perception immediately notices the mistake and fixes it, thereby relieving the tension and allowing the thing to exist in itself, according to its essence of thinghood without tension, and for itself, relating to itself and its many properties. Through this move, perception hopes to achieve the living harmony, and regain the golden age, that sense-certainty experienced before embarking on its journey.

Perception, at first, takes the thing to be an exclusive One. It is firm in its conviction that the thing is an exclusive One. It is a unity that does not contain plurality. The thing is a singular thinghood. By the very act of perception perceiving through its senses, however, something arises that contradicts that Oneness of the thing: a collection of sensuous properties. This happened in the second test in the first sub-shape of perception. Perception will avoid reverting back to sense-certainty by taking responsibility for its mistake. Those many properties that have just arisen for perception have no basis in reality, they are merely the affectations of the activity of perceiving, a pretended feeling, a fancy. "After all," it says to itself, "the cat is only white because it is white to my eyes, and it is black to my eyes in yet another instance, and it is soft to my touch, and it is a purring to my hearing. And of course these many impressions are distinct in such a way they do not affect one another's character. After all, the eye is something quite distinct from the tongue, and both are distinct to the touch. And of course they remain related (identified with each other) despite being distinct. It is I who perceive them. I am the universal universal medium, so I contain different ways to receive sense impressions."

By taking responsibility for the plurality that crops up when perception perceives the thing, it is able to maintain the self-identity of the thing as a singular exclusive One. Perception has made a mistake and has made an attempt to resolve that mistake. Despite its best attempts, the harmony it sought is not achieved. New difficulties arise. First, a thing is situated in space and time, so it something that is able to be identified by a perception that is situated in space and time. Perception is able to determine what a property is by determining what it is not. White is white because it is not-not-white. Similarly, a thing is a One because it is a not-not-One. A thing is not something else. This allows perception to determine what a thing is, and it is able to distinguish between one thing and another thing. The determinability of a thing is dependent on its capacity to differentiate itself from other things, and to exclude other things from its own Oneness. But the thing does not accomplish this in some abstract or fanciful way. It can only accomplish this with properties. The thing possesses intrinsic being; it is situated in space and time. In order for it to be determinate, its properties must too be situated in space and time, because a thing is determinable only through its properties. A thing is not determinable through thinghood alone. Perception learned in the previous sub-shape that thinghood is in itself a mere empty abstraction. The many properties cannot only be perception's mistake. If perception continues to hold that the many properties that appear to its senses are only a result of its faculty of sense, without a basis in reality, then the thing loses the only vehicle through which it can be determinable. The thing loses its determinateness.

Second, while it is true that properties are sensed, which means that properties exist for the purposes of being sensed, this cannot mean that properties are only sensed. There must be something that exists in space and time that is the ground and source of that perception's sensing. Also, while it is true that properties allow for the thing to be differentiated, which means that properties for the purpose of differentiating one thing from another, as well as differentiating one property from another, this cannot mean that one property is different from another because perception receives those impressions by means of distinct faculties (seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling, etc.). The properties are indifferent to each other's character not because the activity of perceiving makes it so, but because the properties are indifferent to each other's character in the real thing situated in space and time.

Third, the thing is the universal medium, not the activity of perceiving. It has many properties, each property is indifferent to the character of the other, the thing is indifferent to the character of each property, and each property is indifferent to the character of the thing. We have just reached the midpoint of a movement which we will see again and again in subsequent sections. Before completing the movement, let us recount what has just transpired in abbreviated form. Perception took the thing to be an exclusive One. It set to one side the Many properties, attributed the appearance of the many to its own activity, and considered it to be a deception. It divested the Many of actuality. The correction turned to be an even bigger mistake, which introduced even more tensions than were present before. It realized its mistake, and corrected the correction. It ended up with the both the thing as an exclusive One, and the Many properties, existing on their own account in real space and time. We started with the exclusive One, and only the exclusive one, inhering truly in space and time. We ended with both the One and the Many inhering truly in space and time. This is the mid-point of the movement which we will see again and again in the subsequent sections.

Before we finish the other half of the movement and complete it, notice that within the activity of perception itself, the inverse of what occurred in space and time occurred. We began with perception taking responsibility for the Many properties. Thus, the Many properties resided in the activity of perception itself. In justifying to itself why this had to be the case, that the Many properties were an apparition that was produced by the activity of perception itself, it ended up saying to itself that universal medium was itself. The universal medium resided in the activity of perception itself, since it was a unity that combined its sense impressions through holding together its sensing faculties - its seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting belong to sense faculties that belong to one body. Thus perception took itself to be an exclusive One. Within the activity of perception, the inverse of what occurred in the reality of space and time. We started with the Many properties, and only the Many properties, residing in the activity of perceiving. We ended with both the One and the Many residing in the activity of perceiving.

When perception had both the One and the Many residing in the activity of perceiving, what ended up happening is that the thing lost its determinateness. A thing without determinateness is no thing at all, so perception ended up positing a reality of space and time and has neither things nor properties. The Many already resided in the activity of perceiving, the thing disappeared from the real, and we found it residing in the activity of perceiving as the universal medium. This state of affairs could not be maintained, since space and time cannot be maintained as a reality if there is nothing that in space and time that it contains. A space and time that contains nothing is itself nothing. But reality is real, so it corrected itself by recalling that the thing must be determinate in space and time, and that it must have its properties exist in space and time as well. This way, space and time can contain something. We first dislodged the Many from its residence within the act of perceiving, and showed that the exclusive One which perception took to be the real thing must have the Many be real as well. This left only the One as a universal medium in the activity of perception itself. The exclusive One was in space and time, as perception itself assumed, and the One as a universal medium in the activity of perception. We know that these are the same by virtue of being One, so we extracted the One as universal medium from its residence in the activity of perceiving and united it with the exclusive one which inhered in real space and time. Now, instead of the space and time being empty and without content, the activity of perception became empty and without content. This is where perception is at, and what we have just described is what has just occurred. Feel free verify for yourself to see that what has been described as occurring actually did occur.

This picture is up here for a reason.

We have finished, and recapped, a movement up to its midpoint. The movement contains two movements, and one movement is the inversion of the other. Let us complete the movement. Both the One thing and its Many properties inhere in space and time. The old tension between the thing and its properties, and the tension between one property and another, described in detail in the first sub-shape of perception, is still present and needs to be addressed. The activity of knowing is empty. Perception  still considers itself to be responsible for the tension that plagues the object. The tension is a result of a mistake in the activity of perceiving, and therefore, perception is being somehow deceived. It will try to relieve the thing of its tension and reclaim the harmony which sense certainty experienced.

This time, perception will try something different. It will take the thing that inheres in space and time to be in truth only a subsistence of the many diverse and independent properties. The temptation to gather and coalesce those properties into a singular unity is taken to inhere in the activity of perceiving. "The thing only appears to be an exclusive One," says perception to itself. "In fact, that appearance is because of my own doing, and I must resist the temptation to gather all those properties into a One. The cat I see is only a cat because that is what I call it. In truth that thing is white, and it is also black, and also soft, and also a purring, etc. That I perceive it as a cat is my own doing." Perception claims now that the difference inherent in the many diverse and independent properties inheres in real space and time, and that unity of those properties is only an activity of perception. But properties are only properties if they belong to a unity, a Oneness, a thing. In order to prevent the many properties from collapsing into a Oneness in real space and time, perception must emphasize the distinctness of each property by stating, "The thing is white, and it is white insofar as it is not black; it is white insofar as it is not soft; it is white insofar as it is not purring; etc." Perception must take an active role in preventing the many properties from collapsing into an exclusive One by employing the term insofar. If it does not intervene in this way, the many properties will collapse into unity, and its object would again be ridden with tension.

By taking responsibility for the oneness that crops up when perception perceives the thing, it is able to maintain the difference of the many diverse independent sensuous properties that inhere in real space and time. Again, perception has made a mistake and has attempted to resolve that mistake. Yet, despite its best attempts, the harmony it sought is not achieved. New difficulties arise. Properties require belonging to a real existing whole. They cannot help but belong to a oneness. As we saw in the first sub-shape, properties that do not belong to a unity become independent matters. They are no longer properties, but simply immediate and sensuous particulars - the object of sense-certainty. Their belonging to a whole makes properties properties. Oneness is intrinsic to the many independent diverse matters. No amount of insofars that perception utters will change that. The thing is an exclusive One by its own independent doing. It is an exclusive One with or without the activity of perceiving. This exclusive Oneness of the thing inheres in space and time. Upon this Oneness inhering in space and time do the many properties depend in order to be in truth properties that inhere in space and time. We must therefore let the thing and its many properties be as they first presented themselves in space and time. We must leave them alone, and find a new method of perceiving that allows us to preserve the integrity of the thing and its many properties which inheres in space and time.

This completes second half of the movement, and therefore the whole movement. Let us recap this second half of the movement in order to fully grasp what just transpired. Perception began with situating only the Many diverse and independent properties in real space and time. The exclusive Oneness of the thing was nowhere to be found in real space and time, since perception took responsibility for attributing exclusive oneness to the real existing Many properties. Thus, the One resided in only in the activity of perceiving itself. Perception had to ensure that this was the case, so it emphasized the diversity and independence of the properties inhering in real space and time by making use of the term insofar. We did not finish the whole statement, since such a statement is infinitely long, and would never end. Consider whiteness. The thing is white insofar as it is not black, it is white insofar as it is not soft, and so on. There are an infinite number of individual sensuous matters that are not white. We cannot even be sure that perception is even aware of all of them. There may even be more individual sensuous matters than perception has words to assign, if we assume that there are a finite number of words that perception can know. Its task could only be successful perhaps if its vocabulary was not limited by one language. And this is just for the color white. A countably infinite number of independent matters exist. If we consider this process for each and every diverse and independent sensuous matter, there being an infinitely large multitude of each sensuous matter that could possibly exist, our infinity gets infinitely bigger. It would take a mathematical proof to show that this kind of infinity is uncountably infinite, which is different from a countable infinite. Integers are countable infinite. Real numbers are uncountably infinite. Countable infinities and uncountable are different kind of infinities. In either case, perception's task would set it to work for eternity, it would never, nor could it ever stop if it remained convicted to the idea that the Oneness of a thing resided only in the activity of perceiving.

Further, making use of the term insofar is inoperative. It has no effect on the Many properties that inhere in real space and time. What perception has really done is, by its own activity, potentially infinite in character, introduced diversity into the activity of perceiving. The Many properties reside in the activity of perceiving alongside the exclusive One. The thing and its many properties began inhering, at the halfway point of the movement, in space and time. Simultaneously, since it will not allow the Many properties in space and time, let us consider what would happen if the Many properties did not automatically to collapse into an exclusive One that inheres in space and time. The Many properties would each lose their character of being properties at all. As a consequence, each and every property would evaporate and become sensuous immediate particulars, reverting to an equal number of sense-certainties, however infinite that number may be, each in their turn sinking into their many singularities and finding oblivion. Space and time would once again be empty in content. This definitely can never happen, so by the contrapositive, the Many existing properties that inheres in space and time must collapse into an exclusive One that inheres in space and time.

So, once again, just to make it clear. We began with only the Many properties inhering in reality, and only the exclusive One inhering the activity of perceiving. We end up with both the One and the Many in the activity of perception, and neither the Many nor the One inhering in space and time. This state of affairs appeared in the first half of the movement. Notice that the second half of the movement is slightly different from the first half. In the first half, this situation is possible and could conceivably be actually an arrangement that could possibly be sustained without destroying existence and consciousness itself. It would be an extremely discordant and unpleasant arrangement, but it is still possible. In the second half, this same exact situation could never ever be actually maintained without destroying existence and consciousness itself. This is so because the Oneness of the Many cannot ever be extracted from the Many. The Many properties will always collapse into an exclusive Oneness that includes many properties as immediately as a Now becomes a not-Now.

A singularity is a black hole. A black whole. An empty whole. 

Digression aside, perception recognizes its mistake, and lets the Many loose from its inhabitance in the activity of perceiving into reality of space and time. In order to stop deceiving itself, perception will cease and desist its activity of using the term, insofar. Simultaneously, the Many will immediately coalesce into an exclusive One. In restoring the thing and its many properties to its proper place in real space and time, we see that the latter end of the second half of the movement was completely, while the latter end of the first half of the movement, just approaching the midpoint, which was completely manual, almost like a surgical procedure.

Beginning again with the first half of the movement. Right at the beginning the thing and its many properties inhered in real space time. The activity of perceiving was itself empty. The movement began when perception took responsibility, or credit, for the diversity of the exclusive Oneness of a thing. It left the exclusive Oneness of a thing to inhere in real space time. The act of perceiving justified this move to itself, and in the course of this justification took credit for being the universal medium on which the Many diverse properties depend. In doing this, it created two Ones. The exclusive One of thinghood still remained in real space time. But the One as a universal medium entered act of perceiving. There can only be one One, so the exclusive one of thinghood disappeared from real space time. We were left at the end of the first half of the movement with an empty real space time, and the act of perceiving had exclusive ownership of both the One and the Many. Perception recognized its mistake by analyzing the character of the One and corrected itself using surgical precision. It restored the thing and its many properties into real space time. By doing so, perception divested itself of both the One and the Many, and ended up once again being empty.

Beginning from the beginning of the second half of the movement, the thing and its many properties were situated in real space and time. They were right where perception had restored them. Simultaneously, the activity of perceiving was empty. It only had the awareness that it could make mistakes. The second half of the movement began when perception took responsibility, or credit, for the exclusive Oneness of the many properties of a thing. It left the Many diverse and independent properties by themselves in real space time. At the end of the second half, space and time turned out to be empty. Simultaneously, the activity of perceiving turned out to contain within itself both the One and the Many. This situation is purely theoretical, it can never be true. What happens instead is the beginning of the first half the movement. The movement is cyclical, and continues on ad infinitum, for eternity. The tensions inherent in the thing and the many properties, and the problem of the One and the Many, remain, for eternity.

Subshape 3: Pure Perception 

This basic movement is the whole of the second sub-shape of perception. It arose from perception's analysis of the thing and its many diverse independent properties in the first sub-shape of perception. This new movement has components which before was shared between consciousness and its object. Its content is quite rich and full of complexity, and its behaviour is quite distinct from a mere thing and its many properties. Perception has synergized its object, and has developed a new one. Pay attention to how this object works. It appears in all subsequent shapes of consciousness, although it wears many disguises, and is the main object of interest for the understanding. Perception, having undergone this whole movement, now has this movement behind it. The thing and its many properties no longer has the significance of being the Absolute Truth for perception, since it has discovered that the thing and its many properties is part of a larger movement. Perception takes this whole movement to be its new object. It still has the character of being a singular unified movement that contains many moments: beginnings, just after the beginnings, just before the end, first halves, second halves, the midpoint, ends, inversions, identifications, differentiations, real space and time, the activity of perceiving, automatic processes, manual procedures, etc. The many moments are still infinite in number, as they were for the original many sensuous particulars, but there are a finite number of critical moments.

The path which perception has traced out is a Mobius Strip.

Perception is now able to be more precise in defining its object without having to refer to sensuous particulars. It is enough for it to simply look within its own activity, and draw from the pure recollection of its own experience of the One and the Many, the character of its object, the thing and its many properties. It is able to draw from that recollection because it took responsibility for both the exclusive Oneness of the thing, and the diversity of the many diverse and independent properties of the thing. It still senses the sensuous properties of a thing, but it is not dependent on those senses. The thing is the whole movement of the second sub-shape of perception. For its senses, thinghood remains an empty abstraction that inheres in a beyond. That beyond is the whole movement of the second sub-shape of perception. Perception, in taking the whole movement of the second sub-shape, which includes within the first subshape (the thing and its many properties), has before it the exclusive Oneness of the thing, as well as the Many. Thinghood, in this new object, is just as concrete as the sensuous many properties. Thinghood impinges not through sense, but through a self-constructed concept, a recollection.

Yet, perception cannot distinguish between its recollecting and its sensing. For it recollecting is the same phenomenon as sensing. The Oneness of the thing it no longer refers to as "Oneness", but being-for-self, i.e. self-relatedness. The whole movement is singular. The path goes on and on and on, without bound. The movement is unbounded. At the same time it is finite, because only a finite number of critical points exist. If one were to walk along this path for eternity (and this would take an infinite amount of time), one would cross one particular critical point, a particular Now and Here with a particular content, in a specific configuration, over and over again; space is finite. This movement is finite and unbounded. It is shaped just like the universe as Einstein takes it to be, and it repeats just as Nietzsche imagined it would. The term "Oneness" fails to capture precisely the character of the unity of the movement. "Being-for-self", the movements relating-to-self, or self-relatedness, its leading into itself, is a better way to refer to this movement.

Perception no longer refers to the diversity of the many diverse independent properties of the thing as a "diversity". The term "diversity" fails to capture the character of the diversity inherent in the movement. The diverse matters in the movement, or better yet, the diverse instances in the movement are not only the static and inert matters that impinges upon the senses of perception, but also the time and place in which those senses impinge, and which sense, and to whom, and for what purpose, etc. The term "diversity" fails adequately to capture the whole movement to which that diversity belongs, and it fails to capture the other diverse instances to which that singular diverse instant belongs. Perception uses the term "being-for-another", relating-to-otherness, or relating-to-others, instead. "Being-for-another" does a better job in accurately capturing the sense of what is going on in this movement which object takes to be its object.

Further, we saw that the movement has a dual nature, two halves so to speak; the first half of the movement began with the act of perceiving taking upon itself the responsibility for the diversity of the exclusive Oneness of the thing. Diversity was pulled out of real space and time, and placed in the act of perceiving, while the exclusive Oneness of the thing continued to inhere in real space and time. Perception tangled its own activity, along with real space time, by adding and taking away the Oneness and Diversity of thinghood, each in their turn, in a specific manner. Perception learned of its mistake and untangled itself with much effort, but once it did so it had left everything as if it was never tangled. The first half of the movement ended right where it started, in the same way that it started. The second half of the movement began with the act of perceiving taking upon itself the responsibility for the exclusive Oneness of the thing, and left the diverse many properties to inhere in space and time. It tangled itself again, but this time it was easy for it to untangle itself. The trade-off was that when it had untangled itself, it left a huge mess of things. The fabric of the movement reverted back to how it started, but it ended with a state that could never ever actually exist at any time ever. It could only ever be a state that exists in thought, never in actuality. The difference in these outcomes was dependent on the difference in how each half of the movement started.

Even though it uses these new terms, "being-for-self" and "being-for-another", it has not eliminated the thing and its many properties, nor the tensions that are inherent in that object. Perception cannot recognize the movement in its own terms just yet, even though we can. Perception can only describe it in with terms that relate to the thing and its many properties. Still, its new terms, being-for-self and being-for-another allows perception to grasp the whole movement which it has left behind in its recollection, but it will describe it using these new terms while having only the thing and its many properties in mind. This is a new tension. While it thinks that it is describing the thing and its many properties, and even though it is doing so correctly in a valid manner, it is really describing the whole movement which it has experienced. Perception knows what it is talking about, but what it is talking about has a wider scope than it realizes.

It might take some effort to understand what follows.

So, along with perception, consider the thing once again as it confronts perception through its senses. The thing is for itself because since it is what it is, it relates to itself as itself. But also, it is for another on its own account because it relates to another, and it is another for that other. Since this type of relating is shared by both the thing and the activity of knowing, I can say, as an example, that I am myself. Yet at the same time, just because I am myself I am someone else for someone else, i.e. Jerry Seinfeld. For Jerry Seinfeld, who is someone else to me, I am someone else. Just like the activity of perceiving, a thing is a self relating that relates to another, as well as another that relates to another as another for that other. It is doubly differentiated, but also a One. This cannot be so; if it were so the thing would in its very essence be in contradiction with itself. We assume that being-for-self is distinct kind of relating from being-for-another. I am not another. When I relate to myself, I am certainly not relating to another. By the same token, no two things are alike. When one thing relates to itself, this kind of relating is not the same thing as when a thing relates to another. A thing cannot be both being-for-self and being-for-another. So once again, the activity of perception takes responsibility for compelling the One to relate to another. In order to relieve that tension it says, again, insofar as the thing is for-itself, self-relating, and it is not for another, relating-to-other. I am myself, but insofar as I am myself I do not relate to another.

What we end up with (and this is assuming both paths result in the same thing) is two distinct things. The first is essentially for-itself, self-relating. The second is essentially for-another, relating-to-other. These two things exist on their own account and their essences are fundamentally distinct. In fact, the essence of one thing is the reciprocal inversion of the other. Each thing can now in its own essence be what it is without containing within itself a contrary aspect of itself. We have a trinity: consciousness, a thing that only relates to itself (a selfish thing), and another thing that only relates to another (an altruistic thing). Yet each thing is distinct from the other. The thing that only relates to itself is distinct from the thing that only relates to another, so both things have each within them an essential aspect about them that allows them to distinguish themselves from another. Thus, both have an aspect of being-for-another. This means that the purely selfish thing is not pure at all, but contains something about it that allows it to be distinguished from other things - it contains being-for-another. This relating-to-otherness inherent in the selfish thing is present not on account of its own doing, but because the selfish thing must distinguish itself from the altruistic thing.

This selfish thing is essentially a self-existent unity, an exclusive One. It contains within itself an aspect of relating to the otherness of the altruistic thing; the selfish thing contains within itself being-for-another. Recall that being for another means manifoldness - the thing contains diverse sensuous properties that the senses sense. Yet this manifoldness, in the selfish thing, is in it unessentially. The selfish thing could only remain a pure being-for-self, self-relatedness, if it did not ever stand in relation to other things. But this is never the case about actual existing things. And further, when the selfish thing is related to other things, the aspect about it that is being emphasized is its relating-to-otherness, its being-for-another, not its being-for-self. Thus, the inessential aspect of the thing is being made the essential aspect, and the essential aspect of the thing is rendered inessential. Thus, the selfish thing must surrender its essential character, and give way to its inessential character. The latter conquers the other, and takes over the crown of being the essential aspect of the thing. The selfish thing, by relating to the altruistic thing, is overtaken by the first altruistic thing and becomes altruistic. We started with the selfish thing, but it becomes altruistic. The selfish thing cancels itself out, and becomes its other. This is all happening to the thing in real space and time.

The same thing happens to the altruistic thing. It is essentially being-for-another, relating-to-otherness, a manifold diversity of sensuous properties that the senses of perception senses. But since it is related to another, which could be another altruistic object, or a selfish object, it is in its own essence something that cannot help but relate to others. The altruistic thing is itself being-for-another. But if it is itself such, it contains within itself traces of self-relation; it contains being-for-self as the unessential moment within itself. Yet, when perception considers that unessential moment, it emphasizes it, and thereby makes that unessential essential. Simultaneously, but not focusing on the essential moment, it renders what was supposed to be the essential unessential. The altruistic thing cancels itself out, and becomes its other. Again, this is happening to the thing in real space and time.

In short, self-relation is just as essential as relation-to-otherness, and at the same time, self-relation is just as unessential as relation-to-otherness. The exclusive Oneness of a thing is just as essential (and unessential) for it as its many diverse sensuous properties. Each thing, the selfish thing and the altruistic thing, while being distinct, are also identical. Here, perception is no longer talking about only sensible things, as we have stated above. The thing began as a universal, and its properties were also universal. At first, only the properties were universals that the activity of perceiving could access only with its senses, i.e. its seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting, etc. The thing as a whole too was also a kind of sensuous universal, but it only truly became a sensuous universal after perception had undergone the whole movement of the first two sub-shapes, does the thing lose its abstractness and become for perception something really concrete and sensuous, with help from its recollection. Perception, of course, does not know that it is recollecting.

Another transformation has occurred.

The exclusive Oneness of the thing and the diversity of its many properties were conditioned by the senses of perception. These sensuous universals were therefore conditioned universals. These universals were conditioned by the character of real existing things in space and time. When perception began to evaluate and think through the thing and its many properties, it did so using the terminology being-for-self and being-for-another that referred to oneness and diversity. These terms are appropriate because they capture the essence of what is going on truly when one refers to oneness and diversity. A one is identical to itself (reflexive as mathematicians call it), and hence it is self-relating, being-for-self. A diversity is one relating to others (symmetry and/or transitivity as mathematicians call it), being-for-another.

Yet at the same time the terms were more broad. By seeing the whole movement of the first two sub-shapes in its entirety, perception was able to transcend the world of the senses, real space and time. In order to see the whole of real space and time as an object, one must stand outside of it. Perception stood outside of real space and time, and even though it could not explain to itself that it was doing so since it did not have the terminology for it, it nevertheless did. Its experience became a memory, since the body of perception never actually left the world of the senses, real space time, it learned to speak of oneness and diversity in terms of relation and essence. Relation and essence, while these do describe sensuous things, also describe things that perception cannot sense with its senses as did sense-certainty. Still, perception has a new object which can be called unconditioned. Since the object it began with was a conditioned universal, its new object which it has before it is an absolute unconditioned universal, that which is intelligible. Consciousness has developed intelligence. Insomuch as consciousness has a new object, it takes this new object to be its Absolute True, as its standard. Consciousness assumes a new shape standing alongside its object, which is still distinct from it. Henceforth, we shall refer to consciousness as understanding.