Plato taught that there are four activities of the mind. The least sophisticated activity he called imagining, not the creative sort, but random mind-darting, when your brain jumps around haphazardly. This happens by default and goes on unconsciously all day: “I need to get up…I forgot to call Susan yesterday…Do I need more toothpaste?…When am going to quit this damn job?…I sure love my new chair.” Research shows that human beings have about 60,000 thoughts per day, and 90% of them were the same ones we had yesterday. This is something equivalent to an oscillating feedback loop, continually repeating itself. Mind-darting wastes energy, is rarely useful, and creates worry and fear. Plato likened it to the world of shadows--impermanent and constantly shifting. As an example, imagine the shadow that a house can cast onto the ground...
The second least sophisticated mind activity is forming beliefs and opinions. These may be necessary steps along life’s road of learning, but to enter into deeper self-knowledge, beliefs and opinions should eventually be released. It must be realized that a point of view only has meaning and value relative to another point of view. Hot defines cold, immoral defines moral, etc. One has no meaning and cannot exist without the other. Plato likened beliefs and opinions to the world of tangible objects, and continuing with our example of a house, you could think of its physical structure. In one sense it is solid and real, but like the shadow world, it is quite impermanent—houses change and wear out over time. Likewise, we’ve all had beliefs and opinions that have changed over time.
The next activity we can do with the mind, which for Plato is superior to believing and forming opinions, is thinking, that is, following a stream of thoughts through to some conclusion that forms the basis for conscious action. Sticking with our house example, the architect sits down and listens to a young couple who are building their first home describe the house they desire—how many bedrooms, square footage, style, etc. Through listening, reason and logic, the architect formulates the homeowners' descriptions into a set of blueprints for the physical house. for Plato thinking is likened to a set of blueprints.
Finally, the highest activity of the mind Plato called contemplation, but not in the ordinary sense. Plato says we (incorrectly) perceive that our thinking is what works and struggles to create an idea. To the contrary, thinking only shapes the already-existing idea, and we must let go of thinking and reason to reach pure creativity and originality. He is referring to a meditative, perhaps almost mystical activity, using the intuitive essence of our minds to contemplate what he calls the "Realm of the Forms", as described in the Phaedo:
“He attains to the purest knowledge of the Forms who goes to each with the mind alone, not introducing or intruding in the act of thought with reason, but with the very light of the mind in her own clearness searches into the very truth of each [Form].”
For Plato, this dimension is only accessible through the intuition—it cannot be tapped in any other way. Using our house example, lying within the blueprint of a house (and ultimately, within the mind of the architect) is its perfect Form, the essential Idea for the house, which has always existed. Whether he was aware of it or not, at some point in the design process the architect’s intuition touched the Realm of the Forms with the highest (or deepest) part of his mind.
Of course, there are a variety of techniques to develop the intuition and access these creative zones, Plato's Realm of the Forms, which some liken to Carl Jung's "Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious". I will elaborate on some techniqes in future blogs. Regardless of what methods you may use, it is always helpful to remember Plato’s basic framework for addressing the problem...that to be truly original, you must release random mind-darting, beliefs and opinions, and even reasoned thinking, to arrive at pure, intuitive contemplation.
Incidentally, as the Post title indicates, this lesson is known as "Plato's Divided Line" in the textbooks typically used in college philosophy courses. Happy contemplating!
The second least sophisticated mind activity is forming beliefs and opinions. These may be necessary steps along life’s road of learning, but to enter into deeper self-knowledge, beliefs and opinions should eventually be released. It must be realized that a point of view only has meaning and value relative to another point of view. Hot defines cold, immoral defines moral, etc. One has no meaning and cannot exist without the other. Plato likened beliefs and opinions to the world of tangible objects, and continuing with our example of a house, you could think of its physical structure. In one sense it is solid and real, but like the shadow world, it is quite impermanent—houses change and wear out over time. Likewise, we’ve all had beliefs and opinions that have changed over time.
The next activity we can do with the mind, which for Plato is superior to believing and forming opinions, is thinking, that is, following a stream of thoughts through to some conclusion that forms the basis for conscious action. Sticking with our house example, the architect sits down and listens to a young couple who are building their first home describe the house they desire—how many bedrooms, square footage, style, etc. Through listening, reason and logic, the architect formulates the homeowners' descriptions into a set of blueprints for the physical house. for Plato thinking is likened to a set of blueprints.
Finally, the highest activity of the mind Plato called contemplation, but not in the ordinary sense. Plato says we (incorrectly) perceive that our thinking is what works and struggles to create an idea. To the contrary, thinking only shapes the already-existing idea, and we must let go of thinking and reason to reach pure creativity and originality. He is referring to a meditative, perhaps almost mystical activity, using the intuitive essence of our minds to contemplate what he calls the "Realm of the Forms", as described in the Phaedo:
“He attains to the purest knowledge of the Forms who goes to each with the mind alone, not introducing or intruding in the act of thought with reason, but with the very light of the mind in her own clearness searches into the very truth of each [Form].”
For Plato, this dimension is only accessible through the intuition—it cannot be tapped in any other way. Using our house example, lying within the blueprint of a house (and ultimately, within the mind of the architect) is its perfect Form, the essential Idea for the house, which has always existed. Whether he was aware of it or not, at some point in the design process the architect’s intuition touched the Realm of the Forms with the highest (or deepest) part of his mind.
Of course, there are a variety of techniques to develop the intuition and access these creative zones, Plato's Realm of the Forms, which some liken to Carl Jung's "Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious". I will elaborate on some techniqes in future blogs. Regardless of what methods you may use, it is always helpful to remember Plato’s basic framework for addressing the problem...that to be truly original, you must release random mind-darting, beliefs and opinions, and even reasoned thinking, to arrive at pure, intuitive contemplation.
Incidentally, as the Post title indicates, this lesson is known as "Plato's Divided Line" in the textbooks typically used in college philosophy courses. Happy contemplating!
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