What Is a Concept?

 What Is a Concept?

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6:14 But what actually is a concept? There is some confusion about what is meant by concept, so let’s look into it by starting with a definition or two:

Concept:

1. A general idea derived or inferred from specific instances or occurrences.

2. Something formed in the mind; a thought or notion.

3. A scheme; a plan.

Conceptual:

1. Of, pertaining to, or relating to mental conceptions.

6:15 We often think of a concept as a general idea, or a vaguely organized mental image: I’ve never been to a barn raising, but I get the concept. But anything that is fabricated in the mind is conceptual. A concept is unreal in the objective sense, meaning nothing substantial exists. Some people might call it a “conceptual object” since it appears to us as some “thing,” but a concept has no mass, no location, occupies no space—it exists solely within our mental perceptions or imagination. This does not make it any less powerful, simply less objective. What we need to grasp at this juncture is that concept is not something that exists of its own accord, but is the summation of a mental process. It refers to something; it is never the thing itself.

6:16 Concepts are ways of knowing, and everything we know is conceptual. Some examples of concepts are interpretation, memory, beliefs, ideas, notions, dreams, imagination, thoughts, fantasies, visualizations, assumptions, and anything else that is a product of the mind. We could even say that emotions are conceptual in nature since they are produced through conceptualization. Concepts are not limited to one aspect of mental activity; they comprise the entire field of mind and as such they influence almost everything of which we are aware.

6:17 Abstractions, such as a mathematical formula, a daydream, or a decorating idea, are easily recognized as concepts because they are different from our normal experience and perceptions. But one of the main jobs of concept is to mimic our everyday perceptions and experiences. This means that a perception such as the sight of a bus can be somehow “known” when there is no bus around. We can “see” the bus in our minds, so to speak. It is the same with sounds—like remembering a song—as well as smells, tastes, and touch. Anything we’ve perceived, and even things we haven’t, can be conceptually perceived in the mind. Whenever we remember something, we are “reperceiving” past events. Given we are conscious that these events have passed, we know them as memories, but they are conceptual nonetheless. Concept not only mimics reality, however, it serves to help create reality.

6:18 When we look at a tree, we imagine that we are merely perceiving the tree when in actuality we are interpreting or “knowing” it as a tree. We may see some object there, but when we interpret it as a tree something more is now perceived that wasn’t there previously. This is a conceptual superimposition placed upon what is perceived, without which we would not see a “tree.” We don’t recognize that we live entirely within a conceptual reality any more than a fish recognizes that water has always surrounded him.

6:19 Everything we perceive, whether it’s an object or mental image, is subject to interpretation—making sense of incoming data so we can recognize and categorize it. Interpretation allows us to order our world, which requires mental processes that are all conceptual. It is also true that much of what is “experienced” as oneself is really a concept rather than an experience. And as I’ve suggested already, there is a distinction we need to make between the experience of being and the concept of self.

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The Book of Not Knowing, Chapter Six

Peter Ralston