509.01
The conceptual process is never static. Thinking does not consist of the insertion of invented images into an otherwise empty vacuum-tube chamber called brain. Thinking is the self-disciplined process of preoccupied consideration of special-case sets of feedback answers selected out of the multitude of high-frequency alternating transceiver brain traffic. This traffic consists of omniexperienced and processed answers to present or past questions, formulated either by the conscious or subconscious coordinating initiative of the individual or possibly the individual’s overlapping generation of group memory.
509.02
A considerable set is a locally definitive system within Universe that returns upon its considerability in all circumferential directions and therefore has an inherent withoutness and withinness; the latter two differentiable functions inherently subdivide all Universe into the two unique extremes of macro- and micro-frequencies.
509.03
For instance, we find that all irrelevancies fall into two main categories, or bits. One set embraces all the events that are irrelevant because they are too large in magnitude and too delayed in rate of reoccurrence to have any effect on the set of relationships we are considering. The other set of irrelevancies embraces all the events that are too small and too frequent to be differentially resolved at the wavelength to which we are tuned, ergo, in any discernible way to alter the interrelationship values of the set of experience relationships we are considering. Having dismissed the two classes of irrelevancies, there remains the lucidly relevant set to be studied.
509.04
Because of the varying depths of storage of past experiences, some answers come back swiftly, some slowly. The recollectibility rates are unpredictable. Ergo, the returning-answers traffic is heterogeneous. Many answers come to questions we have forgotten that we asked ourselves. Conceptually systematic tuning of questions and feedback answers, comparatively considered in the brain, results in temporary, tunably valved exclusion of all other incoming signals. Discrete tuning admits consideration of only those recollections that are clearly relevant to the omnidirectional rounding out of systematic comprehension of the special-case set of events intuitively selected for momentary focal consideration. Thinking consists, then, of a self-disciplined deferment of conscious consideration of any incoming information traffic other than that which is lucidly relevant to the experience-intuited quest for comprehension of the significance of the vividly emergent pattern under immediate priority of consideration.
509.05
Neither the set of all experiences, nor the set of all words that describe them, nor the set of all the generalized conceptual principles harvested from the total of experiences is either instantly or simultaneously reviewable. “What was that man’s name?” Our answering service may take five seconds, five hours, five days, or five generations to reply. Our conscious, orderly reconsideration of our variable-lag experiences discloses subconsciously coordinated regularities of feedback rates governing the recall phenomena.
509.06
What we do when we think is to dismiss momentarily all the irrelevant thoughts as we would part the grass to right and left in order to find a path. Thinking is high-frequency interception and very temporary diversion to a local holding pattern outside our consideration of all the irrelevant inbound feedback—just as inbound airplanes are “stacked up” in the sky near airports by the ground control when too many come in at about the same time and may interfere with each discretely safe landing operation. Landing is a slowing operation and an exact timing operation. Having isolated a finite set of experiences—spontaneously grouped for comprehensive consideration—by dismissing the irrelevancies, we may proceed to comprehend or “land” the isolated system by applying the theory of bits, which breaks up finite wholes into finite parts.
509.07
We may now say that what we do in thinking, after deliberately excluding the irrelevancies and thereby inadvertently isolating the considered set, is to further subdivide Universe into four parts: All of the parts of Universe that are externally irrelevant because too large and too infrequent; all the events of Universe that are internally irrelevant because too small and too frequent to be resolvable and discretely differentiated out for inclusion in our interrelationship considerations; all of the lucidly relevant remainder of Universe, which constitutes the considered and reconsidered set of experiences as viewed from outside the set; and the lucidly relevant set as viewed from inside the set. Part 1 is the untuned, macrocosmic, long-wavelength, low-frequency, high-energy set. Part 2 is the untuned, microcosmic, short-wavelength, high-frequency, low-energy set. Parts 3 and 4 are the tuned, plus (+) and minus (-), interface sets.
509.10
The thinking process results in varying degrees of lucidity of the arrayed residue of focal-event patterns uniquely consequent to the disciplined deferment of irrelevancies. Thinking is a putting-aside, rather than a putting-in, discipline. Thinking is FM—frequency modulation—for it results in the tuning out of irrelevancies (static) as a result of definitive resolution of the exclusively tuned-in or accepted feedback messages’ pattern differentiability. And as the exploring navigator picks his channel between the look-out-detected rocks, the intellect picks its way between irrelevancies of feedback messages. Static and irrelevancies are the same.
509.11
There are two inherent twilight zones of “tantalizingly almost-relevant recollections” spontaneously fed back in contiguous frequency bands: the macro-twilight and the micro-twilight. They inherently subdivide all Universe into the two unique extremes of macro- and micro-frequencies.
509.20
So I find that you and I and the lamppost and its lamp are basic subdivisions of Universe. You and I and complex it are either all of the Universe that is inside, all of the Universe that is outside, or all the remaining Universe, which comprises a given recognizable system or set. The residual constellation to be reconsidered constitutes a local conceptual system.
509.30
You cannot program the unknowns you are looking for because they are the relationship connections and not the things. The only thing you can program is the dismissal of irrelevancies.
509.31
When we say “we think,” our feedback has variable lags that may take overnight or months of time, for all we know. Because we want to understand—that is, to know the interrelationships of clusters of experiences—our first great discovery is dismissing irrelevancies, the macro-micro characteristics. Add: forgotten questions; different rates of feedback; persons’ names; random questionings; the challenging set you would like to understand; our friend intuition.