Analytical Tracking
Notes for a talk to the Mensa No Name Yet Discussion
Group of Sonoma County,
May 10, 1986, slightly revised for publication on the Web
Kevin Langdon
Analytical tracking is a phenomenology--a description of the objects of consciousness as experienced.
It is not therapy (psychological engineering), nor is it spirituality, though, in my opinion, analytical tracking (the subject, not my formulation of it) ought to be included in any effective spiritual method.
It requires no faith except faith in meaning, which carries no penalty--if things are meaningless, so what?
Meaning is unitive by definition. The question of the meaning of something implies where it fits in in the largest possible reference frame.
The Situation
All epistemological and metaphysical assumptions are unreliable, so we must start from our experience of ignorance.
Meaning consists of value attached to significance; a meaningful object is one which makes a difference to something which is closer to one's center. We are engaged in a search for the center in ourselves and in the world. The intuition of the existence of a center comes through an intelligence underlying our minds which is glimpsed at times.
A stream of phenomena passes through one's psyche at all times; one can either track what is there or become lost in it.
The mind's automatic orientation to surrounding phenomena is continuous; sometimes it flows smoothly and sometimes there is a sense of disorientation as one struggles to tune in. At this point, kaleidoscopic thoughts, feelings, desires, images, etc., are experienced--though they are present at all times.
Our intellect makes models of phenomena it notices continuously; judgements are made about the objects modeled. All models are limited, emphasizing certain aspects of the phenomena modeled to the exclusion of others.
In addition to the mental operations at the focus of attention, there are peripheral processes which frame the context and index what is focused on for future reference.
There is also a process of questioning that proceeds in us at times. Beginning from the experience of mystery, when there is direct awareness of material beyond one's understanding, an inquiry is conducted into the real nature of what is seen.
The emergence of new thought provides an opportunity for observation of the state of affairs at the moment, as one momentarily admits one's ignorance.
The special moments of centrality and immediacy which are experienced from time to time are also opportunities for study, but they are rapidly replaced by new stereotypes.
These experiences, when a more comprehensive level of mind is more immediately present, provide a means for coming to more awareness of the underlying subtle mind in all processes.
Analytical Tracking
Study of oneself and the world is difficult because there is no a priori starting point.
One must begin from the psychological routines which are present in ordinary experience and watch the movement of attention in search of links to higher levels of mind.
The world presents many apparent paradoxes to our minds--tricks of perspective, logical paradoxes, and contradictory metaphysical principles and emotional reactions to logically possible alternatives.
These paradoxes can be resolved or worked with through the analytical tracking approach to the study of one's own process.
Analysis and tracking are two aspects of mind. Analysis constructs and tests models of experience, while tracking is the activity of the attention as it follows events in progress.
The analytical tracking viewpoint involves looking at psychic processes edge-on. Through this work of study, one can learn the language of the innate intelligence. Knowledge of this language is the principal secret of creative work.
With this knowledge, it is possible to follow the thread of attention through transitions that ordinarily interrupt it between focuses. One becomes able to see ideas in an extensional form which does not depend on particular formulations.
Models are made use of but are recognized also as points of entry for the false representations of the ego and treated with critical awareness.
Understanding of the operation of the mind makes it possible to anticipate the movement of attention and to extract information from the valuative contexts in which it occurs.
The analytical tracking method involves detailed study and understanding. Over a period of time, the ideas permeate one's understanding, revealing keys to the nature of intelligence.
The method is presented for one's own personal verification.
The viewpoint becomes practical when it begins to facilitate the application of attention to concrete problems.
Sensation and Reaction
Our perception creates a deep and complex image of reality but is not objective, as viewpoints, expectations and desires color it. Ego-based desires introduce systematic distortion.
The degree of detail in the images we see depends on the state of attention from which they are viewed.
Attention is limited; attending to any one thing involves devoting a certain amount of attention to screening out distractions at the periphery of the immediate reference frame.
The mind attempts to apply existing mental organization to experiences, admitting a limited amount of material in excess of what can be covered by the existing models; the function of mental attention is to extend the models used to include this new material.
In addition to reflexes which are triggered when the appropriate stimuli reach threshold values, mind operates through a balancing processes in which alternative models and actions are dramatized and weighed against one another. This process conditions all future cycles in which the same elements appear.
The elements which enter into balancing processes include thoughts, emotions, sensations, and physical impulses.
Levels of Emotion
Emotional charge takes the form of whatever emotional dynamics and dramatic elaborations are active.
Valuative emotions arise as this energy is contained; physical emotions correspond to situations in which energy is lost. Hypnotic and reflexive emotions are the redramatized forms of these primary forms of emotional manifestation and are attached to afterimages used to maintain one's sense of identity in the face of unconfronted concerns.
The emotions also correspond to the four basic psychic functions: sensation and instinct, movement, emotion, and intellect.
The physical emotions correspond to basic organismic needs in specific situations.
The valuative emotions are weighed emotional responses in the service of modes of integration: contemplation, creation, inquiry, service, and inquiry, respectively.
The Cycle
Mind contains the functional elements of a computer and performs similar computations, but without detailed knowledge of the computing system on the part of ordinary levels of thought; many subtle levels of mind are made use of without direct awareness.
All mental processes take place in cycles, sequences in which the end is joined to the beginning.
Artificial representations of continuity obscure the cyclic character of mind.
What we ordinarily call thought is a process of revolution of the associations. Real thought reorganizes one's representation of the area under consideration.
Each level of mind stores, retrieves, and processes data. The levels of mind are effectively infinitely divisible; no elementary reference frame is visible. New levels continue to appear as long as one observes the objects of mind.
Every level of mind is always occupied with solving a particular problem.
The contents of mind are stored both through and without the mediation of the attention and reappear in new contexts expectedly and unexpectedly.
Abstract thought serves concrete purposes but levels of thought often forget their concrete function and fail to return to the contexts from which they were invoked.
Polarity
There are two sides to every psychological process.
Side 1 focuses the current aspect attended to. Side 2 provides context and conditions memory.
Side 1 includes behavior, figure, knowing nothing, tracking, and spontaneity; Side 2 includes perception, background, knowing everything, analysis, and trance, respectively.
Side 1 and Side 2 cooperate by passing data back and forth without direct awareness of one another.
One side or another cannot be assigned to a particular static object, as they only exist dynamically.
A problem overview is Side 1 and the alternating precursor awareness of the solution is Side 2.
When there is a transition of context, Side 2 displays mental inventory and Side 1 jumps to a new focus.