{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 4/l03/p016-p019","extent":"range","passage_number":16,"through":19,"paragraph_count":4,"first_locus":"GA 4/l03/p016","last_locus":"GA 4/l03/p019","lang":"en","edition":"RSP1964","edition_basis":"Steiner 1918 revised edition","is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"title":"3. Thinking in the service of Knowledge","date":null,"location":null,"alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":null,"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["AP1986","GPP1916","RSP1964","RSPC1949","RSPI1963"]},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.1,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":5996,"original_word_count":5463,"may_be_abridged":false},"site_heading":null,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/4/l03/p016-p019","json_url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/4/l03/p016-p019.json","lecture_url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/4/l03#p016","word_count":652,"quote_safe":true,"passages":[{"passage_number":16,"locus":"GA 4/l03/p016","text":"The reason why it is impossible to observe thinking in the actual moment of its occurrence, is the very one which makes it possible for us to know it more immediately and more intimately than any other process in the world. Just because it is our own creation do we know the characteristic features of its course, the manner in which the process takes place. What in all other spheres of observation can be found only indirectly, namely, the relevant context and the relationship between the individual objects, is, in the case of thinking, known to us in an absolutely direct way. I do not on the face of it know why, for my observation, thunder follows lightning; but I know directly, from the very content of the two concepts, why my thinking connects the *concept* of thunder with the *concept* of lightning. It does not matter in the least whether I have the right concepts of lightning and thunder. The connection between those concepts that I do have is clear to me, and this through the very concepts themselves.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":180,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/4/l03/p016","witness_quality":{"translator":{"status":"unknown","warning":"No translator is recorded for this edition. An unattributed translation cannot be weighed as a witness: you cannot tell which hand made the choices in it. Cite the German for anything load-bearing."},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 4/l03/p016"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"high","note":"Every load-bearing name in the German counterpart appears in this English passage. That is a check on NAMES only: a translation can keep every name and still reverse who acts on whom, change a number, or soften a claim. Read the German for anything you intend to rest an argument on."},"note":"quote_safe certifies the bytes of this text. This block is about the translation as a WITNESS: who made it, and whether it carries the same names as the original. See witness_completeness for how much of the original this witness holds."}},{"passage_number":17,"locus":"GA 4/l03/p017","text":"This transparent clearness concerning our thinking process is quite independent of our knowledge of the physiological basis of thinking. Here I am speaking of thinking in so far as we know it from the observation of our own spiritual activity. How one material process in my brain causes or influences another while I am carrying out a thinking operation, is quite irrelevant. What I observe about thinking is not what process in my brain connects the concept lightning with the concept thunder but what causes me to bring the two concepts into a particular relationship. My observation shows me that in linking one thought with another there is nothing to guide me but the *content* of my thoughts; I am not guided by any material processes in my brain. In a less materialistic age than our own, this remark would of course be entirely superfluous. Today, however, when there are people who believe that once we know what matter is we shall also know how it thinks, we do have to insist that one may talk about thinking without trespassing on the domain of brain physiology.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":186,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/4/l03/p017","german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"l03","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 4/l03/p017","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/4/l03/p017"}],"bead_confidence":"high","pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false,"length_check":{"de_words":354,"en_words":373,"ratio":1.05,"partial":false},"correspondence":"established","note":"English passage numbering is edition-relative, so the same number need not name the same paragraph in the German. The German original passage(s) above are the edition-invariant anchor — fetch them (lang='de') to verify wording before quoting across editions."},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"status":"unknown","warning":"No translator is recorded for this edition. An unattributed translation cannot be weighed as a witness: you cannot tell which hand made the choices in it. Cite the German for anything load-bearing."},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 4/l03/p017"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"high","note":"Every load-bearing name in the German counterpart appears in this English passage. That is a check on NAMES only: a translation can keep every name and still reverse who acts on whom, change a number, or soften a claim. Read the German for anything you intend to rest an argument on."},"note":"quote_safe certifies the bytes of this text. This block is about the translation as a WITNESS: who made it, and whether it carries the same names as the original. See witness_completeness for how much of the original this witness holds."}},{"passage_number":18,"locus":"GA 4/l03/p018","text":"Many people today find it difficult to grasp the concept of thinking in its purity. Anyone who challenges the description of thinking which I have given here by quoting Cabanis' statement that “the brain secretes thoughts as the liver does gall or the spittle-glands spittle ...”, simply does not know what I am talking about. He tries to find thinking by a process of mere observation in the same way that we proceed in the case of other objects that make up the world. But he cannot find it in this way because, as I have shown, it eludes just this ordinary observation. Whoever cannot transcend materialism lacks the ability to bring about the exceptional condition I have described, in which he becomes conscious of what in all other spiritual activity remains unconscious. If someone is not willing to take this standpoint, then one can no more discuss thinking with him than one can discuss color with a blind man. But in any case he must not imagine that we regard physiological processes as thinking. He fails to explain thinking because he simply does not see it.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":187,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/4/l03/p018","german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"l03","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 4/l03/p017","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/4/l03/p017"}],"bead_confidence":"high","pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false,"length_check":{"de_words":354,"en_words":373,"ratio":1.05,"partial":false},"correspondence":"established","note":"English passage numbering is edition-relative, so the same number need not name the same paragraph in the German. The German original passage(s) above are the edition-invariant anchor — fetch them (lang='de') to verify wording before quoting across editions."},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"status":"unknown","warning":"No translator is recorded for this edition. An unattributed translation cannot be weighed as a witness: you cannot tell which hand made the choices in it. Cite the German for anything load-bearing."},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 4/l03/p017"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"high","note":"Every load-bearing name in the German counterpart appears in this English passage. That is a check on NAMES only: a translation can keep every name and still reverse who acts on whom, change a number, or soften a claim. Read the German for anything you intend to rest an argument on."},"note":"quote_safe certifies the bytes of this text. This block is about the translation as a WITNESS: who made it, and whether it carries the same names as the original. See witness_completeness for how much of the original this witness holds."}},{"passage_number":19,"locus":"GA 4/l03/p019","text":"For everyone, however, who has the ability to observe thinking—and with good will every normal man has this ability—this observation is the most important one he can possibly make. For he observes something of which he himself is the creator; he finds himself confronted, not by an apparently foreign object, but by his own activity. He knows how the thing he is observing comes into being. He sees into its connections and relationships. A firm point has now been reached from which one can, with some hope of success, seek an explanation of all other phenomena of the world.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":99,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/4/l03/p019","german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"l03","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 4/l03/p018","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/4/l03/p018"}],"bead_confidence":"high","pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false,"length_check":{"de_words":91,"en_words":99,"ratio":1.09,"partial":false},"correspondence":"established","note":"English passage numbering is edition-relative, so the same number need not name the same paragraph in the German. 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Eben weil wir es selbst hervorbringen, kennen wir das Charakteristische seines Verlaufs, die Art, wie sich das dabei in Betracht kommende Geschehen vollzieht. Was in den übrigen Beobachtungssphären nur auf mittelbare Weise gefunden werden kann: der sachlich-entsprechende Zusammenhang und das Verhältnis der einzelnen Gegenstände, das wissen wir beim Denken auf ganz unmittelbare Weise. Warum für meine Beobachtung der Donner auf den Blitz folgt, weiß ich nicht ohne weiteres; warum mein Denken den *Begriff* Donner mit dem des Blitzes verbindet, weiß ich unmittelbar aus den Inhalten der beiden Begriffe. Es kommt natürlich gar nicht darauf an, ob ich die richtigen Begriffe von Blitz und Donner habe. Der Zusammenhang derer, die ich habe, ist mir klar, und zwar durch sie selbst.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":154,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/4/l03/p016"},{"locus":"GA 4/l03/p017","passage_number":17,"text":"Diese durchsichtige Klarheit in bezug auf den Denkprozeß ist ganz unabhängig von unserer Kenntnis der physiologischen Grundlagen des Denkens. Ich spreche hier von dem Denken, insoferne es sich aus der Beobachtung unserer geistigen Tätigkeit ergibt. Wie ein materieller Vorgang meines Gehirns einen andern veranlaßt oder beeinflußt, während ich eine Gedankenoperation ausführe, kommt dabei gar nicht in Betracht. Was ich am Denken beobachte, ist nicht: welcher Vorgang in meinem Gehirne den Begriff des Blitz es mit dem des Donners verbindet, sondern, was mich veranlaßt, die beiden Begriffe in ein bestimmtes Verhältnis zu bringen. Meine Beobachtung ergibt, daß mir für meine Gedankenverbindungen nichts vorliegt, nach dem ich mich richte, als der Inhalt meiner Gedanken; nicht nach den materiellen Vorgängen in meinem Gehirn richte ich mich. Für ein weniger materialistisches Zeitalter als das unsrige wäre diese Bemerkung natürlich vollständig überflüssig. Gegenwärtig aber, wo es Leute gibt, die glauben: wenn wir wissen, was Materie ist, werden wir auch wissen, wie die Materie denkt, muß doch gesagt werden, daß man vom Denken reden kann, ohne sogleich mit der Gehirnphysiologie in Kollision zu treten. Es wird heute sehr vielen Menschen schwer, den Begriff des Denkens in seiner Reinheit zu fassen. Wer der Vorstellung, die ich hier vom Denken entwickelt habe, sogleich den Satz des *Cabanis* entgegensetzt: «Das Gehirn sondert Gedanken ab wie die Leber Galle, die Speicheldrüse Speichel usw.», der weiß einfach nicht, wovon ich rede. Er sucht das Denken durch einen bloßen Beobachtungsprozeß zu finden in derselben Art, wie wir bei anderen Gegenständen des Weltinhaltes verfahren. Er kann es aber auf diesem Wege nicht finden, weil es sich, wie ich nachgewiesen habe, gerade da der normalen Beobachtung entzieht. Wer den Materialismus nicht überwinden kann, dem fehlt die Fähigkeit, bei sich den geschilderten Ausnahmezustand herbeizuführen, der ihm zum Bewußtsein bringt, was bei aller andern Geistestätigkeit unbewußt bleibt. Wer den guten Willen nicht hat, sich in diesen Standpunkt zu versetzen, mit dem könnte man über das Denken so wenig wie mit dem Blinden über die Farbe sprechen. Er möge nur aber nicht glauben, daß wir physiologische Prozesse für Denken halten. Er erklärt das Denken nicht, weil er es überhaupt nicht sieht.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":354,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/4/l03/p017"},{"locus":"GA 4/l03/p018","passage_number":18,"text":"Für jeden aber, der die Fähigkeit hat, das Denken zu beobachten — und bei gutem Willen hat sie jeder normal organisierte Mensch — , ist diese Beobachtung die allerwichtigste, die er machen kann. Denn er beobachtet etwas, dessen Hervorbringer er selbst ist; er sieht sich nicht einem zunächst fremden Gegenstande, sondern seiner eigenen Tätigkeit gegenüber. Er weiß, wie das zustande kommt, was er beobachtet. Er durchschaut die Verhältnisse und Beziehungen. Es ist ein fester Punkt gewonnen, von dem aus man mit begründeter Hoffnung nach der Erklärung der übrigen Welterscheinungen suchen kann.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":91,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/4/l03/p018"}],"beads":[{"from":[16],"to":[16],"confidence":"high","pairing_state":"proposed"},{"from":[17,18],"to":[17],"confidence":"high","pairing_state":"proposed"},{"from":[19],"to":[18],"confidence":"high","pairing_state":"proposed"}],"note":"Paired by the paragraph aligner; each language numbers its own paragraphs. A bead at either end of the span can carry text beyond it (the `from` numbers show what each bead covers)."}}