This word is mentioned many times in the Big Book. It is so very arrogant of me to assume I know the definition of this word or to just shorten it to “concept” and use my monkey-mind to think I know what it is. This is a life and death matter – I should know exactly what our founding fathers of AA were talking about.
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I could go for such conceptions as Creative Intelligence, Universal Mind … He said, “Why don’t you choose your own conception of God?” That statement …
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Much to our relief, we discovered we did not need to consider another’s conception of God. Our own conception, however inadequate, was sufficient to make …
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When, therefore, we speak to you of God, we mean your own conception of God. This applies, too, to other spiritual expressions which you find in this book.
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Stress the spiritual feature freely. If the man be agnostic or atheist, make it emphatic that he does not have to agree with your conception of God. He can …
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With few exceptions our members find that they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a Power …
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Whether we agree with a particular approach or conception seems to make little difference. Experience has taught us that these are matters about which, for …
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Actually, we used to have no reasonable conception whatever. We used to amuse ourselves by cynically dissecting spiritual beliefs and practices when we …
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Perhaps we rejected this particular conception because it seemed inadequate. With that rejection we imagined we had abandoned the God idea entirely. We were …
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It meant I would have to throw several lifelong conceptions out of the window. That was not easy. But the moment I made up my mind to go through with the …
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… conceptions and motives begin to dominate them. In fact, I have been trying to produce some such emotional rearrangement within you. With many individuals …
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As part of his rehabilitation he commenced to present his conceptions … conception. What with our ultra-modern standards, our scientific approach to …
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Actually we were fooling ourselves, for deep down in every man, woman, and child, is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by …
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The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is …
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Alcoholics Anonymous. Page 2. I took a night law course, and obtained employment as investigator for a surety company. The drive for success was on.
William Walker Atkinson wrote an entire chapter on it in his book – Your Mind And How To Use It – in 1911 – here’s what he says a Conception is: (and the following Chapter on Concepts is included). I have provided a link above to the book itself, if you are interested.
Ch. XXI: Conception.
The process of conception has been well defined by Gordy
as “that act of mind by which it forms an idea of a class;
or that act of the mind that enables us to use general
names intelligently.” He adds: “It is, of course, understood that
I am using the word ‘class’ to denote an indefinite number of
individuals that resemble each other in certain particulars.”
Perception.
The first step in conception, as we have seen, is that of
perception. It is readily perceived that the character of our
intellectual processes depends materially upon the variety,
clearness, and accuracy of our perceptions. Therefore, again,
we would refer our students to the chapter in which we have
stated the importance of clear perception.
Memory.
The future steps of conception depend materially upon the
clearness of the memory, as we can classify objects only by
remembering their qualities beyond the immediate moment
of actual, original perception. Therefore, the memory should
be strengthened for this as well as other objects.
119Your Mind and How to Use It
Abstraction.
The second step in conception is that of the mental
abstraction of qualities from the observed thing. That is, we
must perceive and then mentally set aside the observed qualities
of the thing. For instance, man first perceived the existence of
certain qualities in things. He found that a certain number of
things possessed some of these qualities in common, while
others possessed other qualities in the same way, and thus
arose classification from comparison. But both comparison and
classification are possible only by abstraction, or the perception
of the quality as a “thing”; thus, the abstraction of the idea of
the quality of sweetness from the idea of sugar. Sweetness is a
quality rather than a thing itself. It is something possessed by
sugar which helps to make sugar what it is.
Color, shape, size, mental qualities, habits of action—these
are some of the qualities first observed in things and abstracted
from them in thought. Redness, sweetness, hardness, softness,
largeness, smallness, fragrance, swiftness, slowness, fierceness,
gentleness, warmness, coldness, etc.‑these are abstracted
qualities of things. Of course these qualities are really never
divorced from things, but the mind divorces them in order to
make thinking easier. An authority says: “Animals are incapable
of making abstractions, and that is the reason why they cannot
develop formal thought. … Abstract thought is identical with
rational thought, which is the characteristic feature of the
thought of speaking beings. This is the reason why abstract
thought is upon earth the exclusive property of man, and
why brutes are incapable of abstract thought. The process of
naming is the mechanism of abstraction, for names establish
the mental independence of the objects named.”
The processes of abstraction depend upon attention—
concentrated attention. Attention directed to the qualities of a
thing tends to abstract the qualities in thought from the thing
itself. Mill says: “Abstraction is primarily the result of attention.”
Hamilton says: “Attention and abstraction are only the same
process viewed in different relations.” Cultivation of the power
of abstraction means principally cultivation of attention. Any
mental activity which tends toward analysis or separation of a
thing into its parts, qualities, or elements will serve to cultivate
and develop the power of abstraction.
The habit of converting qualities into concepts is acquired by
transforming adjective terms into their correspondng noun terms.
For instance, a piece of colored candy possesses the qualities of
being round, hard, red, sweet, etc. Transforming these adjective
qualities into noun terms we have the concepts of roundness,
hardness, redness, and sweetness, respectively.
Comparison.
The third step in conception is that of comparison. in which
the qualities of several things are compared or examined for
likenesses and differences. We find many qualities in which
the several things differ, and a few in which there is a likeness.
Classes are formed from resemblances or likenesses, while
individuals are separated from apparent classes by detection of
differences. Finally, it is found that separate things, while having
many points of difference which indicate their individuality,
nevertheless have a few points of likeness which indicate that
they belong to the same general family or class. The detection
of likenesses and differences in the qualities of various things
is an important mental process. Many of the higher thought
processes depend largely upon the ability to compare things
properly. The development of attention and perception tends
to develop the power of comparison.
Classification or Generalization.
The fourth step in conception is that of classification or
generalization, whereby we place individual things in a mental
bundle or class, and then this bundle in company with other
bundles into a higher class, and so on. Thus we group all the
individual small birds having certain characteristics into a
species, then several related species into a larger family, and this
into a still larger, until finally we group all the bird families into
the great family which we call “birds” and of which the simple
term “bird” expresses the general concept.
Jevons says: “We classify things together whenever we observe
that they are like each other in any respect, and therefore think
of them together. In classifying a collection of objects, we do
not merely put together into groups those which resemble
each other, but we also divide each class into smaller ones in
which the resemblance is more complete. Thus the class of
white substances may be divided into those which are solid, and
those which are fluid, so that we get the two minor classes of
solid‑white and fluid‑white substances. It is desirable to have
names by which to show that one class is contained in another,
and, accordingly, we call the class which is divided into two or
more smaller ones the genus, and the smaller ones into which
it is divided, the species.”
Every species is a small family of the individuals composing it,
and at the same time is an individual species of the genus just
above it; the genus, in turn, is a family of several species, and
at the same time an individual genus in the greater family or
genus above it. The student may familiarize himself with the idea of
generalization by considering himself as an individual, John
Smith. John represents that unit of generalization. The next
step is to combine John with the other Smiths of his immediate
family. Then this family may be grouped with his near blood
relations, and so on, until finally all the related Smiths, near and
remote, are grouped together in a great Smith family.
Or, in the same way, the family group may be enlarged
until it takes in all the white people in a county, then all the
white people in the state, then all in the United States; then
all the white races, then all the white and other light‑skinned
races, then all mankind. Then, if one is inclined, the process
may be continued until it embraces every living creature from
moneron to man.
Reversing the process, living creatures may
be divided and subdivided until all mankind is seen to stand
as a class. Then the race of man may be divided into sub‑races
according to color; then the white race may be subdivided into
Americans and non‑Americans. Then the Americans may be
divided into inhabitants of the several states, or into Indianans
and non‑Indianans; then into the inhabitants of the several
counties of Indiana, and thus the Posey Countians are reached.
Then the Posey County people are divided into Smiths and
non‑Smiths; then the Smith family into its constituent family
groups, and then into the smaller families, and so on, until the
classification reaches one particular John Smith, who at last is
found to be an individual—in a class by himself. This is the story
of the ascending and descending processes of generalization.
Ch. XXII Classes of Concepts.
In the preceding chapter we have seen the process of
conception—of the forming of concepts. The idea of a
general class of things or qualities is a concept. Each concept
contains the qualities which are common to all the individuals
composing the class, but not those qualities which pertain only
to the minor classes or the individuals. For instance, the concept
of “bird” will necessarily include the common qualities of
warm‑bloodedness, featheredness, wingedness, oviparousness,
and vertebratedness. But it will not include color, special shape,
size, or special features or characteristics of the subfamilies or
individuals composing the great class. The class comprises the
individuals and subclasses composing it; the concept includes
the general and common qualities which all in the class possess.
A percept is the mental image of a particular thing; a concept is
the mental idea of the general qualities of a class of things. A
percept arises from the perception of a sensation; a concept is
a purely mental, abstract creation, whose only existence is in
the world of ideas and which has no corresponding individual
object in the world of sense.
There are two general classes of concepts, namely: (1) concrete
concepts, in which the common qualities of a class of things are
combined into one conceptual idea, such as “bird,” of which
we have spoken; (2) abstract concepts, in which is combined
the idea of some quality common to a number of things, such
as “sweetness” or “redness.” Jevons’s well‑known rule for terms
is an aid in remembering this classification: “A concrete term is
the name of a thing; an abstract term is the name of a quality of
a thing.”
It is a peculiar fact and rule of concrete concepts that (1) the
larger the class of things embraced in a concept, the smaller
are its general qualities; and (2) the larger the number of
general qualities included in a concept, the smaller the number
of individuals embraced by it. For instance, the term “bird”
embraces a great number of individuals—all the birds that are
in existence, in fact, but it has but few general qualities, as we
have seen. On the contrary, the concept “stork” has a much
larger number of general qualities, but embraces far fewer
individuals. Finally, the individual is reached, and we find that it
has more qualities than any class can have; but it is composed
of the smallest possible number of individuals, one. The secret is
this: No two individuals can have as many qualities in common
as each has individually, unless they are precisely alike, which is
impossible in nature.
Imperfect Concepts.
It is said that outside of strictly scientific definitions very
few persons agree in their concepts of the same thing. Each
has his or her own concept of the particular thing which he or
she expresses by the same term. A number of persons asked
to define a common term like “love,” “religion,” “faith,” “belief,”
etc., will give such a variety of answers as to cause wonderment.
As Green says: “My idea or image is mine alone—the reward
of careless observation if imperfect; of attentive, careful, and
varied observation if correct. Between mine and yours a great
gulf is fixed. No man can pass from mine to yours, or from yours
to mine. Neither in any proper sense of the term can mine be
conveyed to you. Words do not convey thoughts; they are not
vehicles of thoughts in any true sense of that term. A word is
simply a common symbol which each associates with his own
idea or image.”
The reason of the difference in the concepts of several
persons is that very few of our concepts are nearly perfect; the
majority of them are quite imperfect and incomplete. Jevons
gives us an idea of this in his remarks on classification: “Things
may seem to be very much like each other which are not so.
Whales, porpoises, seals, and several other animals live in the
sea exactly like a fish; they have a similar shape and are usually
classed among fish. People are said to go whale fishing. Yet these
animals are not really fish at all, but are much more like dogs
and horses and other quadrupeds than they are like fish. They
cannot live entirely under water and breathe the air contained
in the water like fish, but they have to come to the surface at
intervals to take breath. Similarly, we must not class bats with
birds because they fly about, although they have what would
be called wings; these wings are not like those of birds, and, in
truth, bats are much more like rats and mice than they are like
birds. Botanists used at one time to classify plants according
to their size, as trees, shrubs, or herbs, but we now know that a
great tree is often more similar in character to a tiny herb than
it is to other great trees. A daisy has little resemblance to a great
Scotch thistle; yet the botanist regards them as very similar. The
lofty growing bamboo is a kind of grass, and the sugar cane also
belongs to the same class with wheat and oats.”
It is a matter of importance that clear concepts should be
formed regarding at least the familiar things of life. The list
of clear concepts should be added to from time to time by
study, investigation, and examination. The dictionary should
be consulted frequently, and a term studied until one has a
clear meaning of the concept the term seeks to express. A good
encyclopedia (not necessarily an expensive one, in these days
of cheap editions) will also prove very useful in this respect.
127Your Mind and How to Use It
As Halleck says: “It must be borne in mind that most of our
concepts are subject to change during our entire life; that at
first they are made only in a tentative way; that experience may
show us, at any time, that they have been erroneously formed,
that we have abstracted too little or too much, made the class
too wide or too narrow, or that here a quality must be added or
there one taken away.”
It is a good practice to make a memorandum of anything of
which you may hear, but of which you know nothing, and then
later to make a brief but thorough investigation of that thing,
by means of the dictionary and encyclopedia, and of whatever
good works may be obtained on the subject, not leaving it until
you feel that you have obtained at least a clear idea of what
the thing really means. A half hour each evening devoted to
exercise of this kind will result in a wonderful increase of general
information. We have heard of a man who made a practice of
reading a short article in the encyclopedia every evening, giving
preference to subjects generally classed as familiar. In a year he
made a noticeable advance in general knowledge as well as habits
of thought. In five years he was looked upon by his associates as
a man of a remarkably large field of general information and of
more than ordinary intelligence, which verdict was a just one.
As a rule we waste far more time on worthless fiction than we
are willing to devote to a little self‑improvement of this kind.
We shrink at the idea of a general course of instructive reading,
little realizing that we can take our study in small installments
and at a very little cost in time or labor.
Our concepts form the material which our intellect uses in
its reasoning processes. No matter how good a reasoner one
may be, unless he has a good supply of general information
about the things of which he is reasoning, he will not make
much real headway. We must begin at the bottom and build a
firm foundation upon which the intellectual structure may be
erected. This foundation is composed of facts. These facts are
represented by our clear and correct concepts.
Anonymous Alcoholics 
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