Most of us perceive things - the impact on our senses of objects, facts, events, reality - in much the same way, and we store them similarly in our immediate memory, so that they can be recalled reasonably accurately at least over a short period of time, as in making a witness statement for example. Scientists call this aspect of memory our explicit or, in other circumstances, our episodic memory.

But there are other perceptions, especially those tinted by strong feelings, which linger in our memory. There they associate with those already in our memory. They become modified into personal interpretations of the original perception. Their amalgam constitutes our experience, and forms the mental constructs which become the basis of our concepts, each concept being inevitably personal to ourselves. Those concepts which modify our actions, or are intended to do so, can be singled out as precepts. The processes of modification provide us with a long-term memory usually known as semantic.

Being human, we instinctively seek opportunities to link our concepts with those of our fellows. The linkage is said to be managed by yet another aspect of our memory, sometimes called our procedural memory..

Sadly, in the hurly-burly of existence we often confuse concepts and percepts. We mistakenly apply the logic by which we perceive things to the feelings or imagination by which we form concepts. Thus, as a basic example, such statements as 'God exists' or 'There is no God', even when voiced with conviction, are meaningless because they assert their subject to be a percept, a sensible or observable entity, which it is not. In common with humanity we conceive the entity we call God, but beyond that action we have no knowledge. Some may claim they know, but they deceive themselves. Really, no-one knows.

More accurately, we should change our 'God exists' statements to 'I believe (conceptualise) that God exists' or 'I believe there is no God' (the atheist), or 'I am not sure in my belief as to whether God exists or not' (the agnostic), the last being a sentiment echoed throughout his adult life by Stanley himself who from time to time admitted to astonished admirers I never know what to say when people ask me if I believe in God. Artists need to be especially sensitive to the distinction between perception (the objective) and conceptualisation (the subjective), and Stanley's alertness to it was a vital factor in the power of his vision.

Perhaps the most significant distinction between percept and concept in Stanley's case was the significance it gave to his use of meaning. Confronted by a new percept, his nature was such that he was impelled to find a meaning to it, that is, he needed to find some associative aspect or attribute in the percept from which his mind could expand an existing concept or derive a new one.   

The realm of conceptualisation is the one to which the poet and the artist - especially one like Stanley, who called it his up-in-heaven when it worked to his satisfaction - instinctively dedicates his output in the hope that others will find from it a sympathetic link to their own conceptualisation, and thus achieve a moment of joint recognition.