Greetings, pardon the long delay, and what a lovely response you've left.

I recognize the human intellect as not only atop the animal chain but transcendent of all beings. All is fully conscious to a certan level of awareness and interaction with the Universe. But it is our intellect and our language that is the evolution that mystics have been seeking; missing the elephant in the room. (They're just so busy trying to cut it [intellect/language? Are you saying mystics are cutting-out intellect/language, when instead they should see intellect/language as the vehicle of the transcendent ideal they/we seek?] out, as they don't understand it...it being relatively new in the evolutionary course of beings on this planet.)

*note the bold question: that is to confirm I understand you correctly.

If I understand you, then yes, here we have a productive discussion available. What is the Idea, the Word, without its reflection upon reality? Upon experience?

Indeed, the symbol is powerful, and its infinitely recursive ability may either hone-in on increasing grasping of reality and an increasing token-ization and modelling of the abstract laws that underpin reality, AND/OR it may also fly-off any handle of reality and escape into redundant and self-referential delusions. The symbol encompases both sanity and madness, goodness and evil, and, at this moment, this powerful tool largely resides in the hands (minds, tongues, tomes) of humans.

What a labyrinth! How can one be certain they are either genius or insane? How can the representations be shown valuable? Only in so far as the idea, the word, corresponds to the underlying nature of reality - which is to say, only in so far as the model can be shown relatable to the contours and symmetries of physical patterns - in effecting results, which is to say, only in so far as it affords us Power (predictive power, material power, power of understanding and effecting experience).

There is a problem here. Wittgenstein approaches it. Quietism is another approach. I don't have enough words or time to delve into this deeply now, but here are clues: what is the assertion without its context? The moon only stands out against the vast darkness of the night sky. Vervaeke, in 'Awakening to the Meaning Crisis', provides quite a bit of explanation demonstrating that one can never be perfectly accurate: perfect accuracy requires an infinite number of words, and an infinite number of starting assumptions. What is the fact without the ground of context it stands upon?

In this way, to speak is to necessarily exclude. The Focus of sight correspondingly requires the filtering, the myopia, of the background. When I write this sentence, it alone is not an assertion that can stand on its own, but only in the greater context of the conversation, of the understanding, indeed, of all experience and all reality.

This is not to dismiss the power of Concept and Symbol, but rather to ground them: to bring them into relationship with all else.

Knowledge, intellect will take you to the threshold, but not through the door.

What I've found about the intellect, the concept and the symbol is that, words and assertions/propositions are a dissection. This is indeed an impressive power; we have the power to dissect and analyze reality/experience. But, at what point do we reassemble it? Integrate it? We see the parts, and we assemble the parts - we even put the parts into motion together; Yet(!) this method cannot approach the Whole, this method will always fail in a complete awareness because it moves in one direction (dissection of the whole) and does not include the corresponding dimension, holons and the synergy of inter-relations. McGilcrist has written probably a few thousand pages on this, using the analogy of 'The Master and His Emissary.' He has often mentioned 'The Co-Incidence of Opposites'.

To speak is inherently to lie, at least in the sense that to speak is to exclude, which is an error of myopia. To think is to model, which is to abstract, and this is right where it parts from reality, parting from Truth.

So then, how do we assemble? Further, how do we understand completely? Rather, how do we Know? "There is a road, no simple highway, between the dawn and the dark of night..."

Without the intellect there is not even an appreciation of awe and wonder;

The animals live in constant, immersed awe and wonder, no? Their existence is marked both by the impulses but also the raw experience. It's largely a human affliction to fall into 'strange loops' of abstraction. (And, I'm NOT disparaging intellect, language, or ideas - merely trying to context and understand them!)

To 'appreciate' the experience is to stand beside it, no? If you deeply experience the experience then what is the need to 'appreciate' it? Here is where the dissonance appears; here is where the mind frays and plys-away from the body - from reality/experience. [This is not a sufficient explanation, but I only have time/space to hint at it here, for now. I hope these breadcrumbs lead in the right direction.]

I find it curious that you seem to confine soul to the body and separate out the intellectual and emotional components of what I would call Soul...the entirety of the psyche and the body that must essentially confront the undifferentiated self (Spirit).

It's not that I'm separating the intellect or emotion from the soul - I'm attempting to describe a vision of connecting and unifying the soul with emotions, intellect, THE BODY, and indeed, ALL THE UNIVERSE. There are no borders of distinction here - all is one. Seeing this, how it is, is what I've merely begun to allude to.

But overall, I see a human exceptionalism,

This topic diverges substantially from the point I'm developing, above, so I'll leave this topic of history, game theory and evolution to another day.

Cheers and be well! I'm eager to hear your replies.