Recognize something

[Johnyxxx]

Hello,

Can anybody tell me in what sense the word recognized is used here? I am not sure if it means identified, or acknowledged.

I took another small and careful drink. The evidence for my conclusion was purely circumstantial. But that was plenty. The rush of air into the center of the thing, as if it were being drawn into a complete vacuum; the fact that neither the air nor the things it had carried with it returned; the very appearance of the blackness, like an extra-dimensional whirlpool; and, above everything, else, the cold conviction that the thing which Julian Blair’s potential created was beyond all the bounds of our universe. It seemed to me that something in my mind recognized it.
That was absurd, of course. And yet, how had Julian created this thing? By magnifying the radiations, the waves given off by the human brain and nervous system. Something like that, according to his own account. I snatched my thoughts back from the gulf toward which they were headed. If man were not altogether a physical being, if he possessed in himself a contact with an existence neither spatial nor of time, and if that contact were to be artificially produced, even by sheer imitation of the sort to which Julian had openly confessed, then . . .

William Sloane, Edge of Running Water, 1939.


Thanks you.

 

[J&K Tutoring]

I think that identified comes closer.

You have provided some context, which is good, but please try to think of the story context and not just putting the question word in the middle. What came before the second drink would perhaps have been more helpful. The first paragraph you posted is his rumination over his initial impression, and we don't know what that was.

I realize that doing as I asked creates a dilemma: Too much 'context' makes the post look so big that we grumble about that or we simply ignore it and move on to other, less time-consuming posts, but I lay that at the feet of Mr. Sloane, not you.

 

[Johnyxxx]

Thinking hard about what it could mean is the first thing I do. When I have not succeded in getting to the bottom of the problem by doing so, I try to look for analogies because when I see this or that in different contexts it helps me very much to comprehend. What is also of a help is looking at the text I cannot understand after several days have passed and my head is clear, in a manner of speaking. It comes to happen that what I was racking my brains over for a long time without any success is sudenly clear to me at first sight and I am saying to myself: "It is not possible. The meaning had been staring me in the face all the time!" But then there comes a point when all the options are exhausted and I cannot but ask for help here ...

Thanks a lot for helping.

 

[J&K Tutoring]

That's why we're here.