Imagination

Yes, so I guess there's a limit to everything?

I still contend that imagination is limitless. I imagine that a rocket ship goes into space, races past all of the planets (gives Pluto a salute) soars past the Sun (my rocket ship is super-heat proof). It then winds around meteor showers, and other as yet undiscovered planets in an as yet undiscovered universe. My rocket ship is powered by an unlimited power source, deriving it's energy from minute particles of space dust. Until it comes upon a bright star (not unlike our Sun)...

I imagine a world where hunger no longer exists, not in the sense that the food is split up between the masses. I mean there is enough for everybody to eat whatever they want... But that notion even I concede shows the limitations of humans, at least in the world we live in.

Maybe, just maybe if we can imagine it...

Didn't people think Columbus was crazy when he wanted to sail his ships across the ocean? He didn't fall of the Earth, that "edge of the table" as people thought was simply the horizon, that, no matter how close you get to it never seems to get any closer... Which to me, describes imagination perfectly.

You da man! gbman...

anything as yet undiscovered or unproven is imagination at work. What is it they say... if you can think it, you can do it. Hellz yeah! Although these days most of the world has been studied and dissected, save the deepest parts of the jungles or the depths of the oceans... (Abyss... Hmmm...) anyway, look at the discoveries from the past... say 200 yrs, who knows what the next 200 will bring...?? If humanity doesn't destroy us all by then. Yes, i'm a bit of a pessimist...

You are actually confined to your senses and the world, I don’t think if you reflect upon your post, you’ve quite reached the universe.

Let's say we're limited. (Just saying) If we're limited why can our imagination be unlimited? I don't think we can imagine something beyond our imagination...O that's getting complicated.

And by the way, didn't those crazy scientists back in medieval time imagine about flying? Well that's a common imagination...but is that (or should that be) within our limit?

If imagination is unlimited, who knows what's going to pop up in the next century. I'm getting scared now. 

Hmmm, what I am referring to is that as humans, we have definite physical limitations. But, as far as our minds, we are limitless. You make a good point about people who imagined one day we would be flying.

Look at Leonardo DaVinci, people probably thought he was crazy, but now we look at him as a genius... a visionary!!

Leonardo da Vinci was a total maniac for those people! But I have to admit he's got great imagination there. It's true that I haven't found a limit to our minds yet, although what I was referring to is the limit of our minds.

Don't limit your mind by mere thoughts...

Some people think our minds are limited, because they have placed boundaries on their minds. Just remove them... It's dead easy y'know!!

If only people can remove the boundary so easily ;)

A theory of my close friend is that people can't imagine what they have never seen, because those things will not exist in your mind if you had never seen them...Or you can just imagine the extension of what you've seen.

 Interesting.

You're right ;) And I was not saying that that was what I think. I just thought it was pretty interesting.

And by the way, I have to say that I personally think a lot of those dinosaurs look pretty fake.

On that subject (scientists imagining the looks of fossils) may I humbly offer this for your entertainment? Even when they realised exactly what it was in the 80s, they still had no idea what sort of animal it was. Opinion today veers towards an arthropod (like insects, crabs, spiders, etc); but no-one's certain.

Dinosaurs have been misrepresented since the day they were named. You can still today find traces of the daft idea that the really big ones (like Brontosaurus) lived in water to buoy up their immense mass. In fact, the water pressure on their lungs would have made it impossible to inhale (in an experiment to investigate this, one scientist permanently damaged himself trying to breathe - through a tube to the surface - about six feet underwater).

That flying machine was composed of various materials Da Vinci had seen. The dinosaurs were based off of the bones and common reptiles. The boundaries, as I said are our senses. We can’t imagine what we haven’t experienced, so yes, the mind can be added to that list.

O, I bet they'll never really figure out what dinosaurs were like.

Everything we are imagining right now has a base of what we had seen. No, imagination is not unlimited. I still believe it.

So … you're just a figment of my imagination?

Huh? What did I just imagine?

O wow, how did I come up with such thing as the universe?

Interesting theory though.

That’s what I like to ask. Are you a figment of my imagination, or am I a figment of yours?

It's a metaphysical game. And a game can also end in a draw.

Or that way: There is a Zen-fable that tells of an old peasant that sleeps under a tree at the border and dreams to be a butterfly that flies over the fields. But mayhap  it's the butterfly who dreams to be a sleeping peasant.

Extract from the Mahabharata (translation used in Savitri, an opera by Gustav Holst) talking of Maya (Illusion):

Satyavan: " It is Maya! Dost thou not know her? Illusion — dreams — phantoms. But, to
the wise, Maya is more. Look around: all that thou see’st, trees and shrubs, the grass at
thy feet, all that walks or creeps, all that flies from tree to tree, all is unreal, all is Maya.
Our bodies, our limbs, our very thoughts. We ourselves are slaves to Maya. What re-
maineth? Who can say? Love to the lover. The child to the mother. The song to the
singer. God to the worshipper. These, wandering thro’ the world of Maya, are perchance
shadows of that which is..."

"There is no known reality other than my own mind"

Check out 'Possible Worlds'...

Hmm, but when we're all saying that we exist and asking each other "are you a figment of my imagination?"...don't we all exist?

Everyone exists. Including my invisible friend Harvey.

Maybe I am dreaming about your existence.

But seriously, I don't get your question. 

Well, just continue…

There was a guy named Tom Kummer. He worked for German and Swiss newspapers and magazins and made the most brillant interviews with Holywood celebrities and the big shots of pop-music. It was not the usual bog-standard stuff just for promote a new movie or record. The guys and gals came out with more profound thoughts one had imagined show-biz people could have. But... Yeah but in the year 2000 the true came out. Friend Kummer put the questions and gave the answer.

Thanks Finrod, if I understand where you are coming from. Dreams are a great example of imagination at it's finest. I think we've all had some pretty wild dreams... dreams that even the highest level of imagining could never... imagine...

Finrod, if I am incorrect, please put me on the right path...

Maybe you look at yourself and think and see and feel and tell yourself you exist, but as for us… how can you know or trust your perceptions. We could be an illusion. Or worse.

I usually don't remember my dreams so what's the point?

Gbman, it sounds OK to me.

On the subject of dreaming, and Maya (illusion) here's a bit more from the end of the Savitri episode from the Mahabharata, as translated by Holst. Savitri has outwitted Death, and won back the life of her husband Satyavan:

DEATH: (Passing in the background) Unto his kingdom Death wendeth alone. One hath conquered him; one knowing life. One free from Maya; Maya who reigns where men dream they are living; whose power extends to that other world where men dream that they are dead. For even Death is Maya.
(He disappears)

Doesn't Australia's indigenous populations know something they call Dreamtime? I don't know much about this. Only what I saw in Peter Weir's Movies. Couldn't our Austalian fellows give us some enlightment?

Not Australian, but here goes (correct me if I'm wrong):

(pre Wikipedia) The Dreamtime was the 'time before time' in the Aboriginie creation myth.

(post Wikipedia) The Dreamtime was the 'time before time' in the Aboriginie creation myth. It can also be used to refer to "the dreamings of the indigenous peoples", or a sort of confluence of past, present, and future (a sort of "Everywhen", as one anthropologist put it). Also, 'dreaming' can be used to refer to the spirituality of individuals. "For instance, an Indigenous Australian might say that they have Kangaroo Dreaming, or Shark Dreaming, or Honey Ant Dreaming, or any combination of Dreamings pertinent to their 'country'."

I've never heard of that, hmm.

Hmmm… I have beaver dreaming! What?!? I'm Canadian…

We'd be robots if we didn't have imagination.

yea if we dint have any imagination the news on tv wud actually kill us

haha, that actually made me laugh.

Without imagination, we would not be here sharing our thoughts about the best stuff...

Without an imagination i couldn't adapt... it is part of what makes us unique...

 ^_^

Indeed, MK…

I've asked that question before, when I'm tired and nothing seems real.  "Are you real, [insertnamehere]?  Or am I just imagining you?"

I started this after reading Sophie's World.  Best modern philosophy fiction book!

I kinda want to have a hallucination. Just to see what it's like, you know? Is it like a dream? Or is it more real? If I do have one, will I know I had it? Probably, I mean, it would probably be something crazy.

And that is why so many people like LSD and other drugs that have to do with hallucinating.