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Imagination is (1) the faculty of imagining, or of forming mental images or concepts of what is not actually present to the senses, and (2) the action or process of forming such images or concepts1. It helps provide meaning to experience and understanding to knowledge; it is a fundamental facility through which people make sense of the world,234 and it also plays a key role in the learning process.25 A basic training for imagination is the listening to storytelling (narrative),26 in which the exactness of the chosen words is the fundamental factor to 'evoke worlds'.7
Imagination is the faculty through which we encounter everything. The things that we touch, see and hear coalesce into a "picture" via our imagination. The way we understand things... the way that we 'make sense' of things is through our imagination. The ability to problem-solve... to see things from a different perspective... to empathize... all happen because we have this technicolor, multi-channel, curious imagination. Imagination IS the ability to create perceptions. Novel perceptions. Fantastical perceptions. Hypothetical perceptions.
Imagination can also be expressed through stories such as fairy tales or fantasies. Most famous inventions or entertainment products were created from the inspiration of one's imagination.
It is accepted as the innate ability and process to invent partial or complete personal realms within the mind from elements derived from sense perceptions of the shared world.[http://bestuff.com/citation needed] The term is technically used in psychology for the process of reviving in the mind, percepts of objects formerly given in sense perception. Since this use of the term conflicts with that of ordinary language, some psychologists have preferred to describe this process as "imaging" or "imagery" or to speak of it as "reproductive" as opposed to "productive" or "constructive" imagination. Imagined images are seen with the "mind's eye".
One hypothesis for the evolution of human imagination is that it allowed conscious beings to solve problems (and hence increase an individual's fitness) by use of mental simulation.
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Comments
I hate topica. The texture is what drives me nuts. Those little rubbery feeling ball things.. hah.
yeah...it feels synthetic...
(page four! woot!)
I hate how it doesn't take you automatically to the most recent comments. It's just the laziness in me I guess. BUT, I think I'm getting off topic.
if there was a topic to begin with…but yeah, that's annoying…
psst..you guys, you can change it in your settings to make the most recent comment appear first. it's nifty.
hey! thanks crochethooker, that is so much easier now haha I would never have thought of that! why dont they just automatically do that??
Because they are sane.
its fun t0 just sit and relaxe and just imagine h0w beautiful life is
imagination…......i call it escaping. i escape my stupid boring life into a world of my own…......
i so love these four pages of comments! it gets so complicated in pages 2 and 3 it makes me laugh my head off! but it was really good debate… i'm torn between the two. is our imagination limted or not? i wanna believe that it isn't, but there's some logic behind the thought that we cant imagine something that we havent seen before… sigh. complicated.
I didn't see those debates. That's a very good question. It would seem that because we haven't witnessed everything you can possibly witness in this universe, that your imagination is limited because you have no idea what is possibly out there. I mean, I guess you could "imagine" but could you? I'm not sure, that's a tough one.
ur talks confusing me…..
That's very astute, M_eanwhile. I'm presently involved in a debate about the reality or not of the big bang scenario (I think it's patent nonsense, and can produce evidence to back my case) and you have to be ever open to the possiblity that something you see may be other than what it seems to be.
One of the first time ever I see 'than' spelt correctly.....
Yeah no doubt Clara, good on you Finrod! I've been noticing this more and more as of late. People using 'then' in place of 'than', in fact i've seen so much of it i've been questioning my own proper use of the word…
*Bows to Clarabella and to MastaKink in turn*
The debate I alluded to is here. Anyone who's read it - carefully, that is! - is most welcome to ask questions.
,
uumm ookkay
Imagine Bad Brains has a reunion show, and while in the parking lot, you come across a man named Jack who replies with a positive when you ask him for genuine, straight opium. You tell Jack that you've never seen opium in its pure form in America, but you've never attempted to look either. You get backstage passes from a man who appears to be a homeless clown for $20. When you get backstage, the band is curious of your findings, so you spend the night passing around the pipe bought at the Get-And-Go across the street (the one with the wooden Native American in the front). You pass around the laxatives and suppositories afterward (aren't you glad you read that "All You Wanted To Know About Drugs" book a few years back in your Health and Fitness class?). You stay high and regular for a while until you suddenly remember you have to brush your teeth (We all remember those horrible pictures). You humbly thank the band and begin your journey home. However, something doesn't want you to make it back! Then you realize that it's your shadow. You awake to a terrible taste in your mouth and a phone call from a co-worker wondering where you are. When you get to work, you make sure everyone sees that you're eating poppy-seed muffins, which is more something you do for yourself than anyone else. On the way home you hear "Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth" on the radio. This makes you curious. If heroine is passe, where does that leave simple opium? Retro? Nice save, but still a buzzkill. Oh well, you have been looking forward to another night of Seinfeld re-runs and artichoke hearts with melted butter sauce, sitting across from the open fire. Who says everyday is like Sunday? Imagine friends! IMAGINE!
Brilliant!!
Throwing Romanticism out of the window completely for a second, all imagination is based entirely on reality and our thoughts towards everyday scenarios and objects. You may imagine something that's surreal, but the imagination has limits, and can only merge or combine very different ideas- not create new ones per se.
Quoting Edmund Burke, "...this power of the imagination is incabaple of producing anything new; it can only vary the disposition of those ideas which it has recieved from the senses".
Aristotle too propsed that all forms of art was imiation of nature. But this idea comes from an evaluation of art in the nineteenth century as Romanticism idea was becoming common, where the status of the artist was evaluated and considered for a moment- essentially they were copying existing life, no matter how much of a masterpiece the work in question was. There were variations naturally, based on their own thoughts and feelings towards their subject matter, but regardless, the end result was always going to be in the real world.
Surrealism may seem as it's something otherwordly and truly unique, and that it is as an artists representation of his feelings, but those thought processes and executions will always be based on experience.
Just my two cents.
wow. well said, RichardAM.
everything we imagine is somehow limited to what we have seen or experienced.
i try to think of something i've never seen before... but that isnt possible! i havent seen that "thing" before! lol.
We have already discussed this!
Oh I know- i'm late to the party.
Not to detract from RichardAM's acute insights, but a terser description also exists:
There is nothing new under the Sun.
For example, the number of plots for stories can be distilled down to a surprisingly small number and in one analysis (due to Christopher Booker) comprise seven main themes:
1. Overcoming the Monster - Jaws (and its dire sequels), Beowulf, Dr. No (and other James Bond films)
2. Rags to Riches - Cinderella, The Ugly Duckling, Beauty and the Beast
3. The Quest - The Odyssey, The Lord of the Rings,
4. Voyage and Return - Alice in Wonderland, Robinson Crusoe, Sam Gamgee (The Lord of the Rings - "Well I'm back"), The Time Machine
5. Comedy - Any episode of Frasier (Seinfeld if you prefer)
6. Tragedy - Jude the Obscure, Götterdämmerung, Gustav Mahler's Sixth Symphony
7. Rebirth - A Christmas Carol, Snow White, Crime and Punishment.
He also adds two subsidiary themes of Rebellion (1984, Rebel Without a Cause, Star Wars) and Mystery (any P.D. James or Agatha Christie novel).
Me, I'll stick with analysing science.
even thought i agree with what Richard Am is saying if nothing is new then how can peopleinvent new things? i.e. the internet?
Thank you Finrod
The objective point of view is irrelevant. Every new love reinvent love.
The internet doesn't come from the imagination though, like I said, it's a new idea based on experience from old ones. Theorhetically the internet doesn't do anything new- it allows us to communicate, write, read news and watch videos- all activites we were able to do in the past with previous technology, albeit, arguably, not as well or as quickly.Taken those ideas as a foundation- communication, entertainment, information, the internet is just a more advanced version of an existing idea and culture.
As a loose example, the imagination isn't going to be responsible for hovercars. Why? Because it's based on the idea of existing wheeled cars and transport. The notion of cars is grounded in reality as is the technology of hovering (such as a jet etc), the imagination is the force which combines them together into something new, but at the same time, something we've already experienced.
I think that was the work of evolution rather than the mind directly.
As least, that's what i'd like to think. Ask someone else and they'll bring God into the equation and ruin everything i've said so far.
Well, evolution of the mind...
It had to be imagined first...
language definitely wasn't evolved in the genetic sense…i'd say mind...
jesus, it's hard to imagine not having language! have you ever tried it? it's a bitch...
yes, it's called sex ;P
(tries to respond effectively and utterly fails at it)
We don't need words anymore… ;)
hey, you're right!
oops...i mean, ... , , , ?
!!
i like the drawin
yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i even added 2 fosters home for imaginary friends pics.....
go bloo!!!!! :D
Imaginationless people are boring.
Gotta catch 'em all!
Even Einstein said that imagination is more important than knowledge …
He was imagining furry bunnies while working on the Manhattan Project.
" With our thought, we make the world." Buddha
My imagination keeps me sane.....at least i think so anyway.
It really is the best place to be. Apart from Mars ;)
Correct, swissbob. Einstein was not directly involved with the Manhattan project. Though he did write a crucial letter to the President about nuclear energy.
hehe my imagination is taking over my mind.. XD