Imagination

beingandquirckiness.blogspot.com … ation.html

I guess it’s just between me and me “imagination” for the time being…:0)

beingandquirckiness.blogspot.com … on-ii.html

Eh? Why cant goodness be imaginary? Why cant moral be statements about feeling rather than fact?

I think the degree of your compartmentalising is counterproductive.
You seperate sections of consciousness and give them purposes, but i fail to see how this helps explain things better.

You havent really convinced me of you initial point. I take imagination to be ability rejumble aspects of experience at will to propose alternative scenarios to reality. How can this not be a feature intimately linked to intelligence?

As my logic teacher said, our intelligence lies not in logical deduction as some people hope, but in our ability to imagine different things and try them out.

Hi,

I think we are not on the same wave length here…

I distinguish to be more precise…I don’t seek to convince, but if that makes you think then it’s a good thing…

as I said, they are just not indistinguishably mixed…

Me hopes he speaks of induction too!

A bit more on the topic.

beingandquirkiness.blogspot.com/ … n-iii.html

harvey, who let you in? Well, to say does intellegence have anything to do with imagination? Yes. If your day-dreaming and your day dreaming 'bout something flat out dumb, and only flat-out dumb things then you I.Q. can’t be to high. Certainly talking about the world as a whole I can’t say every one is.

I have an interesting exercize in imagination: I wonder if it is possible to do this without the aid of a solution seeking algorithm or something:

Throughout most of human history, our imagined mythological creatures were always exxagerations of ones that actually exist, or combinations thereof. In modern sci-fi, aliens are usually either mild modifications of human or other animal form. I was wondering if it is possible for someone to invent an imaginary creature that doesn’t heavily borrow from organs, parts, and forms that already exist? Is it difficult to do without working something out deliberately? Beyond our ability to do without external aid?

Well for me, imagination is simply the excess of desire over ability. Since our desires often far exceed our abilities, imagination is an attractive compensation. However if our ability can grow and our desires mature, imagining would be replaced by doing and become secondary to truly creative contemplation.

I see your point. Would you however say, for example, that your dreams are an excess of your desire over your ability? But don’t get me wrong! Imagination is not bad in itself, it is even essential for an artist, but what is pernicious is to let it spread to the point where it is all invasive. In fact, the realm of imagination is confusion, in as much as it balks at analysis, and an overdose of imagination topples the realism of intelligence. To break away from this one must extirpate oneself from representation, which is not an easy task, because we often let our imagination, logic and psychology romp about according to their whim. One way or the other, what holds down our brain cells is image. Either we succumb to representation or we cease to figure things. But what then could we conceive of substance, for example, which is neither concrete nor abstract? We have great difficulty in understanding that intelligence is made for what is. A principle like “tree” or “man” is hidden to the senses, yet it really exists. At the end of the day, only intelligence enables us to go beyond the physical and sensible world, not imagination, for it is our intelligence which abstracts a principle from reality.

Hey! It’s me again. As lieutenant Colombo would say, “there is just one thing that still bothers me M’am”… :sunglasses:

beingandquirkiness.blogspot.com/ … on-iv.html

Hi Harvey

You’ve raised the important question as to the value of imagination and when it causes more harm than good. Another of my favorite definitions of imagination is a “function that takes the place of a necessary function.” In this case the necessary function is the capacity for attention which we lose to imagination. Contemplation and imagination become completely different from this perspective.

Modern life IMO has reduced our capacity for attention to basic egotistic aims. That is why we may pay “attention” in class for the result of the grade. But the importance of attention for the sake of self awareness or the experience of sentience itself has been largely forgotten. So we run on automatic pilot and at times, even blow ourselves up.

But when attention reclaims its rightful place in our psych it opens us to the emotional experience of objective sentience. This compliments the cognitive division into things and allows for the human perspective of sentience leading to consciousness and allowing for an additional dimension then our usual level of walking computer.

You may appreciate Simone Weil’s profound observations in relation to what you’ve said in the context of imagination and quantity. It also explains why so many conversations on good and evil miss the point entirely.

Art also can result from these two different origins. There is art that stimulates fantasy and imagination and art that has inner relations consciously included that inspires a deeper attention and connection with deeper awareness.

Hi Nick,

As a reminder, the different habitus of art than can be born in us are an alliance between intelligence and our 5 senses (pictural art; musical art ; sculpture and dance ; wine making etc ; perfumes…). Moreover, inspiration results from the deep-seated alliance between intelligence and imagination.

Hi Harvey

I don’t know what you mean by “intelligence.” If you mean the power of associations, I would agree. Inspiration would be the result of accidental experiences and through association, a person would depict it through one of these mediums of expression.

But I also recognize a quality of art that is not inspiration. It is the knowledge of the relationship of the sensory on emotions in the objective sense much like what occurs with the well known golden mean.

summum.us/philosophy/phi.shtml

Art that permeates the Sphinx or the Cathedral of Notre Dame for example is not inspired but mathematical. It allows the emotions to experience the emotional knowledge that was put into it through these mathematical relationships. This is similar to an encyclopedia having the ability to transmit the associative knowledge put into it.

Where the book allows the reader to experience the ideas intentionally placed within, this quality of art allows one to experience the quality of feeling intentionally intended by one capable of these feelings and with this knowledge.

The definition of intelligence I prefer is that of Thomas Aquinus (even though it’s shaky etymologically). Intus legere = to read from the inside.

Imagination is where the Gods can descened from Mt. Olympys and touch the mind of man. Imagination is the only pace where a mortal might recieve the gifts of the Gods. Every powerful idea comes from beyond your little ego. Of course this means that Imagination is the source of both our genuis and our madness. :smiley:
Imagination can engulf us and open our eyes to new worlds and make us lose sight of the literal perspective. It is dangerous, as is everything that is powerful.

I like that Xanderman, very poetic.

To Nick,

I don’t know if you realize the link you inserted is the site of some type of cult. I must say I have not laughed so hard in some days. The universe is created not with a Big Bang but with a Big Ejaculation, of God! loooooooooooooooooooooooool Maybe someone should tell them that a First being can only be pure act (Aristotle), and as such cannot be made of any matter, let alone ejaculate! Pheeew :wink:

Harvey

I don’t know the link. I was only doing a google search for some sort of article on the Golden Mean. I’m what’s known as a “seeker of pearls in manure.” A cult can take things that are genuine and twist them for their advantage but the mathematics of the Golden mean and its effects in art are well known.

Xander

Have you ever read anything by Rudolph Steiner on the dual influences of Lucifer and Ahriman?

Imagination then is perhaps the only seed which we may class as SOUL or SPIRIT.

It cannot be proven, there is no burden of proof, merely the immediate expression, the passing smoke of IMAGINING!

So much of our lives - let’s say three quarters just for the heaven and hell of it - are fictionalised, imagined, mythologised…lied!

Imgination is the spirit, the spirit to create and decieve! To chase our tail in as many colouful, dread ways as possible.

Thought: Psychoanalysis is merely the “straight jacket” of the imagination!

I am imagining THIS it must mean THAT! All my imagining’s have moral consequences!

Well, no. I have never read anything by Rudolph Steiner. My first thought here is that Lucier and Ahriman are just two more Gods among the many. They have their influences on mortals, just like all of the other Gods.

From Carl Jung’s perspective the Image was the Soul. Then add to that the idea that imagination is the spontaneous power to make images. So the imagination might also be considered the power to make souls.

A myth or a fiction is only a lie if your take for for anything other that what is it. If you take myth as if it were history for instance, then it seems like a myth is a lie. But a myth is NOT history.

If you try to take a figurative expression as if it were a literal expression then it might be considered a lie. But that is your error for not recognizing and accepting the figurative expression as a figurative expression.

I have examined the relationship between deception and creativity before. With the help of others, here was here my ideas ended up:

without the ability to pretend we would also lack the ability to create.

A person who takes everything literally would be uncreative. Only the person who can play pretend can be creative. Now we have the potential to use our ability to play pretend to deceive others. We can also use it to entertain others or to craft works that entertain others.

The con-man or con-artist is playing a game of pretend with you, only he knows it’s a game of pretend while you are taking him literally!

Pretend can be dangerous if we forget that we are only pretending.

from The ability to lie