What Is Imagination?

[MrRING]

It seems that, along with cognition, imagination may be the ghost in the machine (or at least the gasoline that runs the GITM - or the road that the GITM runs on). For Instance, this website is from a fellow who is knee-deep with trying to understand imagination:

http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/nthomas/

Imagination

Imagination is what makes our sensory experience meaningful, enabling us to interpret and make sense of it, whether from a conventional perspective or from a fresh, original, individual one. It is what makes perception more than the mere physical stimulation of sense organs. It also produces mental imagery, visual and otherwise, which is what makes it possible for us to think outside the confines of our present perceptual reality, to consider memories of the past and possibilities for the future, and to weigh alternatives against one another. Thus, imagination makes possible all our thinking about what is, what has been, and, perhaps most important, what might be.

And the site does have the great academic article title Avoiding the
Porsche-Driving Zombie

And a definitions of imagination:

http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn?stage=1&word=imagination

1. imagination, imaginativeness, vision -- (the formation of a mental image of something that is not perceived as real and is not present to the senses; "popular imagination created a world of demons"; "imagination reveals what the world could be")
2. imagination, imaging, imagery, mental imagery -- (the ability to form mental images of things or events; "he could still hear her in his imagination")
3. resource, resourcefulness, imagination -- (the ability to deal resourcefully with unusual problems; "a man of resource")

 

[pintquaff]

So do they know what the mechanisms are the allow us to have this Imagination?

 

[sunsplash1]

Nah, not really. Lots of describing and explaining but little predicting... Without Imagination (nebulous term, for sure) there'd be no Consciousness, anyway. And, best guess, the processes involved in Imagination are hard-wired into wetware.

 

[jarmaniac]

Imagination is whatever you think it is.

Much the same as everything else, really. But harder to tax.

 

[sunsplash1]

Too true!
8)

 

[ENTIANONMULTI]

i view imagination as a "screensaver" or a background program for the brain, spend too much time not thinking hard about other things and immagination kicks in,

 

[Anome]

There's a kind of merit in that idea.

Although it's less of a screensaver, and more something to keep the brain ticking when it's idle. Got to do something with those spare clock-cycles.

 

[sunsplash1]

Sort of like the SETI thing, in one sense. Then perhaps a more explicit application at other times...

 

[giantrobot1]

IMHO, imagination would be a very important step in the development of consciousness as we experience it - since it allows abstraction and creativity - very good for solving problems, creating complex societies and invneing useful tools etc.

 

[sunsplash1]

thinking further I suspect imagination plays a big part in empathy and social world stuff. Crucial to childhood development in many ways.



this is a great thread, by the way... thanks Mr. R.i.n.g.

 

[theredmeanie]

thinking further I suspect imagination plays a big part in empathy and social world stuff. Crucial to childhood development in many ways.

I've often wondered whether if, when a kitten 'hunts' and 'kills' a twig or twine or whatever, it is using imagination. If so, is imagination related to instinct?

 

[Anome]

I suppose it may tie in with dreaming. We know that pretty much all mammals dream, including monotremata (they used to think that echidnas didn't, but it turns out they do). Does this mean that imagination is a mammalian trait?

Now, no-one's really sure what dreaming is for. The most common modern interpretation is that it relates to memory in some way. I don't see how imagination may relate to memory, but it's possible. And it could all be tied up neatly with a bow.

But I doubt it.

[END INCOHERENT RAMBLING]

 

[sunsplash1]

thinking further I suspect imagination plays a big part in empathy and social world stuff. Crucial to childhood development in many ways.

I've often wondered whether if, when a kitten 'hunts' and 'kills' a twig or twine or whatever, it is using imagination. If so, is imagination related to instinct?

That's a great observation! And a bloody good question!!!

You'd think (on behalf of the cat, say), that it must some how 'know' that imagining something improves performance ( ie hunting skills) at an instinctual level... Else why do it?

 

[Pete Younger]

thinking further I suspect imagination plays a big part in empathy and social world stuff. Crucial to childhood development in many ways.

I've often wondered whether if, when a kitten 'hunts' and 'kills' a twig or twine or whatever, it is using imagination. If so, is imagination related to instinct?

That's a great observation! And a bloody good question!!!

You'd think (on behalf of the cat, say), that it must some how 'know' that imagining something improves performance ( ie hunting skills) at an instinctual level... Else why do it?

But isn't that just play, I mean when a dog fetches a stick, what part of that is instinct?

 

[giantrobot1]

I suppose it may tie in with dreaming. We know that pretty much all mammals dream, including monotremata (they used to think that echidnas didn't, but it turns out they do). Does this mean that imagination is a mammalian trait?

Now, no-one's really sure what dreaming is for. The most common modern interpretation is that it relates to memory in some way. I don't see how imagination may relate to memory, but it's possible. And it could all be tied up neatly with a bow.

Well imagination allows experience to be turned into a narrative. All those memory tricks about memorising a large number of playing cards, for instance, use the technique of turning the card order into a story. This allows a large amount of information to be more easily stored.

The question arises, though, how much do our narrative match reality? Even things like causality might be a convenient fiction - a bit like Hume's ideas.

And then there's mental illnesses like schizophrenia. It seems to me to be a pathalogically overactive imagination, where events that aren't related to the sufferer directly, get pulled in to form part of a complex plot against them.

 

[theredmeanie]

thinking further I suspect imagination plays a big part in empathy and social world stuff. Crucial to childhood development in many ways.

I've often wondered whether if, when a kitten 'hunts' and 'kills' a twig or twine or whatever, it is using imagination. If so, is imagination related to instinct?

That's a great observation! And a bloody good question!!!

You'd think (on behalf of the cat, say), that it must some how 'know' that imagining something improves performance ( ie hunting skills) at an instinctual level... Else why do it?

But isn't that just play, I mean when a dog fetches a stick, what part of that is instinct?

The same part that compels a wolf to bring a kill back to the pack, and let the alpha have first pickings I guess. (Unless it's a naughty wolf). I'm just wondering whether an animal like that is using 'imagination' by acting 'as if' the bone/stick/twine is really a carcass, thus honing the skills it needs in the real world.

I'd argue that play is immensely important in the development of animals.

 

[sunsplash1]

I suppose it may tie in with dreaming. We know that pretty much all mammals dream, including monotremata (they used to think that echidnas didn't, but it turns out they do). Does this mean that imagination is a mammalian trait?

Now, no-one's really sure what dreaming is for. The most common modern interpretation is that it relates to memory in some way. I don't see how imagination may relate to memory, but it's possible. And it could all be tied up neatly with a bow.

But I doubt it.

[END INCOHERENT RAMBLING]

You have never rambled incoherently, Anome!
Imagination is evident across species...
Imagination... Dreaming... Memory There some relatedness there, somewhere!

 

[sunsplash1]

thinking further I suspect imagination plays a big part in empathy and social world stuff. Crucial to childhood development in many ways.

I've often wondered whether if, when a kitten 'hunts' and 'kills' a twig or twine or whatever, it is using imagination. If so, is imagination related to instinct?

That's a great observation! And a bloody good question!!!

You'd think (on behalf of the cat, say), that it must some how 'know' that imagining something improves performance ( ie hunting skills) at an instinctual level... Else why do it?

But isn't that just play, I mean when a dog fetches a stick, what part of that is instinct?

Just play? In terms of imagination it is probably all about play.
With respect to the dog and stick thing I'm not sure but I reckon its a mix of social world, pleasure and learning (specifically for a puppy).

The quoting! The quoting!

 

[sunsplash1]

thinking further I suspect imagination plays a big part in empathy and social world stuff. Crucial to childhood development in many ways.

I've often wondered whether if, when a kitten 'hunts' and 'kills' a twig or twine or whatever, it is using imagination. If so, is imagination related to instinct?

That's a great observation! And a bloody good question!!!

You'd think (on behalf of the cat, say), that it must some how 'know' that imagining something improves performance ( ie hunting skills) at an instinctual level... Else why do it?

But isn't that just play, I mean when a dog fetches a stick, what part of that is instinct?

The same part that compels a wolf to bring a kill back to the pack, and let the alpha have first pickings I guess. (Unless it's a naughty wolf). I'm just wondering whether an animal like that is using 'imagination' by acting 'as if' the bone/stick/twine is really a carcass, thus honing the skills it needs in the real world.

I'd argue that play is immensely important in the development of animals.

And most especially for human children...
Cup of make-believe tea from this minature plasic pot anyone?