I was saying that imagination is intermediary between the sensible realities and intelligence, i.e. between our experience of reality and our spirit. Yet we take our imagination for experience, even though a purely "imaginary being" has no experience of anything more than himself. For imagination is grounded in reality, that's for sure, but viewed on its own it comes from itself, whereas experience embraces reality in a direct manner, i.e. something that is not us. Imagination is therefore always idealizing. It enables us to take some short trips for free, sometimes lovely ones, other times not as much. Imagination thus never comes first, it is always second, and above all it has no end, it is an errant cause, even autistic, for it may have no other purpose than itself and separates itself at the same time from reality and intelligence. Someone who is completely taken by his imagination does not have a clear direction of where he is headed, especially if for that person, more or less consciously what's more, imagination has become his whole life, that is to say has taken over. One must acknowledge that we all more or less have a proclivity to be like this, and if we had a thermometer to take our imaginative temperature, an imaginativometer, we would imo be rather surprised at the result. Ultimately, our imagination wrestles constantly with experience, and this is quite understandable since it enables the first step back... face to face with reality.
Incidentally, people who are engulfed by imagination cannot love, simply put because the other person is a reality, not a character of a virtual short story or of a cartoon. Imaginary friendship is quite meagre!
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"Ultimately, our imagination wrestles constantly"
ReplyDelete"Well it is simply imagination... a place which I create myself"
"some live with their imagination cut off from reality"
Here are three lines from your posts. You seem to assume that the images were somehow made by the person and belong to him and depend on him. May I suggest that none of that is true. They are other than he and they come to him and he suffers them as every artist and deep thinker must. They are probably more of a mystery to him than to those who watch him perform in the dance of life. They help us in life and they are threatening at the same time.
I would go with Gary, I have no argument for that but the deep feeling that imaginaion is not a personal place, but a space-time where/when some of us connect more easily and frequently than others.... artists, people with mental issues ( schizophrenia, paranoia...), scientifics. I believe that imagination belongs in a large part to our " inconscient collectif" ( I don't know how to translate that, maybe collective inconscient??:-))).
ReplyDeleteA question: Is it you or "avatar" that wrote this? I like the subject.
This is written by "Avatar". Unfortunately, I haven't given this topic that much thought. I posted Aristotle's apprehension on imagination in the comments in the first post. That would be close to his view, I am quite sure :)
ReplyDeleteCorrect me if I am wrong, you both think imagination is innate?
If you think that reality is innate,...yes then imagination is innate^_^. I do think that imagination, like dreams like reality are space-time, and that we, humans, travels from one to another during our life time.
ReplyDeleteI will go and read Aristotle's view now!
@AH,
ReplyDeleteI am uncertain as to the interaction between imagination and intelligence. It's probably more a question of how you define them. I am much less uncertain as to the fact that imagination proceeds from the stock of images assembled through our senses. ;)
You write, "people who are engulfed by imagination cannot love." That may explain why so many really good artists and scientists and philosophers are really so horrible to be around. I am thinking now of Frank Lloyd Wright, but so many others come to mind. Socrates, for those who have read Plato well, was not merely a gadfly but a rather nasty one at that. It is not too hard to see why the people of Athens wanted to kill him. Anyway, I see no way out from this terrible situation. We can't be all things to all people. The very imaginative people are necessary for our survival and often we will just have to put up with them.
ReplyDelete@Being and Quirkiness, I totally agree, but reality can also only exist for us through our sense. This doesn't means that reality belongs to us. And I think that in reality, dreams or imagination, there are 2 levels, the part we participate in ( through our sense), and the part that exist with or without us.
ReplyDeleteI do respect your view as what you have expressed in the above post.
ReplyDeleteHowever, there are two types of imagination. Basically synthetic and creative imagination.
Both also can come from reality and non reality and not necessary only deal with sensible issue.
Harvey,it seems there is no end to the different views of imagination and its connection with intelligence!
ReplyDeleteThis is a good debate, but I go along with Avatar from my own long experience with Lady Imagination.
The Count goes in Friday for a spinal- fusion operation
and will be off blog for a week, hopefully no more.
My best. Count Sneaky
Wow, I loved your perception and ideals on the matter. Excellent read.
ReplyDeleteWow, what a fascinating post! I can't say where I stand on the matter (at this time) but I found it a great read all the same. As always, you have set my wheels in motion with your thought provoking words. Well done!
ReplyDeleteI think hmagination may be different from intelligence in so far as it makes no logical or ethical choices. But for those who recognize it, use it and rely on it it is a dependable inate tool. It is a ready responder to the question "What if..." from artists, scientists, mechanics, etc.
ReplyDeleteIt is akin to intuition and hence may sometimes come first, before the reality it has dreamed of. That's what I think.
Thanks all for your comments. :-)
ReplyDeleteBest of luck Count with your operation.
DB,
Yes intuition/imagination/idea comes first with the artistic approach. What is toxic is to confuse the artistic approach and the philosophical one, where thought does not come first, be it in the order of life or of being.