Exploring Imaginative Ideas*

Ali Anani wrote, *Imaginative Ideas- Time to Explore. And as with most of Ali Anani's posts, I found myself drawn into his words and ideas and realized that my comment had to be written "out of the comment box".

I am going tell you my “idea” first, and then write about how I “imagined” that to be.

Knowledge is the sense of the physical dimension and imagination is the sense of the spacetime dimension.

As the amniotic fluid is a greater sound carrier than water, our sensory environment begins in utero. As well as the auditory stimulation that occurs, the fetus experiences movement. After birth, our experiences continue to be shaped, formed and influenced by what we hear, see, smell, taste, touch, as well as experience proprioceptively and vestibularly. Ornstein writes in his book The Psychology of Consciousness, (1972) that "the experience of an infant is a confusing sensory cacophony." Our Central Nervous System is continuously, perceiving, sorting, choosing and responding to information received through our sensory system.

Over the years, we collect and store these experiences. We construct and form memories. Dr. Sawyer (2006) makes the provocative claim that great creativity is based in great memory.

Imagination

One skill that we acquire is the ability to imagine. According to Michele and Robert Root-Bernstein, (2009) imaging is the most important thinking skill we acquire for creativity. They define imaging as the ability to recreate sensory impressions and feelings in our minds in the absence of external stimuli.

We can alter, combine, synthesize and otherwise manipulate sensory images to form images and ideas of things never perceived in reality.

Ali Anani writes: “We talk so much about ideas generation, but very little about imaginative ideas even though they would provide us with unlimited possibilities.”

We define idea as: “a thought or suggestion as to a possible course of action.”

We define imagination as: “the faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses.”

So here we see the connection between idea and imaginative ideas discussed by Dr. Ali: action. Idea leads to action while imagination is the action of forming something not present to our senses.

Dr. Ali continues by discussing that which we describe as real versus imagined. The critical aspect is the idea of enabling imagination to be seen: “…imaginations that became visible. Just imagine combining non-integer dimensions with imaginary numbers (two wild imaginations) that led to the pioneering work of Mandelbrot with his most beautifully ever produced the fractal strange attractor.”

Dr. Ali goes links imagination to knowledge and asks us to “go beyond our limited senses and knowledge.”

I took on Dr. Ali’s call to action and have gone beyond our limited senses and knowledge. This is my idea of what I imagine makes sense to me.

Sensory systems differ in humans and animals. We each have our own range and capacity to perceive sensory input. I often speak of the importance of being aware of our own sensory fingerprint; how we make sense of our world and our engagement within it.

We turn to nature and “mimic” senses which are available to other species but not to ourselves; we may not have the ability of bats to see in the dark but we can mimic their sense of “hearing” or echo location.

Beyond our senses.

Asking “why” differentiates us from other species. All animals can respond to the questions:

What (identifying/recognizing) – was that sound?

Where (direction/location) – do I go for shelter?

When (time) – I have to go find a mate.

Who (other) – do I choose to fight?

Which (selection) – is my pack?

How (action) – will my cub get food?

Only humans ask Why - was I born, am I here, did this happen to me, do I feel this way, are there stars in the sky?

We would not be able to attempt to ask or answer why unless we could imagine; imagine beyond our limitations and capacities to sense and know.

A classic question exists in philosophical discussion and exploration of human perception and reality: “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there, does it make a sound?” My answer is no because the sound exists as a vibration and can only be heard through the auditory sensory system of the human/animal; the ear senses the vibrations and the brain tells us what we are hearing. So if there is no ear/brain to hear the vibration, there is no sound.

Nothing, no aspect of life, no dimension, can be experienced without sensation. The early sensations were attributed to the 5 senses of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching. In his work, Rudolph Steiner identified twelve senses: balance, or equilibrioception [or vestibular]; movement, or proprioception; pain/well-being, or nociception, also called life sense; touch, or tactition; taste, or gustation; smell, or olfaction; warmth, or thermoception; sight, or vision; hearing, or audition; word / speech; thought / concept; ego / self.”

I have written about time as a sense and now add knowledge and imagination as senses. I am matching knowledge as a sense to the physical dimension and imagination as a sense to the spacetime dimension.

Physical Dimension

All that we know of in our physical dimension we have learned from our sensory experiences and the associations and meanings formed by our central nervous system.

For example, what does it mean to be standing at a red traffic light?

1. We see the red traffic light.

2. We know what colour is and that this light has the colour red.

3. We know that red means stop.

Knowledge is the sense that allows us to engage in our physical dimension.

Spacetime Dimension

Everything we imagine is built upon what we have experienced in our physical dimension. But it is because we can then project/propel beyond the physical space, “outside” our physical reality, and time, beyond the past learning and present experience, that imagination is the sense that allows us to engage in our spacetime dimension.

Dr. Ali quotes Albert Einstein: “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”

Thanks to Chris Kovacs, I am beginning to learn about machine learning. In 1959, Arthur Samuel defined machine learning as a "Field of study that gives computers the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed". The only way machines can learn is through the "experience" of human input. Advanced function can enable the computer to use previously obtained input and learn from that data. It is still dependent on human input. A computer can not imagine beyond its data. For humans to detach from our ability, our sense to imagine, is a regression in human development. 

What has feelings got to do with all this?

We can’t trust the validity of our thoughts if we are experiencing a feeling such as anger. We lose our clarity of judgment if we engage in thought through anger. And so, we assume in order to be focused and rational, we can’t involve feelings. Imagination is often linked with emotions and so not seen as something to be used when engaged in learning and gaining knowledge. Imagination is not an emotion, it is a sense. And in this way we learn and gain knowledge by engaging all our senses:

• what we see
• what we hear
• what we smell
• what we taste
• what we touch
• how we experience being in proximity to others and objects
• how we experience being grounded or balanced
• how we experience time
• how we know
• how we imagine

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. 
Carl Sagan

My hat’s off to you Ali Anani for being the best of example of what it is like to have imaginative ideas.