Imagination Images

Imagination images are the easiest to demonstrate and the most difficult to explain.

IMAGINE YOURSELF FLYING TO THE MOON.

It's easy to do. But you have no memory of such and event -- and it is clearly impossible to make an (unaided) flight to the moon. Why should we have images that are not associated with any memory or with any possible events? Evidently, imagination images make it possible for us to do or think about certain things that would otherwise remain impossible. After exercising imagination and thought, it became possible to make an aided flight to the moon. The capability of imagining events that are new clearly has a

SURVIVAL ADVANTAGE FOR INTELLIGENT SPECIES

Tool-maiking is an example of applied imagination. Using a tool represents a

VISION OF ACCOMPLISHING A TASK IN A NEW WAY.

It has now been shown that animals other than man use tools. Therefore, some form of creative imagination apparently exists in the natural world -- and this lends further support to the idea that it is an evolutionary phenomenon.*

One of the most important and exciting areas of current research concerns the fact that

IMAGINATION IMAGES HAVE MEASURABLE EFFECTS ON THE BODY.

For example, many athletes now use the imagination to "practice" certain movements, such as basketball shots, weight lifting moves, or dance routines. It has been demonstrated that even without moving the parts of the body involved, the imagined motions have a positive effect. See the Imagination Institute for links to information on the relationship between the imagination and bodily, as well as, spiritual health.

*Yet, the thought that animals must also have the power of imagination has been held since ancient times. And while animals may have a limited capability for imagination, perhaps brought about by evolutionary pressure, some philosophers have judged the human imagination to be so powerful that it exceeds any possible "natural" origin and have concluded that it must be a special gift from God. More recently, philosophers have attempted to explain the human imagination as the result of a "mixture" of previous memory images. So, for example, from the memory of "gold" and the memory of "mountain," we are able to imagine "the golden mountain." In my own work, I try to show that neither explanation suffices. Obviously, "it is a gift" cannot serve as a philosophical explanation. The second explantion (referring to previous memory elements as "parts" of imagined elements) cannot show how the concept of new wholes are created. So, other than to say "it is the result of evolutionary pressure" (a statement that raises more questions than it answers), we are really left without an full explanation. See imagery type chart discussion for additional data on how imagination images differ from memory images.

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