Yetaro mentioned something interesting in a different topic:



This is something I've thought about a lot myself, the nature of our mind and more specifically it's memories and fantasies. I do have some theories but also a whole lot of questions when it comes to imagination. The main question is ...

Are we really able to imagine something, a concept or whatever, from scratch? Is our fantasy really just imagination or does it come from somewhere? And if it does have an origin, how much of it could be reality? Where are the borders and limits between reality and fantasy?

this is an interesting topic...is psychology you learn that our thought and understanding of the world is made up of our experiences....following on from that things that we imagine are most often related to our experiences, things we've heard, things we know....basically things we imagine are usually built from the building blocks that we already have which correspond to what we have heard and understood in other places

that said, it doesn't make it any less our own or any less valid..we use experiences to build a vision of something new....

as for reality vs fantasy i believe that everyone makes their own reality and that that line between reality and fantasy is very very thin...thinner than most people think.

Well even before I post, my side of the arguement is up there. So all I have to say is that I noticed a type. Hence we our should be hence we are. And I think BR's post backs mine up. I remember reading two essays, one was by john locke, i just forget which one. One was titled "The Illusion of Free Will" and "Thoughts and Impressions". they are pretty awesome.

As mentioned I believe that the line between fantasy and reality is very thin. As the saying goes, every myth is usually based on some truth. Bigfoot, werewolves, vampires. That and what sparked the statement personal fear. I mean how many times has someone said they saw a spider, this huge and suddenly it's not as big or as scary as one's imagination made it out to be.

That being said, I think most of our imaginations can be based on emotion as well. Such as the above example, and wanting to understand what we don't know. Such as putting a child in a dark room and making various noises. That child will take things it fears, and has experienced with fear and trying not to be afraid possibly conjure up an image of something tangible, to fight or run. Instinct I guess. Sorry rambling I know.

Anyway, I personally think that some parts of our imagination can be made from scratch. Sure enough it can be a spin off of something experienced or seen, and I really have no examples I can think of this late to try and explain, but in short I do believe there's a piece of scratch imagination that humans can conjure, heh

I would like to challenge anyone to give me one single bit of imagination made up from scratch.

Personally I don't believe it's possible. Everything we imagine is linked to concepts, ideas or thoughts that are known to us from prior experiences. It's the way the brain works.

It's probably also the way why concepts like otherkin, past life memories and such are so hard to express or explore in detail. They are not memories of the brain in my opinion. Instead they are some sort of energetic imprints that we tend to translate into experienced memories, which includes non-firsthand experiences like seeing a movie or reading a book. Usually an experience triggers a very similar energetic response, which causes us to link it to our past.

One thing I still haven't created a decent theory about though: a way to shut down our brain and interact directly with those imprints or where they are stored. Of course it's probably like trying to get rid of the computer and each just holding an electric cord to communicate with eachother. We get zapped at the most but are unable to process the energy into something useable. Still I wonder if there is a way.

*sigh* almost takes the fun out of it when we almost agree zan, I hope you know that. I don't think anything can be purely of scratch either. Just based on how our neurons work. And how memory dictates. whether is be conscious of subconscious. even emotions. I think emotions are inability to rationalize within our mind a certain impression. Because our language limits it. It was once said, "The limits of my language are the limits of my world."

I think this help support the idea that everything in born in impression. I still don't remember both the authors, but i remember the textbook it was in. the two essays were both in "Reason and Responsibility" a college textbook from my old library.

i like your theory zan i've never though about it like that before...i believe its entirely possible though and fits in with the way some of our memories are

It does almost take the fun out of things when everyone agrees with me.

Well generally when no one can argue against that, in the scientific world, we call it a law. since it is generally accepted as true. lets call this zan's law.

Edit: oh wait, john locke thought it up first over a 100 years ago. nevermind

Well, I had this fabulous theory.

I think that although it would appear(as I can't agree too readily ) That the imagination can't be created from scratch. My theory is that, the scratch part of imagining is when you make something new. Say like whoever created centaurs as an idea for books. Maybe they saw a man riding a horse in fog and thought it was a new mystical creature and wrote about it. But the multitude and vast array of ideas that come forth, based on one experience would be like that's scratch. I mean how many times can one cook a recipe and say it's made from scratch, when it does have a basis, but created to be their own masterpiece?

And artists as well. When a writer says their characters take on a life of their own it's true. You see a situation, and want to write a story based on that situation, but then you get images, ideas, names, of an entirely different concept.

In that I think that indeed the imagination can come from scratch as it wasn't previously created at times. Not always, but sometimes.

Hmm, falling into semantics again but here goes ...

What you call 'scratch' I'd call originality. Imagination can definitely be original and add or mix things in an unprecedented form. Take the centaurs, whoever mentioned them first (be it that they truly believed centaur existed or not, doesn't matter) was definitely original. They used concepts they were very familiar with though: human and horse.

Now I admit, even with concepts that are known to us we can go very, very far and bizare in our imagination.

The problem with our mind is that we are stuck in our realm of experience and spiritual concepts become very hard to share or even understand. Things like gods, energy, magic, souls, afterlife, the astral or other realities are just set up to fail from an understandable (scientific) point of view.

Thats where faith comes in. Faith is an acceptance of something you can't rationalize or understand.
But you accept is blindly. As to the centaur thing. Horses and humans weren't original, hence the centaur was made up on past experience and knowledge. just because i take peanut butter and jelly and put them together doesn't mean i have created something new. I have taken two things and put them together to achieve an unfamiliar flavor. But we are lookin deeper i believe into the way the mind works. not just at specifics as specifics are and can be almost always misleading in a debate of any sorts.

Like I said .. semantics. Even a combination of old things can be defined as a new combination or just 'new' if it didn't exist before.

Anyways, I think there is still a grade in between faith and something you can rationalize. For example, I'm a decent energy worker myself. I meditate, practice tai chi, chi gong and whatnot to harness and manipulate the energy inside me .. and outside me. At first it was faith, like you say, accepting that all this stuff exists blindly. Over the years faith has nothing to do with it anymore. Energy work is real to me, I can use it to prevent or cure minor sickness, a caffeine replacement, controlling most of my body's experiences and functions and more. All of that I would simply place in a 'mind over body' cathegory, which is still a more acceptable explanation, being a scientist. The thing is, my experiences don't stop within my own body. I've been able to manipulate the energy of others without even touching them. I've given people sleepless nights through a few minutes of energy work, have them relate exactly what I was doing with their energy, where the only explanation left is that they could feel it. And I've been on the recieving end of similar exercises. This is where the rational, scientific me is at a loss .. still it's more than faith. It's reality.

What I've experienced is most likely like seeing the tip of an iceberg though. You only have a small portion verified to you by your senses but there is still a gigantic amount hidden from you.

I have no rational explanation for energy work, nothing besides the ancient far eastern philosophies about meridians, etc. To me they're more than just philosophies but somehow the western, scientific world isn't willing to accept them. Well I understand why, it's one of those things that the mind cannot comprehend. We can interpret it with our minds and give it names like energy work, qi gong, meridians, etc. We can compare it to a sort of circulation system like our bloodstream but then energetic and we can even pin feelings on it ... but we cannot unify it and rationalize it because all of the above is subjective. It's a translation of something that occurs outside our world of experience for a large part. Since we all have unique minds with our unique experiences, each translation is automatically subjective.

I'm convinced that energy work can be explained by science, at least as far as the effects go. What I can do is only possible by altering the physiology of our body: hormones, neurotransmitters, enzymes, etc. create the effects I experience. What I think won't be explained by science, because science is inheritely tied to our minds, is the source of these effects. There is no physical system that allows one person to affect the physiology of another person at this rate without direct interaction, be it physical or psychological.

See, all I've been able to say in all these alineas is what energy work isn't. I can't explain what it is because my mind can't grasp it. The best I can do is explain what it could be seen as based on experiences .. but none of them do it justice.

And now I'm going to stop here because I'm starting to confuse myself.

when i think of a concept being made 100% from scratch i think of something that does not use or is not made up of any existsing influence...and ofcourse that would be outside of our mental reach at this stage...this relates to zan's idea i think

as for faith vc science...i take the view that there are many things that people dismiss as blind faith such as the energy work zan talks about that can be very real and usable...but they should not dismiss it blindly either because it doesn't fit any current explanation, and try to look more into these things

but faith vs science is a whole 'nother issue and i would rather not go into it

Alas, I am defining faith as accepting something you may not all the way understand or rationalize. You may not like the word, but it fits. Even after both of your posts, your belief in energy work, can be classified as faith. It seems the word hits a nerve, but I am just trying to ask you to use definitions, not connotations. As connotations never achieve anything except a bad taste in one's mouth.
I still fail to see how your use in energy work is not based in faith. When you turn your ignition block in your car, you have faith that will turn on, unless you understand completely your specific wiring diagrams and combustion engine model. But like most people, you don't necessarily care how the car works. just that it does. And you have faith it will.

Without the knowledge of how it ignites, you accept it will based on faith.

Three stages of acceptance- Denial (oh that can't ever happen), faith(i believe it can/will happen), knowledge(I know it can/will happen)