How does imagination work?

Imagination is at everyone’s control. If it were not, it would not be imagination. Imagination might be defined as the internal mental and emotional process by which we exercise our minds to produce ideas, concepts, mental structures, creative dreams, future progress, battle campaigns, new venues of study, and the list goes on and on.

The last question is of an entirely different nature. You are asking how the mind itself works. Good luck.

That is one of the most confounding questions of brain research. The best evidence to date is that the brain works rather like a collection of AI computers. Many act rather like homunculi or little men, each rather limited, designed to do a particular thing very well. Other homunculi are generalist that we can program to do assigned work. Together, they all draw on available memory and sensory input and constantly form symbols that represent what we observe. Our brains are true wizards at forming analogies and understanding subtle differences between near and distant matches and similarities. This ability lets us learn and relate things to other known information till, as we mature, we become true thinking machines, able to speak, interpret and imagine.

Is imagination at our control? Funny you should ask. Often, after sitting staring at the computer screen with a draftsman’s swing-arm lamp on at night, I go brush my teeth under glaring light, then straight to a dark bedroom where I lay down and shut my eyes. I see vivid patterns for a time, some quite beautiful and ornate, often paisley like. They are not like anything in the environment I just left. They are clearly imagination in my occipital lobe. Last night, I tried to commandeer the imagination and shape them to my will. I was only modestly successful, and messed up the beauty and symmetry of the show in the bargain, so I soon went back to just watching what my brain was cooking up without exercising the thought center to try to control it.

So I think, to answer your question, you can assign your imagination projects to work on but to some degree, it is best left as an autonomous unit.

Great question. Yes one of the great mysteries of the human mind. How does the brain conceive, think about, create and imagine things that don’t already exist? And sometimes things that can’t exist. And @ETpro is there not a little hubris in comparing the human mind/brain to a collection of AI computers? Do we even understand RI, real intelligence, do we really understand our own brains and “minds” enough to compare how they work to a collection of AI computers?

@lillycoyote When computer science first became interesting to psychologists studying the brain, they were vilified in terms usually reserved for religious debates between fervent believers and militant atheists. I would say the hubris flows in just the opposite direction. Human pride thats great umbrage at being compared to a machine.

We don’t fully understand what real intelligence is. But we are coming to understand it, and what I related comes directly from that research. Looking at the brain as, in some ways, analogous to computers has proved very useful and provided more breakthroughs in understanding how the brain works than Freudian or Jungian or Behaviorist schools ever did.

The word imagination is ultimately traced back to a combination of the two words image and imitate. The ation denotes a process of creating an image in the mind. Leading us therefor to imagination. Equally interesting is the connection to imitate, suggesting that we are not so much creating from scratch, as much as we are recreating from an available image bank of past observations. Not so different than a graphics designer who freely creates, but is limited to known color schema, stock art, stock photos, and even past designs that they wish to build upon by imitation.

I think we can look at this process unfold with the history of music, and art deco, among many other creative, imaginative pursuits.

However, one must consider the possibility that not all processes of imitative imagery necessarily arise from physical observations. Six billion people on the planet with most of them aware of Campbells Soup Cans. But for some strange reason Andy Warhol decided to change the branded colors and place them 4-up. Why?

If we are all generally considered to be pretty much wired in the same way, as is the case with A.I., why then would we not all have previously considered the very obvious result that only Warhol was privileged to compile?

I propose there is more to imagination than simply pulling together an assortment of available artwork, and forming it into a new image. I propose the notion of aesthetics as a matter of taste… and a taste that is compiled from beyond our social upbringing and cultural influences. Possibly a taste from beyond the realm of past physical observation. A warehouse of available aesthetics nonetheless, but one of cosmic proportions. Much akin to the psychedelic visions described by Terrence McKenna during a DMT episode.

Terrence describes the DMT realm as one inhabited by unearthly creatures made completely out of language. He asks them to show him baroque decor, and they answer by providing him with the entire baroque collection of the cosmos, beyond any notion of simplistic baroque that mankind has ever imagined before. The point being, that we may in fact be dialing in to a larger body(less) essence of aesthetics than what we could ever hope to trump up from our own limited experiences.

I believe the function of imagination in the human mind is a direct result of language development, whereby the cognitive machinery to conceptualize the world in abstracts, and specifically futuristic scenario-based abstracts, was developed via natural selection as a means to better negotiate within human relationships, which are typed as: communality, dominance, reciprocity, and sexuality. In short – the mind has developed the ability to envision the future such that it can “try on” different scenarios beforehand. This is a uniquely human attribute, and profoundly reduces human effort (and risk) to achieve results that sets him apart from his competition.

If you want a detailed, easy to understand, and not so current but profoundly intelligent writing of what philosophers and neuroscientists think – see Daniel Dennett’s work. His Consciousness Explained (1991) seems the logical choice, but I think it a bit wordy. He summarized it all much better in his masterpiece Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (1995). I would be interested if anyone has a more current work that is relevant and on par with that.

I’ve also heard that our human ability to predict an outcome hailed from our ability to throw an object. Throwing an object requires that we must be capable of imagining an end result. This would predate the language theory, as spoken language is only approximately 30,000 years old. But hunting with spears and tool construction dates to the Paleolithic era.

Brains primarily evolved to be future-predicting engines. To do this, they must simulate potential outcomes of actions, and then determine whether those outcomes are beneficial or not. Imagination is the result of the human brain being hugely powerful, and occasionally simulating potential circumstances that will never actually occur. It has proven to be an evolutionary advantage in many respects, as someone with a vivid imagination can often solve problems in a unique and effective way where a more conventional approach may have failed.

We’d probably have to reverse engineer the entire human brain to find out exactly and be able to design an artificial intelligent being capable of imagination and flashes of genius. Ray Kurzweil thinks it can be done.

Imagination is a mental process, and it can be trained and harnessed for good, ignored, or just treated as a distraction. Imagination is actively nurtured and developed in the creative arts and design. There are several things you can do to develop your imagination. First, develop your abilities at visual mental imagery. This involves such tasks as closing your eyes and consciously imagining an apple, then imagining it turning from red to blue, then being cut into quarters, etc. Stephen Kosslyn from Harvard has written extensively on how visual mental imagery is used:
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=kosslyn+visual+mental+imagery&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&hl=en&cid=5129987901131075135&ei=ITQSTIy0FeWQlwfJhoS_CA&sa=title&ved=0CAgQ8wIwADgA#p
Second, one must develop visual analogical reasoning, the ability to use the visual imagination for problem solving. This technique is described in books such as Design Paradigms, and “Forks, Phonographs…” :
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=wake+design+paradigms&hl=en&cid=6791661021178116283&ei=qTQSTIaEAafolAe_z_XDCA&sa=title&ved=0CAcQ8wIwADgA#p
and
http://www.amazon.com/Forks-Phonographs-Hot-Air-Balloons/dp/019506402X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276261868&sr=8-1

Intelligence and imagination come from a group of processes in the brain that examine all our senses, sort them according to significance and tries to solve the equation. All that remains to be confounded by is the size of the collection of tools we accumulate during our lives to manipulate this equation. The manipulation of this equation that doesn’t result in immidiate action can be considered imagination. What fuels it is your state of mind (ranging from what your senses perceive to a peace of mind that is achieved when you appear to be functioning properly) and the imaginary processes you are capable of.

@mattbrowne: the complexity of the processes needed to reverse engineer the human brain would seem to make AI not only possible but likely long before we fully understand our own brains.

As to the question of whether imagination is under our control, I would say that it is partially under our control. Imagination has to work with something. We choose what things we care to learn about and what we wish to focus our attention on. We can choose to look at ideas of other people and we can make a deliberate search for analogies that may prove useful. In the end, though, that final spark of imagination seems to come from out of nowhere. I know that at least sometimes it occurs at an entirely subconscious level. Have you ever had the experience where you are working on something and not figuring it out and then working on something else and suddenly have the solution suddenly pops into your head. I have had this happen to me (driving seems to be a good time for this to occur) and I know it happens to others.

Discovering how imagination works is one of the great outstanding problems in science. The neo-Luddite in me hopes that the discovery is never made. Having robots do bookkeeping and playing chess is one thing. Having them write novels and win the Nobel Prize is something else.

@Christian95 short answer my friend, you either have it or not… using my imagination here!

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies has it pretty much right, I think. The imaginative process depends on two conditions—what you know and what the requirement of the situation is. Imagination is merely solving problems. This is not obvious because we don’t always see the problem someone is solving.

The what you know part is very important. The more you know, the more “creatively” you can think. That is, because you have a significant breadth of knowledge, you can bring together ideas from widely different disciplines in order to create a solution to a problem. People who are experts solve problems in a different way. They tend to use the esoteric knowledge of their discipline to create solutions.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies uses the example of aesthetics. The hidden problem here is aesthetics, itself. How do I create an image and color it and texture it in such a way that I can convey the idea I want to convey? That’s for visual art. It’s the same for the other arts. We are asking ourselves how to communicate something using the tools we want to use (whether expert or not).

Sometimes we just play around with our tools. Art just happens as a result of this play (experimentation).

Anyone can do it if they give themselves permission to try.

My son gave me a problem the other day. He needed to build an egg protection contraption. They were going to drop the egg from the second story of some building. Most people used their knowledge of cushioning and slowing mechanisms. They used cotton balls and parachutes.

I thought of an idea involving rubber bands. I started messing with them. My son brought a box that was the maximum size the protection mechanism could be. Using a box, twelve rubber bands (some were shorter than others), a few cotton balls, a large plastic Easter egg (big enough to contain the egg with about ½ inch of space around it), and eight pencil stubs, I created a pretty cool egg protection mechanism that worked.

Today, riding my bike to work, I had a concussive blowout. I discovered that my tire had worn though so if I put in another tube, it would blow out in moments. Using two tire levers, a fresh tube and a flat head screwdriver (from my tool kit which contained no knives), I solved my problem.

Imagination is a function of knowledge and problem.

umm.. I think that imagination comes from something innate that we can’t control and partly from the things we are exposed to. For instance, like tv shows and movies. To let ur imagination run wild you should look at random art with colors and different shapes and designs or pictures of dead people. Things like that. Also, read up on stuff. Read poetry or books with strong descriptions.

I think imagination comes from how our brains are wired and our experiences. I saw this special on 20/20 that featured a sevant man who could multiply and divide large numbers in his mind, and memorize long strands of numbers. In his mind numbers were shapes and sizes, and he could figure out a math problem by the new shape that was created. I mean it really is almost impossible for us to understand I think. His brain scans show that when he figures a problem his entire brain is lighting up, where most of us would be using the part of our brain trained for math.

I have also read that people with high IQ’s acheive it because they have a good filing system in their brains and connect one piece of information to other pieces. So, when they need to recall information they are very good at retrieving what they have learned, because they can access it several ways, through several paths. Also, since they are able to relate things, when presented with a problem, they use information previously learned to deduce a possible solution or answer, utilize logic, to solve a problem that they may never had much experience with previously. I think this accounts for why many times fluther threads go down tangents, because when the collective thinks aof a particular topic, it springs to our minds many other related topics.

I think imagination, people with amazingly creative imaginations, also use more of their brains, and the different areas are connected, very connected. When they look at something they can imagine it differently than just how it actually is presented in black and white. I believe you can practice being imaginative, try to train your brain, create connections. Spending time with imaginative people; learning, listening to how they think about things, I think a person can expand their ability to be imaginative. But, being able to see numbers as colors and shapes probably can’t be learned, there are limits probably.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies It may be that there is some link to a divine creative force that guides and sets apart our true creative geniuses, but we really don’t need to postulate one to explain the depth and bredth of human creative expression. Our flesh-and-blood brains should be quite adequate to the task. The human brain contains between 100 and 500 trillion synapses.

Also, the symbolic language of the brain that would be applied to artistic creativity is incredibly rich. We can see how a rich symbolic system leads to a large number of possibilities by looking at snetence production in English. The average English word has 9 synonyms. Of course, some major nouns and verbs have many, many more while articles and pronouns may have less, but the average is 10 ways to say a single word idea.

As a sentence is constructed, the ways in which an ide can be expressed grow exponentially larger with each additional word. We have 10 choices for the first word. With ten additional choices for the second word, there are 100 possible two-word phrases. 100×10 = 1000 three-word phrases for the same idea. English sentences with 20 words are not uncommon. And a 20 word sentence could express the same basic idea in 10^20 ways. That is 1 followed by 20 zeros, or one hundred million trillion.

I am sure that the limits on creative art, with its richness of strokes, colors, and textures; and being limited only by the size of the canvas; is huge beyond counting.

How does imagination work?

Well, just push your ears together and SQEEZE really hard.