[Xmca-l] Re: Imagination

[Robert Lake]

Hi Annalisa,
You are not alone in suggesting the role of  metaphoric process in
generative imagination (which can take us
beyond reflective imagination).  To illustrate the difference between these
two aspects, I think about  how the early Bob Dylan sounded and looked like
Woody Guthrie, but after he wrote songs like* Blowin in the Wind*  and*
Positively 4th Street  he was "in his own house"  *to quote Neil Young
describing Jimi Hendrix. Consider the origin of the word metaphor itself:
Late 15th century: from French *métaphore*, via Latin from Greek *metaphora*,
from* metapherein* ‘to transfer.’
As Vera stated, metaphor unites disparate images, bridges  old concepts in
ways that create newly fashioned ones.


I have not posted anything since I posed a question about the role of
subconscious or even unconscious processes in higher levels of
consciousness. I know that Henry S. might have been worried that I was a
follower of Jungian collective racial memory or some such thing. Not really
but I do think that imagination and  creative problem solving can occur at
times in subconscious metaphoric processes. Consider the chapter linked
here from Arnold Modell's *Imagination and the Meaningful Brain.* He quotes
from the Einstein and his colleague Hadamard and a few others to support
his suggestions.

http://www.bostonneuropsa.net/PDF%20Files/Imagination%20and%20the%20Meaningful%20Brain%20-%20A.%20Modell%20-%20Chapter%202.pdf


*Robert Lake*

On Sat, Dec 13, 2014 at 7:54 PM, Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu> wrote:
>
> Esteemed discussants,
>
> Having finished the paper, and considering Mike's comments, I might
> suggest that metaphorical reasoning is an essential engine to imagination,
> and I wonder if I say that because impressions taken of the perceived
> object as it presents itself to me (the Big Dipper) is the identical to
> taking the object as a product of seeing-as (a star constellation as a Big
> Dipper), is the identical to taking the object to represent something else
> entirely (such as Wittgenstein's triangle as a mountain, as an arrow, etc.,
> or a flag to represent a nation).
>
> In other words, that imagination begins as a perceptual process which then
> develops into metaphorical reasoning and perhaps continues on to more
> complex forms of imagining and conceptual renderings. There is definitely a
> dynamic relationship to perception and imagination.
>
> If metaphor isn't THE essential engine, it must serve as a priming process
> (arising from embodied experience in the world), possibly in the same way
> the gesture manifests into the word and its meaning. At least that's how I
> see it at the moment...even though I'm only looking at pixels on my screen
> as I write this...
>
> (Thinking out loud, but I hope not too loud).
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Annalisa
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> on behalf of mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu>
> Sent: Saturday, December 13, 2014 2:02 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Imagination
>
> Here are some questions I have after reading Strawson and Williams.
>
> Kant et al (including Russian developmentalists whose work i am trying to
> mine for empirical
> strategies and already-accumulated results) speak of productive
> imagination. The Russians write that productive imagination develops.
>
> At first I thought that the use of productive implies that there must be a
> kind of ​imagination called UNproductive imagination. But I learned that
> instead the idea of RE-productive imagination appears and is linked to
> memory.
>
> So, it seems that imagination is an ineluctable part of anticipation and
> memory.
> Imagine that!
> mike
>
> On Sat, Dec 13, 2014 at 12:16 PM, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Strawson provides a long view historically on imagination (starting with
> > Hume and Kant), Williams a more contemporaneous look, and provides a
> space
> > for imagination not afforded by the socio-cultural as fixed. This,
> coupled
> > with Pelaprat and Cole on Gap/Imagination, gives me a ground to take part
> > in the thread on imagination. Of course, I start with preconceptions:
> Vera
> > on creative collaboration and the cognitive grammarian Langacker on
> > symbolic assemblies in discourse and cognitive domains, particularly the
> > temporal. Everyday discourse, it seems to me, is full of imagination and
> > creativity. I am terribly interested in two aspects of temporality:
> > sequence and rhythm (including tempo and rhythmic structure), which I
> think
> > must both figure in imagination and creativity, for both individual and
> > distributed construals of cognition and feeling.
> > Henry
> >
> > > On Dec 13, 2014, at 12:01 PM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > Henry, Mike, and others interested in this topic.
> > >
> > > I too see the affinities with notions of the third *space* and the
> > analogy
> > > to *gap-filling*
> > > I am on holiday so limited access to internet.
> > > However, I wanted to mention Raymond Williams and his notion of
> > "structures
> > > of feeling" that David K references. This notion is explored under the
> > > notion of historical *styles* that exist as a *set* of modalities that
> > hang
> > > together.  This notion suggests there is a form of knowing that is
> > forming
> > > but has not yet formed [but can be "felt" [perceived??] if we think
> > > imaginatively.  Raymond explores the imaginal as *style*
> > > Larry
> > > On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 4:38 PM, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >>
> > >> Mike and Larry,
> > >> I promise to read your profer, but just want to say how jazzed up I am
> > now
> > >> about this thread. My mind has been going wild, the mind as Larry
> > construes
> > >> it. I ended up just now with a triad, actually various triads, finally
> > >> found my old friend Serpinski. Part now of my notebooks of the mind,
> as
> > >> Vera would construe it. I’ll be back! Gap adentro, luega pa’ fuera.
> > >> Fractally yours,
> > >> Henry
> > >>
> > >>> On Dec 12, 2014, at 5:09 PM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>> For those interested in the imagination thread, attached are two
> > articles
> > >>> by philosophers who have worried about the issue.
> > >>>
> > >>> My current interest stems from the work of CHAT theorists like
> > >> Zaporozhets
> > >>> and his students who studied the development of imagination in a
> manner
> > >>> that, it turns out, goes back to Kant's notion of productive
> > >> imagination. I
> > >>> am not advocating going back to Kant, and have no intention of doing
> > so.
> > >>> But these ideas seem worth pursuing as explicated in the attached
> > texts.
> > >>>
> > >>> Through reading the Russians and then these philosophers, I came upon
> > the
> > >>> idea that perception and imagination are very closely linked at
> several
> > >>> levels of analysis. This is what, in our naivete, Ettienne and I
> argued
> > >> in
> > >>> our paper on imagination sent around earlier as a means of access to
> > the
> > >>> work of the blind-deaf psychologist, Alexander Suvorov. Moreover,
> such
> > >>> views emphasize the future orientation of the perception/imagination
> > >>> process. I believe that these views have direct relevance to Kris's
> > paper
> > >>> to be found on the KrisRRQ thread, and also speak to concerns about
> the
> > >>> role of different forms of symbolic play in development.
> > >>>
> > >>> So here are the papers on the imagination thread. Perhaps they will
> > prove
> > >>> useful for those interested.
> > >>> mike
> > >>>
> > >>> --
> > >>> It is the dilemma of psychology to deal with a natural science with
> an
> > >>> object that creates history. Ernst Boesch.
> > >>> <Imagination and Perception by P.F. Strawson.pdf>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> >
> >
> >
>
> --
> It is the dilemma of psychology to deal with a natural science with an
> object that creates history. Ernst Boesch.
>
>

-- 

*Robert Lake  Ed.D.*Associate Professor
Social Foundations of Education
Dept. of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading
Georgia Southern University
Secretary/Treasurer-AERA- Paulo Freire Special Interest Group
P. O. Box 8144
Phone: (912) 478-0355
Fax: (912) 478-5382
Statesboro, GA  30460