The imaginable
January 30th 2007 09:19
Want to move a piano into your bathroom? You can mentally walk through potential problems. Want to know the diameter of a CD? You can mentally measure it (12.5cm). And there's long been believed a connection between imaginings and bodies. Consider the pre-emptive way athletes envisage their performance.
Now, it seems, also, that we can summon subjective experience and manipulate the result, as if the mind could run computer simulations. You can imagine Adriana Lima firing a machine gun; you can envisage a table, and add legs, change colour, increase size. Such things are the bread and butter of mnemonics, and of acting.
But two comments on manipulations.
Firstly, a suspicion. Questions of free will aside, is it true that you can change the colour of the table? Do you have the power to transform subjective experience at all? And if you do, is your power as extensive as you think?
When you mentally cut and paste (say, to create mermaids and dragons), are these operations carried out cleanly and vividly? Are our imaginings and dreams closer to a rotoscoped reality? Could it be true that we can only cut and paste physically, with pen and paper, paintbrush and canvas?
When we transform, do we actually transform, or is this a process of memory? Are all the shades of table different tables?
Might we be restricted to what we've actually experienced?
Secondly, a warning. Even if you can transform in these ways, one shouldn't confuse the imaginable with the empirically possible.
This is Spinoza's take on Zeno.
For imaginable but impossible, think of any dream -- metamorphosing into falcons or walking on the sun. All thought experiments are inherently dodgy. The brain isn't the most accurate place to run simulations.
But perhaps such fantasies do tell us something. They tell us that it wouldn't be so strange if we saw someone changing into a falcon or walking on the sun. We often (always?) attempt to understand concepts by way of our senses, and this includes subjecting them to whatever rules we govern our senses by. And in the case of falcon and sun, there's seemingly no violation of rules of seeing. There's no violation of whatever parameters we're feeding into our mental models.
Regarding possible but unimaginable, whatever are the limitations of ordinary sense perception would seem to be the limitations of subjective experience. And "the understanding does not derive its laws (a priori) from, but prescribes them to, nature."
Think of the weird world that quantum mechanics is interpreted as describing -- where things can both be and not be at the same time. Or think of pure extension as distinct from any particular extended object. Or think of infinity or pure nothing.
In these cases, our conceptual instruments reach beyond us. Mathematics, ontology, picture a world that we can't.
And if there's any instinctive reaction that quantum is impossible, it might stem from violation of sensory rules. To put this another way, our sensory rules are an embodied belief and a natural, internal barometer of possibility.
After all, most people wouldn't be similarly skeptical of the chance of a new colour, though this is equally unimaginable. Whatever is violated in the case of quantum is intact for colour.
Notes
-- The Kant quote came from Prolegomena to any future metaphysics (1783), section 36, in James W Ellington's 1972 revision of Paul Carus' 1902 translation.
-- The Spinoza quote came from his letter to Lewis Meyer, dated 20 April 1663. The translation is an 1883 one by RHM Elwes. For other passages in Spinoza where he alludes to the intellect and imagination distinction, cf: Ethics (1676) I.xv.note, II.xlviii.note, II.xlix.note, IV.i.note. William Hale White, in another 1883 translation, writes (at page vii): "Thought is generally considered, or at least is generally considered by Englishmen, to be limited by the imagination. What cannot be depicted before the eye of the mind is simply nothing... Spinoza, insisting on the power of thought to go beyond the imagination, is really claiming no more than the orthodox Christian creeds claim from the humblest of believers."
-- Spinoza also cautions against interpretation of experience -- the old bent stick in water.
-- Regarding the possibility of a "round square", Spinoza thought this was ruled out by the intellect, and not just the imagination (and even God can't imagine it -- being of perfect intellect, he can't make hypotheses). "[W]hen we know the nature of the circle and the square, it is impossible for us to blend together these two figures, and to hypothesize a square circle, any more than a square soul, or things of that kind." -- On the improvement of the understanding, Elwes' translation
-- Regarding the ability to transform subjective experience at all, my suspicion runs counter to Hume. In the Enquiry concerning human understanding, in the second chapter, he writes: "Suppose... a person perfectly acquainted with colours of all kinds, except one particular shade of blue... Let all the different shades of that colour, except that single one, be placed before him, descending gradually from the deepest to the lightest; it is plain, that he will perceive a blank, where that shade is wanting... Now I ask, whether it be possible for him, from his own imagination, to supply this deficiency, and raise up to himself the idea of that particular shade, thought it had never been conveyed to him by his senses? I believe there are few but will be of opinion that he can: and this may serve as a proof, that the simple ideas are not always, in every instance, derived from the correspondent impressions..."
-- This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia articles Baruch Spinoza and Immanuel Kant. The Matrix image came from this website, and the mix-and-match face from this website.
Now, it seems, also, that we can summon subjective experience and manipulate the result, as if the mind could run computer simulations. You can imagine Adriana Lima firing a machine gun; you can envisage a table, and add legs, change colour, increase size. Such things are the bread and butter of mnemonics, and of acting.
But two comments on manipulations.
***
Firstly, a suspicion. Questions of free will aside, is it true that you can change the colour of the table? Do you have the power to transform subjective experience at all? And if you do, is your power as extensive as you think?
When we transform, do we actually transform, or is this a process of memory? Are all the shades of table different tables?
Might we be restricted to what we've actually experienced?
***
Secondly, a warning. Even if you can transform in these ways, one shouldn't confuse the imaginable with the empirically possible.
This is Spinoza's take on Zeno.
| [T]here are many things which cannot be conceived through the imagination but only through the understanding, for instance, substance, eternity, and the like; thus, if anyone tries to explain such things by means of conceptions which are mere aids to the imagination, he is simply assisting his imagination to run away with him... To make the matter yet more clear, take the following example: when a man conceives of duration abstractedly, and, confusing it with time, begins to divide it into parts, he will never be able to understand how an hour, for instance, can elapse. For in order than an hour should elapse, it is necessary that its half should elapse first, and afterwards half of the remainder, and again half of the half of the remainder, and if you go on thus to infinity, subtracting the half of the residue, you will never be able to arrive at the end of the hour. |
***
For imaginable but impossible, think of any dream -- metamorphosing into falcons or walking on the sun. All thought experiments are inherently dodgy. The brain isn't the most accurate place to run simulations.
But perhaps such fantasies do tell us something. They tell us that it wouldn't be so strange if we saw someone changing into a falcon or walking on the sun. We often (always?) attempt to understand concepts by way of our senses, and this includes subjecting them to whatever rules we govern our senses by. And in the case of falcon and sun, there's seemingly no violation of rules of seeing. There's no violation of whatever parameters we're feeding into our mental models.
Immanuel Kant
Think of the weird world that quantum mechanics is interpreted as describing -- where things can both be and not be at the same time. Or think of pure extension as distinct from any particular extended object. Or think of infinity or pure nothing.
In these cases, our conceptual instruments reach beyond us. Mathematics, ontology, picture a world that we can't.
And if there's any instinctive reaction that quantum is impossible, it might stem from violation of sensory rules. To put this another way, our sensory rules are an embodied belief and a natural, internal barometer of possibility.
After all, most people wouldn't be similarly skeptical of the chance of a new colour, though this is equally unimaginable. Whatever is violated in the case of quantum is intact for colour.
***
Notes
-- The Kant quote came from Prolegomena to any future metaphysics (1783), section 36, in James W Ellington's 1972 revision of Paul Carus' 1902 translation.
-- The Spinoza quote came from his letter to Lewis Meyer, dated 20 April 1663. The translation is an 1883 one by RHM Elwes. For other passages in Spinoza where he alludes to the intellect and imagination distinction, cf: Ethics (1676) I.xv.note, II.xlviii.note, II.xlix.note, IV.i.note. William Hale White, in another 1883 translation, writes (at page vii): "Thought is generally considered, or at least is generally considered by Englishmen, to be limited by the imagination. What cannot be depicted before the eye of the mind is simply nothing... Spinoza, insisting on the power of thought to go beyond the imagination, is really claiming no more than the orthodox Christian creeds claim from the humblest of believers."
-- Spinoza also cautions against interpretation of experience -- the old bent stick in water.
-- Regarding the possibility of a "round square", Spinoza thought this was ruled out by the intellect, and not just the imagination (and even God can't imagine it -- being of perfect intellect, he can't make hypotheses). "[W]hen we know the nature of the circle and the square, it is impossible for us to blend together these two figures, and to hypothesize a square circle, any more than a square soul, or things of that kind." -- On the improvement of the understanding, Elwes' translation
-- Regarding the ability to transform subjective experience at all, my suspicion runs counter to Hume. In the Enquiry concerning human understanding, in the second chapter, he writes: "Suppose... a person perfectly acquainted with colours of all kinds, except one particular shade of blue... Let all the different shades of that colour, except that single one, be placed before him, descending gradually from the deepest to the lightest; it is plain, that he will perceive a blank, where that shade is wanting... Now I ask, whether it be possible for him, from his own imagination, to supply this deficiency, and raise up to himself the idea of that particular shade, thought it had never been conveyed to him by his senses? I believe there are few but will be of opinion that he can: and this may serve as a proof, that the simple ideas are not always, in every instance, derived from the correspondent impressions..."
-- This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia articles Baruch Spinoza and Immanuel Kant. The Matrix image came from this website, and the mix-and-match face from this website.
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Comment by katyzzz
Photography Tips
MS Paint Art
making all things impossible but at the same time also possible.
Have you heard of the astigmatic frog, who never quite gets to the line by leaping 1/2 of the remaining distance and again etc etc and so forth, much the same as the initial analogy you drew.
The infinite wisdom of God, Nature, the Almighty and man's attempts to understand which should not be dicouraged.
Along with original sin, have you heard of original thought, such things was Einstein made of.
Mentally stimulating Adrian, but insoluble just the same. I chose that instead of insolvable, don't know why, the playfulness of the mind.
Well done,
katyzzz
Comment by Damo
Certainly interesting
Square circles not possible?
Yep I can dig it.
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Yep, the frog is a version of Zeno's paradox.
Dunno if Zeno used the frog analogy himself... I think he used (or, at any rate, these are the stock examples): Achilles and the tortoise; and the arrow that never reaches its target.
Well, which question did you have in mind as unsolvable?
Thanks for the comment!
Dear Damo,
Yep I can dig it.
I've never asked a mathematician or physicist about this one, but I wouldn't exclude the possibility that Spinoza was wrong, and that such a thing is possible but unimaginable.
Perhaps there's some weird multi-dimensional non-Euclidean geometry out threre where you can get circular triangles and triangular circles...
Comment by Adrienne
Comment by Cibbuano
Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak
Maybe you could invent a plane like that, but it's beyond me - the 90 deg corner of the square supercedes all.
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Obvious follow-up question: could you imagine one where a circle could be squared, but a square wouldn't remain a square?
Comment by KylieW
Celebrity Obsession
I LOVE Zeno's paradox of the half hour. It makes total sense, and yet....an hour does end.
I'm going to take some panadol now
Comment by Damo
A circle is a concept not an item.
Maths only describes it but we can never draw it.
Hence a circle can only exist in two dimension and not in twenty. QED.
Change its parameters and it ceases to be a circle.
A rose by any other name is still a rose.
Comment by JoshZ
Loved the post.
What is related to his kind of thinking is the trend of worldwide invention to have a disturbingly similar time table. The steam engine for example is the best example I know of of this phenomonon.
But back to the point......
As far as our imagination shaping our reality I will admit that I think it is possible. People change the world every day with their dreams.
JZ
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
But in order to take the panadol, you have to travel to the kitchen, but you can't do that until you travel halfway to the kitchen, and you can't do that until you travel a quarter of the way...
Dear Damo,
Maths only describes it but we can never draw it.
Hence a circle can only exist in two dimension and not in twenty. QED.
Change its parameters and it ceases to be a circle.
I was out of my mathematical depth in this discussion before I wrote the first word.
But riddle me this: if a concept is not an item, then what is it? Why should there be anything that's not an item?
Dear Josh,
Your comment links to questions of the nature of subjective experience, and the nature of free will.
I suppose, the bottom line, is that I pretty much agree with you. With this caveat: I don't think that eveything that is possible is imaginable, and that everything that is imaginable is possible.