[JmyBryan]

The human mind with all its fantastic representations of reality is part of the universe. Those representations that seem to us to "make common sense" or fit are the most "real" or useful. Dreams, images, fantasies, whatever you wish to call them, are the bases of the hypotheses that are then measured and tested regarding their scientific accuracy or reality or usefulness. There is no way of knowing, without indulging a fantasy, whether it is useful or not.

[betty boop]

Dreams, images, fantasies, whatever you wish to call them, are the bases of the hypotheses that are then measured and tested regarding their scientific accuracy or reality or usefulness. There is no way of knowing, without indulging a fantasy, whether it is useful or not.

I don't disagree with these statements, JmyBryan. My objection was to any supposed equivalency of fantasy and illusion. I meant to suggest that these two varieties of imaginative experience are not the same thing. As an imaginative exercise, the former is grounded in the structures of actual being; the latter is an attempt to evade or circumvent those structures.

From what I can see, it appears a scientific inquiry predicated on the latter is an exercise in futility. In other words, if the purpose of science and other modes of human inquiry is to investigate and articulate the nature and laws of what is Real, then the imaginative play of fantasy may be a useful "tool." But to indulge in flights of illusion is to refute one's own purpose.

In other words, a fantasy may be "real," in the same way a myth can be a "true myth." But an illusion is, by definition, necessarily false. I admit the point may be a tad abstruse. And probably practically no one cares about it anyway. Oh, well.... Perhaps I've just been wandering too long in the fields of metaphysics and ontology. :^)

Thank you for writing, JmyBryan. I don't think we "disagree" as much as it might appear, on the surface. best, bb.