So, if an imagining cannot exist without being informed by reality, it must carry information about the nature of reality with it (even though imaginings can be so very fanciful, compared to what is necessary for living beings to survive and thrive). But then, why do we take a bit of reality and imagine with it, even when we don't have physical experience with what we imagine? Reasoning the way an evolutionist researcher does when he finds bones, teeth, hair, etc.: What is the purpose of the human imagination and what does that in turn tell us about ourselves?
On human imagination and human imaginings... part 2 of 2
(As I explained in posts between my part 1 & 2, I am speaking of the principle of purpose, but not necessarily in terms of teleology --thought I am not making the arbitrary mistake of ruling out ultimate purpose. I am speaking of this principle as one in common between evolutionist and creationist research in order to detemine why attributes of living beings exist, as a clue to origins and understanding how life fits together in the here and now. For "purpose," one could substitute, "functional relationship," or "orientation" between a being and all with which a being interacts, or which in any way is a part of its environment.)
So, with that in mind, what is the purpose of the imagination? What does that tell us about our environment and about ourselves?
Imagination, why?: In order for us to understand what exists and to interact and function with what exists, volitionally and creatively. And why do we imagine, exactly what we imagine? Because those things we imagine, are rooted in reality and matter to us. I think that just about all readers will agree that the environment that we navigate by means of our imagination includes the physical world around us, so I won't go on about that. But certainly, in the "imagining of our hearts" all sorts of matters are felt and considered, accurate and inaccurate, matters having to do with not only "material" things, but with other beings and events and a panoply of abstractions and emotions about it all. If I'd start to describe that, I'd loose all but the most gracious reader and I may have to reach for the aspirin bottle myself, even if I did have a good sleep last night.
That's nice. Then, what is the whole reality upon which our real imagination reflects? Well, I'll ask it this way: What kinds of things constitute the fulsome or holistic set of realistic imaginations that you have? If your imagination is a reflection of reality (accurately or not, from one moment to the next) and your imaginations deal not only with what you experience as physical reality, what is the rest? Is the rest to be declared "unreal" simply because you have no direct experience with it, while someone else may have? Even when imagination is used by a scientist for the purpose of formulating his next physical experiment, he needs his imagination to get to the truth. Clearly, we need our imaginations, in order to understand as much reality as we may, as well or as faultily as we may. Clearly, this reality includes matters with which, in one way or another, we are beyond having objective experience, at the time we imagine them -- or we would not have had the abilty to conceive of the experiments we have thus far made, to determine what we have found. I won't say there aren't other uses, but this one I'll emphasize: Whether by postulate or by a wild imaginary swing of intuition, imagination is for meeting what is beyond our previous experience and comprehension.
So, we need our very real imagination, in order to grasp real things beyond our objective experience --because they matter to us.
Now, what are the things that matter most, to us? Clearly, what is most important to you is what relates to you. So what is most relational to you? Now I'm getting to your empirical dream/vision/experience, ms. boop. To beg the question, it dealt with spiritual beings, beings not of our space/time/energy. But as you best among FReepers know, these two 'characters,' real as I believe them to be, were not the subject or chief substance of your vision any more than the house slave was the essense of "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," that you memorized. The subject and essense of this opus done with betty b's real conscious self, and her real imaginative heart is a person, abundantly clear -- and one who claimed not only to be a person but who claimed to be PERSON.
Oops, did I just beg the question? But, how much did I, to say that? betty says that she had an experience which her conscious self knew to be real. Her consciousness is very well practiced in distinguishing between reality and fantasy and this was so real and experiential to her conscious self that it would be dishonest for her to deny it. Her consciousness is an objective reality, and her imagination is too, and both testify to her that this was empirical in the realms of what each deals with. Furthermore, it made perfect, functional sense to her after the experience ended, though she doesn't comprehend every single facet of it (just the way we don't comprehend every single facet of anything else we experience).
To go a step further, did this experience effect what most matters to betty, what is most relational to her? That's what she says and she's the one who had the experience.
Now, others have had similar experiences and the problem is that not all of these experiences are consistent with each other. By testimony, these such experiences have been with various kinds of messengers and voices and many messages have been at odds with many others, a major breakdown. But there is a set of these experiences which are consistent with each other and which are a part of a system of understanding which would say that counterfeit spirits also exist, which will also effect humans directly. (Further, there are many other evidences and corroborated testimonies which have supported this particularly consistent set of experiences and understanding, and no evidences which disprove it.)
Why would the part of betty which deals with maintaining what she knows and separating this from what she does not know (conscious) and the part of her which deals with reflecting upon what is relationally most important to her (imagination) tell her that she had a real, knowing, and unique experience about exactly what is most important to her?
As we have heard from many witnesses, there is a person... the person... I should really just say, there is PERSON (as Descartes should have appreciated, calls Himself "I AM THAT I AM"). He claims to be THE CONSCIOUS, THE IMAGINATION, who fills heaven and earth, yet is not of this world, who is beyond beginning and end, and who is beyond our comprehension but (listen scientists) who claims to reveal and convey His matter to those who accept it. Ever wonder as I used to, what in the Sam Hill this "glory" is, that seems such a word of self-aggrandizement and megalomania by this Deity, when we are told in something called the "Holy Bible" that all of what we do is only to be of and for God's glory? Megalomaniacal? Hardly. Glory means "matter" in ancient Hebrew -- a good dictionary will say "weight." In the Bible, when God's glory is addressed, it is concomitant with pure light. This insertion of meaning would tell us that since all is His, as betty b's dream attests, we are only in our thoroughly right conscious mind and only have the right, fulsome framework for the functions of imagination and all that is "us" when we accept His substance in the picture (all of the picture). His is the very substance of being by which we were created to relationally commune, individually as certain as a child is from his parents, and collectively as certainly as a bride is of and for her husband and vice versa.
How would the relationship between CONSCIOUS and our conscious, IMAGINATION and our imagination connect? Directly maybe? I'd say so. Stuff like physical "matter," energy and ultimately perhaps even time would just get in the way of this kind of relationship, though it is affirmed in this relationship that the bridge to the physical world was thoroughly crossed as well, glory to God.
Sigh. There, I did it, I blurted out the gospel... shoot... well something about the nature of the good news, anyway.
We may believe and know as a much underrated empiricist with direct much direct experience named John ben Zebedee emphasized again and again, that God is CONSCIOUS BEING and has all the right PRETERNATURAL STUFF (GLORY) and accepting Him and His experientially conveyed data beats the alternative, to say the least. Furthermore, like us (whodathunkit?) what He creates, He creates from His IMAGINATION, a very real imagination creating a whole bunch of stuff that is very real on a whole bunch of levels, in a whole bunch of ways, but a bunch of stuff that is consistent and has integrity, as He is and has.
There exists no other 'philosophy' which deals with every bit of who we persons are and every bit of what we relate to and how, and which is not disproven but maintained by every kind of study (all kinds of humble and intellectually honest study). The truth is out there. The truth is here. Truth happens.
So, it is wonderful and important to study how fossils lay in the strata of the earth and how DNA is processed and what the implications of this may be, and so it is, to study the levels and interplay of the great dance within the Russian dolls of quantum mechanics, and of what layers and substances make up man himself, but what "matters" most?
Well, what mattered most in betty b's dream?
There is a subjectivity upon which all our objectivity depends.
Arlen - unspun
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PS: In addition to conscious and imagination, I've referred to "intention," in the above (volition, will) as have others. But, I haven't found much treatment of human consicience in this thread (thought I haven't read every bit of it). There is a thread running in FR about God, morality, and human conscience -- Morality: Who Needs God -- more on the many traits of man, having to do with his spiritually relational life, meant for the relationship that matters most.