From the work of Piaget it is known that perceptions depend on the world view of a person. The world view is the result of arranging perceptions into existing imagery by imagination. Piaget cites the example of a child saying that the moon is following her when she walks around the village at night. Like this perceptions are integrated into the world view to make sense. Imagination is needed to make sense of perceptions.It clearly signifies that we form our perceptions based on imagination and hence when we are dealing with an object,imagination can take precedence over our existing knowledge of things.Perhaps this could be the reason of so many poets,writers and painters with more imaginative powers have been able to make sense of mundane and ordinary things surrounding us.
Its also well known that things normally happen twice,'Once in the mind and second time in reality'.So we create some images in the subconcious mind and then do those things consciously.Seems logical.
The greatest example in Imagination for me are the people who wrote the ancient texts in different religions.They have created such a document through scriptures and other texts that majority of us find it difficult to even question them and fight over them inspite of the strong scientific evolutions and marvels.
Infact ,research has also proved that some of the instances mentioned in those books seem to be true through rigorous experiments.For eg. astronomical calculations to prove that Mahabharata war did happen based on the eclipse timing and all.There is a simple explanation to this phenomenon :-
Apples used to fall since time immemorial.It was Newton who suddenly got this insight that all this is due to a force called 'Gravity' and explained its nature and behaviour.So all these texts and body of knowledge could be mere imaginary creations but they form the very basis of the Knowledge that we all live upon.Perhaps Philosophy is nothing more than imagining a different or better world and Wisdom is something that we all gain through more imagination in our experiences.
A better imagination can overrule the existing knowledge as has happened in the case of the crisis of 2008 where people created imaginary financial products,profits and what not for years together inspite of the knowledge that it was not sustainable.
2 comments:
I really liked your example of 2008 financial crisis. I never thought that event from this perspective. However I was a little lost while trying to understand the historical epics and their relationship with Newton's example (Sorry for my low IQ level :))
Ya ..its a bit lateral thinking :)
What I mean is that the Indian epics have something that can also be called as general truths from observation just like falling of apple.Now you call a new dimension gravity to justify or not is your wish.Similarly the epics will stand true with their set of observations on human behaviour.
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