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Imagination is the production of sense, feelings and thoughts informing Self. These experiences can be re-creations of past experiences, such as vivid memories with imagined changes, or completely invented and possibly fantastic scenes. Imagination helps apply knowledge to solve problems and is fundamental to integrating experience and the learning process.
Imagination is the process of developing theories and ideas based on the functioning of the mind through a creative division. Drawing from actual perceptions, imagination employs intricate conditional processes that engage both Semantic memory and episodic memory to generate new or refined ideas. This part of the mind helps develop better and easier ways to accomplish tasks, whether old or new.
A way to train imagination is by listening to and practicing storytelling (narrative), wherein imagination is expressed through stories and writings such as , Fantasy, and science fiction. When children develop their imagination, they often exercise it through pretend play. They use role playing to act out what they have imagined, and followingly, they play on by acting as if their make-believe scenarios are actual reality.
One view of imagination links it to cognition, suggesting that imagination is a cognitive process in mental functioning. It is also associated with rational thinking in a way that both imaginative and rational thoughts involve the cognitive process that "underpins thinking about possibilities". However, imagination is not considered to be purely a cognitive activity because it is also linked to the body and place. It involves setting up relationships with materials and people, precluding the notion that imagination is confined to the mind.
The psychological view of imagination relates this concept to a cognate term, "mental imagery," which denotes the process of reviving in the mind recollections of objects previously given in sense perception. Since this use of the term conflicts with that of ordinary language, some psychologists prefer to describe this process as or or to speak of it as "reproductive" as opposed to "productive" or "constructive" imagination. Constructive imagination is further divided into voluntary imagination driven by the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC), such as mental rotation, and involuntary imagination (LPFC-independent), such as REM sleep , daydreaming, hallucinations, and spontaneous insight. In clinical settings, clinicians nowadays increasingly make use of visual imagery for psychological treatment of , depression, schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease.
In Philebus, Plato discusses daydreaming and considers imagination about the future as the work of a painter within the soul. However, Plato portrayed this painter as an illustrator rather than a creator, reflecting his view of imagination as a representational rather than an inventive faculty.
Greek philosophers typically distinguished imagination from perception and rational thinking: "For imagination is different from either perceiving or discursive thinking, though it is not found without sensation, or judgement without it" ( De Anima, iii 3).Aristotle viewed imagination as a faculty that mediates between the and intellect. The mental images it manipulates, whether arising from visions, or sensory perception, were thought to be transmitted through the lower parts of the soul, suggesting that these images could be influenced by emotions and primal desires, thereby confusing the judgement of the intellect.
An epitome of this concept is Geoffrey Chaucer's idea of the "mind's eye" in The Man of Law's Tale from The Canterbury Tales (ca. 1390). He described a man who, although blind, was able to "see" with an "eye of his mind":
"That oon of hem was blynd and myghte not see, / But it were with thilke eyen of his mynde / With whiche men seen, after that they ben blynde."Medieval theories of faculty psychology posited imagination as a faculty of the internal senses (alongside memory and common sense): imagination receives mental images from memory or perception, organizes them, and transmits them to the reasoning faculties, providing the intellect with sense data. In this way, it enables the reshaping of images from sense perception (even in the absence of perception, such as in ), performing a filtering function of reality. Although not attributed the capacity for creations, imagination was thought to combine images received from memory or perception in creative ways, allowing for the invention of novel concepts or expressions. For example, it could fuse images of "gold" and "mountain" to produce the idea of a "golden mountain."
In medieval artistic works, imagination served the role of combining images of perceivable things to portray legendary, mysterious, or extraordinary creatures. This can be seen in the depiction of a Mongolian in the Grandes Chroniques de France(1241), as well as in the portrayal of , , hell, and the apocalypse in Christian religious paintings.
In the 16th and 17th centuries, the connotations of imagination" extended to many areas of early modern civic life. Juan Luis Vives noted the connection between imagination and rhetoric skills. Huarte extended this idea, linking imagination to any disciplines that necessitates "figures, correspondence, harmony, and proportion," such as medical practice and the art of warfare. Additionally, Galileo Galilei used the concept of imagination to conduct thought experiments, such as asking readers to imagine the direction a stone released from a sling would fly.
Immanuel Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason (), viewed imagination () as a faculty of intuition, capable of making "presentations," i.e., sensible representations of objects that are not directly present. Kant distinguished two forms of imagination: productive and reproductive. Productive imagination functions as the original source of the presentation of an object, thus preceding experience; while reproductive imagination generates presentations derived from past , recalling empirical intuitions it previously had. Immanuel Kant's treatise linked imagination to cognition, perception, Aesthetics judgement, artistic creation, and morality.
The Kantian idea prepared the way for Fichte, Schelling and the Romanticism to transform the philosophical understanding of it into an authentic creative force, associated with genius, inventive activity, and freedom. In the work of Hegel, imagination, though not given as much importance as by his predecessors, served as a starting point for the defense of Hegelian phenomenology. Hegel distinguished between a phenomenological account of imagination, which focuses on the lived experience and consciousness, and a scientific, speculative account, which seeks to understand the nature and function of imagination in a systematic and theoretical manner.
Albert Einstein famously said: "Imagination... is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."
Nikola Tesla described imagination as: "When I get an idea I start at once building it up in my imagination. I change the construction, make improvements and operate the device in my mind. It is absolutely immaterial to me whether I run my turbine in thought or test it in my shop. I even note if it is out of balance. There is no difference whatever, the results are the same. In this way I am able to rapidly develop and perfect a conception without touching anything."
The phenomenology of imagination is discussed in (), also published under the title The Psychology of the Imagination, a 1940 book by Jean-Paul Sartre. In this book, Jean-Paul Sartre propounded his concept of imagination, with imaginary objects being "melanges of past impressions and recent knowledge," and discussed what the existence of imagination shows about the nature of human consciousness. Based on Sartre's work, subsequent thinkers extended this idea into the realm of sociology, proposing ideas such as imaginary and the ontology of imagination.John B. Thompson, Studies in the Theory of Ideology (1984) p. 6John R. Searle, The Construction of Social Reality (Penguin 1996) p. 4
In Zhuang Zhou's Taoism, imagination is perceived as a complex mental activity that is championed as a vital form of cognition. It is defended on Empathy grounds but discredited by the rational intellect as only a presentation and fantasy.
Imagination can also contribute to the formation of False memory. For example, when participants read a description of being lost in a shopping mall and were asked to write out and imagine the event, around 25% later recalled it as a real memory, despite it never having occurred. This may be due to similar brain areas being involved in both imagining and remembering, particularly areas associated with Mental image. An fMRI study found that participants who imagined objects after hearing verbal prompts sometimes later falsely remembered seeing them. This was linked to increased activity in the precuneus and Parietal lobe, suggesting that overlap between imagination and perception may lead to memory distortions. Imagination has also been shown to influence memory by increasing a person’s confidence that an imagined event actually occurred, a process known as imagination inflation. When individuals vividly imagine an event they initially believe did not happen, they begin to feel more certain that it did occur, even without supporting evidence. In this way, imagination can blur the line between real and imagined experiences, making it difficult to distinguish between true and False memory.
Visual imagery involves a network of brain areas from the frontal cortex to sensory areas, overlapping with the default mode network, and can function much like a weak version of afferent perception.
A study that used fMRI while subjects were asked to imagine precise visual figures, to mentally disassemble them, or mentally blend them, showed activity in the Occipital lobe, frontoparietal, posterior parietal, precuneus, and dorsolateral prefrontal regions of the subject's brains.
However, while imagination can be a powerful tool for mental health interventions, it may also contribute to Mental distress when dysregulated. Disruptions in imaginative processes are common in schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs) and may play a role in symptoms such as distorted self-perception and altered reality processing. Imagination has also been found to be closely linked to the Self-concept, and disturbances in embodiment may contribute to challenges in self-experience associated with these conditions. Maladaptive daydreaming (MDD) is another example of how imagination can lead to distress when not regulated. Unlike regular daydreaming, MDD is understood as a form of unusual imagination that is vivid and addictive, which often involves fantasizing about an idealized self. Research found that MDD is associated with emotional and functional distress, highlighting the potential impact of excessive imagination.
The philosopher Mark Johnson described it as "[an ability to imaginatively discern various possibilities for acting in a given situation and to envision the potential help and harm that are likely to result from a given action."
In one proposed example, Adolf Hitler's assassin Claus von Stauffenberg was said to have decided to dare to overthrow the Nazi regime as a result (among other factors) of a process of "moral imagination". His willingness to kill Hitler was less due to his compassion for his comrades, his family, or friends living at that time, but from thinking about the potential problems of later generations and people he did not know. In other words, through a process of moral imagination he was able to become concerned for "abstract" people (for example, Germans of later generations, people who were not yet alive, or people outside his reach).
The research fields of artificial imagination traditionally include (artificial) Visual system (2007). 9781595937339, ACM. ISBN 9781595937339 and aural imagination, AUDIO CONTENT TRANSMISSION by Xavier Amatriain & Perfecto Herrera, which extend to all actions involved in forming , , and —activities linked to imagination. Practitioners are also exploring topics such as artificial visual memory, modeling and filtering content based on human , and interactive search. Additionally, there is interest in how artificial imagination may evolve to create an Fantasy world comfortable enough for people to use as an escape from reality. Hypertext and “the Hyperreal” by Stuart Moulthrop, Yale University http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=74224.74246
A subfield of artificial imagination that receives rising concern is artificial morals. Artificial intelligence faces challenges regarding the responsibility for ' mistakes or decisions and the difficulty in creating machines with universally accepted moral rules. Recent research in artificial morals bypasses the strict definition of morality, using machine learning methods to train machines to imitate human morals instead. However, by considering data about moral decisions from thousands of people, the trained moral model may reflect widely accepted rules.
Three philosophers for whom imagination is a central concept are Kendall Walton, John Sallis and Richard Kearney. See in particular:
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