HUMANS
IN THE WORLD: INTRODUCTION
TO RADICAL PERSPECTIVISM
HUMANS
IN THE WORLD: INTRODUCTION
TO RADICAL PERSPECTIVISM
Other Chapters:
Alexander Makedon
Chicago State University
Copyright © 1992
IMAGINATION Posted 2/14/01
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Humans are an example of cosmic variance. Our imagining the unreal, such as, mythological monsters, unicorns, or non-existing world-parts or events, is the world's way of imagining-through-us about its actual, potential, or non-existing possibilities. As world-human, humans-imagining are the mirror-image of a world hypothesizing. If the perceived variety of animals, plants, and parts of nature is possible, and is no more necessary than an altogether different type of world, then why should there be anything which the world could not imagine, if not become, except the unimaginable? This doesn't mean that everything which humans can imagine necessarily can, will, or must become, but that in cosmic terms human imagination is a human-based window that allows us to see the real world: the world is real as an imaginable possibility.
A possible world makes imagination itself possible; while the world's possibleness, including its perceived variety, fuels the human imagination. The world's possibilities are the infinite colors that make the world imaginable, and therefore make imagination itself possible. As another of the world's possibilities, imagination is the flip side of an imaginable world that allowed humans to imagine about it.
By allowing humans to imagine, the world gave humans its imagination-possibilities. It is for this reason that humans have a "responsibility" to "world" their imagination, to allow the world to imagine about itself. Religious leaders intuitively understood this human responsibility to use world-given attributes to serve the world, in return. Thus they they declared that humans should not selfishly use their skills only for their own aggrandizement, self-empowerment, or greed or vanity, but humbly use them to explore, "eulogize," or help God. Unfortunately, their understanding was too intuitive to appeal to more commonly "logical" types of discourse, and therefore was either dismissed as "delusory" or subjective, frequently misunderstood, or re-assigned to "faith," fear, or the emotions.
Without a world to imagine about, there would be no-thing imaginable, and therefore no imagination. This doesn't mean that humans can't imagine an impossible world, especially if by "possibility" is meant only what humans presently consider possible. On the other hand, even an "impossible" world is only imaginable within the context of "possible imaginables" provided by the world humans have learned about. For example, even the most improbable science fiction is derived from probable "realities," that is, what humans perceive to be possible, or else they couldn't even recognize it as "improbable," let alone imagine about it. Even the most far-fetched science fiction is based on such commonly perceived world "realities" as motion, change, interaction, and direction, except they are turned and twisted every which believable way to make them sound "unreal." These science fiction "unrealities" may be perceived as their science-fiction possibilities.
Even an "impossible" world is full of possibilities, except from a human perspective they are "impossible," or, more likely, "improbable." We conclude that although humans can imagine about improbable worlds, they can't imagine a world without possibilities. This is so because to imagine a world without possibilities, is to imagine about nothing.
To imagine about anything, is to make it by definition imaginable. Alternatively, to imagine about nothing is just as impossible, as to see with my naked eye what is hidden behind the wall that separates me from the next room. Said another way, the world is so possible that humans cannot imagine what it might be like to exist without possibilities. This is so because as beings with the ability to imagine, humans are ipso facto incapable of imagining nothing, even if they can imagine that they cannot imagine. Although in present-day scientific context the ability to imagine something cannot serve as proof of its existence, for the general public it provides at least some indication that if it is unimaginable, it can't even be thought about or analyzed, much less "exist," verified, or tested.
To exist, a world must be at least imaginable, if not under present circumstances (e.g., cultural or ideological limitations), then on the basis of universal first assumptions (e.g., non-human-bound assumptions regarding time or reality). This is so because an impossible world can't exist (in the sense of "possible" as a world full of possibilities). Furthermore, if such a world (that is, unimaginable) is capable of existing, it must be not because it is imaginable, since by definition it is not, but because of a type of "existence" which humans cannot even imagine, much less try to analyze.
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