Posts Tagged ‘Imagination’
Can We Think About Something We Cannot Imagine?
The very last line of this excellent clip of Carl Sagan explaining the 4th dimension got me thinking:
Can we think about something we cannot imagine? The more direct version of this question is, can we think about something we cannot directly imagine. Since we are almost certainly, in Sagan’s example of the cube, imagining a 4th dimensional object without picturing it. We are imagining (and even creating) its shadow, and the rules by which it exists.
But suppose there was a thing we couldn’t in any way gain a mental hold on. Could we be said to be thinking about it? In the act of thinking about it, do we in some sense imagine it, even if only in a representational way? There’s more than a faint aroma of Anselm in this line of thought.
