Imagination

Wow--first blog post! :') Just so everyone knows, this is my new blog for my IB Philosophy class. For me, I'm hoping that this blog will serve not only as a place where I write about what's been going on in class each day, but also as a conduit through which I can actually publish the different thoughts and feelings I've had about philosophy, my life, and basically anything that happens to cross my mind. I don't know how exactly this will work, so bear with me!

Since class started last week and I'm only creating my blog now, I'd like to fill you in on what has been going on. Over the summer our class was asked to read Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder. For certain reasons I cannot actually tell you the premise of the book (...even though I admit to googling the endings to movies and flipping to the last page of books before I get there, I refuse to spoil this book. Read it!), but the important thing is that Sophie learns about various philosophers including Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Berkeley, Hume, Descartes, Bjerkely, Spinoza, Socrates , Hegel, and Freud, among several others.

Today, we responded to several questions; my favorite being, "What does the book say about imagination?" Jordan, myself, and several of my classmates seemed to suggest that perhaps the imaginary world, or the different worlds people create in own minds, is the real world, and this life we are "living" is not. I really like this idea. Growing up with five younger siblings and three older, I've got loads of experience with "imaginary" games. Here are a couple examples, in case you happen to know little (or old!) kids who like playing "live games" (as we used to call all our games that were not board games and required the use of imagination).
--"Lava Ship", where beds and furniture are the ships, the ground is lava and there is always some sort of mutiny on the ship so that the captain is forced to walk the plank and somehow survive until he/she got to safety
--"Powers", a particular favorite of my siblings and I. In this game, you get to choose super powers or special abilities that you've either read about or made up and come up with a plot to defeat the invisible bad guys and save your clan from dying out. (some of the books we would often reference are The Spiderwick Chronicles, Chronicles of Narnia, Droon, and The Dark Hills Divide)

The point in me telling you this is really to emphasize the amount of time we would spend on these games. We would not just sit and decide to play these games for, say, 30 minutes...no, we would play them for hours and hours at a time. I would become completely consumed by the game. I distinctly remember playing Powers one time and looking out of the tent we had set up in my room and seeing a forest--the one I was trying to sneak through to reach enemy territory. It was night and I could see the shadows of the trees against my own. They were so tall; I remember feeling both intimidated, but comforted because I knew that these were the trees protecting and hiding me from the others. This really isn't made up, and I know it may sound ridiculous, but how is it so different from the dreams you have every night when you sleep? How is it any different from hoping in something that you know- from the beginning- will inevitably not become reality? How is it so different?

Imagination is a powerful thing. It may be reality, it may not. I mean honestly, who here even knows the definition of a reality? Isn't mine different from yours? My dad would have walked into my room that day to see a cluttered floor with a gigantic red tent in the middle of it, enveloping his children while they played a silly game. My sister very well could have seen a river or meadow, instead of the dark forest I did.

I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.

Riley made a really interesting comment in class today when he said that children are more naive than adults, and so, use their imagination more. I realized that I couldn't disagree more. This is not a criticism of what he said, and I certainly appreciate and agree with the fact that there does exist a distinction between the amount of time a child uses their imagination versus that of an adult, but I do not think this is a result of differences in levels of naivety. In many ways a child is more aware than an adult. They have not reached the point in which normalcy and routine is romantic, and peculiarities and change induce allergic reactions and pain. (this is actually a point I've been thinking about a lot recently and hope to write about soon) If I remember correctly, children tend to the take the world bit by bit, amazed by what they see. Everything is a surprise. I know I have seen this with my younger brothers, whose innate senses of excitement and wonder at new things, causes them to giggle when I clap my hands or look at me like I've been floating in a bubble when I make the popping noise in my cheek. Children are not naive, they are untouched, like a "tabula rasa" (according to John Locke). Imagination comes naturally, because anything is possible.

There is an element of truth to what Nomka said: "Imagination is more valuable than knowledge." Emma, Maddy and Jordan all seemed to find this true in that our imagination gives life to both our memory and fictional characters, like Sophie, Alberto Knox, Albert Knag, and Hilde. Emma pointed out that even when we finish a book, those characters live on. They are not gone, but it is our imagination that makes them who they are.

I don't really know how to wrap up a post to make it all nice and pretty, so I guess I'll just end by reiterating what Alex said in class today: that our imagination is actually more real than we think it is, and so, we should not ignore it or try to shut it out. Too many things are forgotten or missed when imagination is left out of the picture.

I would find it hard to believe that Plato came up with his theory of the world of ideas without the tiniest hint of imagination. :) thanks -j