Philosophy Wire: (Against) Imagination

Scientists have expanded the capabilities of the prototype spaceflight instrument Chemistry Organic and Dating Experiment (CODEX), designed for field-based dating of extraterrestrial materials. CODEX now uses two different dating approaches based on rubidium-strontium and lead-lead geochronology methods. The instrument uses laser ablation resonance ionization mass spectrometry (LARIMS) to obtain dates using these methods. [1] Expanding capabilities. Based on things we imagine should be there. Based on capabilities we already know. Based on potential we know must be there. Poor humans. So many things you cannot even imagine of. Because of your imagination...

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Philosophy Wire: Caffeine. Problems. Creativity.

Photo by Spiros Kakos @ Pexels

Caffeine boosts problem-solving ability but not creativity, study indicates. [1] We believe giving solutions is the goal. We believe solving problems is everything. But we are wrong. The cosmos doesn't need solutions. It wants problems! The cosmos doesn't crave for answers. It grows on questions. And what it fears the most of that at the end we will solve all problems. But we will have lost the ability to create new ones…

And chaos will stay silent…
Next to an empty cup of coffee…

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Philosophy Wire: Seeing while being blind…

Scientists have studied color vision by probing individual sensory cells in the human eye. The results confirm that the photoreceptor cells of the retina are especially sensitive to colors corresponding to their visual pigments, even when stimulated in isolation. A new observation is that proximity effects play a key role: sensitivity varied depending on which cell classes were located in the immediate neighborhood. [1] We analyze vision. Thinking of colors. But the cosmos was not always like that. The cosmos wass black. Void of any colours. No blue. No red. And then came Homer. And an ocean dark as wine came to be. And a sky bright as bronze manifested into existence. The fire of Troy was lit. And suddenly, due to an old blind man, we all started to see…

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Philosophy Wire: Afantasia…

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2015-08-12]: The capacity for imagery, enabling us to visualise absent items and events, is a ubiquitous feature of our experience. A scientific paper which can be found here describes the case of a patient, MX, who abruptly lost the ability to generate visual images. He rated himself as experiencing almost no imagery on standard questionnaires, yet performed normally on standard tests of perception, visual imagery and visual memory. These unexpected findings were explored using functional MRI scanning (fMRI). Activation patterns while viewing famous faces were not significantly different between MX and controls, including expected activity in the fusiform gyrus. However, during attempted imagery, activation in MX's brain was significantly reduced in a network of posterior regions while activity in frontal regions was increased compared to controls. These findings were interpreted as suggesting that MX adopted a different cognitive strategy from controls when performing the imagery task.

A constantly changing brain. In a constantly changing world.
Never ending change to support a specific set of capabilities.
Plasticity of the brain. To support conscious perception.

Even a damaged brain can see after all. Because it is not the brain that sees.

We are part of the cosmos. We are the cosmos.
Destined to see. Even without being able to see…

Because nothing changes after all.

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Philosophy Wire: Kill imagination…

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2015-07-07]:

“Mom! A lion is chasing me!”

“Go to sleep again baby. It was just a dream”…

We teach children to kill their imagination in favor of the reality we have created. We teach them that dreams are fake and… what exactly? is real. We try to learn philosophy when we get old, but we have killed true philosophy too early. And then we feel surprised when we learn quantum mechanics.

Close your eyes. See the lion. Right in the eyes.

The dream is not a dream. Let’s start from that.
And everything else will then fall apart. Only to be built from scratch again.

Be the lion.

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Philosophy Wire: A star fleeing... Humans dreaming…

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2015-04-10]: A star is leaving the galaxy in speed as a result of a supernova explosion. [1] Or at least we think so. We see something and we instantly try to recreate the past which led to the present we live. How different would things be if we just saw what we saw. Without adding more things we do not see…

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Philosophy Wire: See a chemical bond. Without seeing anything at all.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2015-03-17]:

Scientists have used an X-ray laser at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to get the first glimpse of the transition state where two atoms begin to form a weak bond on the way to becoming a molecule.

This fundamental advance, reported Feb. 12 in Science Express and long thought impossible, will have a profound impact on the understanding of how chemical reactions take place and on efforts to design reactions that generate energy, create new products and fertilize crops more efficiently. [1]

But can we see a chemical bond?

Do chemical bonds exist?

Or do we just NAME what we see “chemical bonds”?

We all too often misunderstand what we see with what exists. And this is mainly due to the fact that we have gotten away from Philosophy. We believe we know and yet one of the greatest achievements of great philosophers was to admit that we do NOT know anything. We “see” and yet the only thing we do, the only thing we CAN do, is to think! To imagine!

Imagine everything.

Imagine nothing… What we imagine is indeed what exists!

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Philosophy Wire: Read. Feel. Imagine...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-03-12]: Robotic reading suite makes you actually feel what is happening in the book you read. [1] We have stopped using our mind a long time ago. Modern man cannot feel without feeling...

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Philosophy Wire: Think Snow White!

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-02-12]: Reading stories changes our brain. Literally. [1] Snow White is here. In our minds. Our thought formulates the universe. Literally. Just think about it. It is true...

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Philosophy Wire: Imagine a language...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-10-30]: Even though the most ancient language monuments are in the Greek language, we imagine a new language. And then we image our selves speaking this language. [1] And then we speak this language. And we transmit that to various sites and journals. And then what we imagines is true.

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Philosophy Wire: Imagination from the whole brain...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-10-08]: Imagination. Seems that the whole brain is utilized for it to work, not just a specific part of it. (1, 2) More and more we are closing into the idea of Unity, starting from our own mind...

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Philosophy Wire: Two moons, one moon, no moon…

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2011-08-04]: Scientists argue that they found indications that the Earth once upon a time had two moons, one of which was destroyed after a collision with the moon we now have [source: BBC News]. Perhaps that is why our ancestors were more romantic… Based on the path that our civilization has taken, I guess that after a few years another collision must destroy the “last” Moon we currently have. In that was the only thing to remind us of the planet that inspired poets will be some computer images like the one above… Noone takes a minute to look at the real moon anyway...

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Philosophy Wire: Why conduct experiments, if you have imagination?

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2011-08-03]: Scientists claim that they have probably found indications on the existence of multiple universes.  [source: BBC News] It is really fascinating how a scientific theory has been formulated and spread to all scientific community without ANY experimental data to back it up!Imagination in the service of science. Or maybe science in the service of imagination?

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Philosophy Wire: Fear and the sense of Reality...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2010-12-18]: A woman does not feel fear, due to a problem in her brain structure (source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12017039). We all feel and think based on our capabilities. Does thinking about fear mean that fear actually "exists"?

And if on the other hand we cannot sense or feel something, does that mean that it belongs in the sphere of fantasy? How can something that does not exist be part of our thoughts? What does our innability to think of something mean? In the years of Homer there was no distinction between fantasy and reality. The ancient people had a more complete sense of the One reality. Instead, we have a much contradictory sense of the world, split into “understandable” notions… We fear even the idea of “not understanding”, that is why we label the woman who cannot feel fear as “not normal”…

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