The Imagination and How it Relates to Visual Thinking Created By: John Cola Southern Polytechnic State University Arts 3

1. The Imagination and How it Relates to Visual Thinking Created By: John Cola Southern Polytechnic State University Arts 3000 April 20, 2004

2. The Visual Mind • “Half the cortex is devoted to visual processing” (ref. 1) • “The word imagination comes from the Latin verb imaginari meaning picture to oneself, and imago meaning image” (ref.1) • “Many of the most import discoveries in science and technology have come about through the application of visual thinking such as Fleming’s discovery of penicillin; Einstein’s theory of relativity; and the development of the modern motor car to name but three.” (ref. 1)

3. The Visual Mind • “All of us think in images before we learn to think in words” (ref.1) • “Many everyday words and expressions show the connection between thinking and seeing such as: insight, foresight, and farsighted” (ref. 1) • “When you change lanes on a motorway; when you plan your holiday; when you decide what to wear in the morning, you’re thinking visually.” (ref. 1)

4. The Imaginative Mind • The idea of the mind in correlation to visual thinking is to consciously find a link between memory, imagination and sub-consciousness • The imagination is: • A leading role in our creative influences throughout the day • A leading role in deciphering problems and issues that occur throughout the day • A way to relate back to personal experience in order to find recognition in what we see or do

5. The Imaginative Mind • A means of escaping a reality • A way to find answers beyond what we physically know to be the right way • A creative thinking process used to take an irrational idea to one day come up with a rational thought or idea. • A creative force within the boundaries of the human mind that can expand beyond the 3rd dimension • A creative force with little or no rational thought.

6. The Imaginative Mind • “We can exercise a certain influence over what is seen depending on what we are looking for, or what we are afraid of, etc.” (ref 2) • “Unusual visual experiences are not as vivid and unambiguous as those encountered while viewing familiar objects in familiar scenes. They are, nevertheless, similar to the normal visual experiences but the viewer is also aware that what is seen is not really there, and that it is more or less dependent upon his/her imagination.” (ref 2)

7. The Imaginative Mind • “Human experiences involve visual experience such as: remembering, wishing, inner speech, speaking, and reading” (ref 2) • “Creative activities involve visual experience such as: choosing clothes, deciding in where to go, composing a story, choreography, poetry, conceiving and solving of mathematics, etc (ref 2)”

8. The Philosophical Mind • “Aristotle also considered that the material coming to the senses, the images in particular, were copies of particular objects.” (ref 3) • “He thought that the senses, by abstracting, by removing the particulars, were producing universals, abstract percepts and the categories represented by words in language.” (ref 3)

9. The Philosophical Mind • “Aristotle emphasized the mathematical deductive method but for him, it could only take place after the basic categories had been inferred by the senses. “ (ref 3) • “He considered that the imagination (phantasia) allows the passage from sensual experience to reason.” (ref 3) • “In the romantic period, the development of imagination, the siege of the human creative power, is considered the primary aim of human life and the royal road to knowledge and rationality.” (ref 3)

10. The Philosophical Mind • “Although rational knowledge is considered the most precise and the most useful for building machines and for knowing about the simpler aspects of the physical world, romantic artists and philosophers insisted that there are other forms of knowledge, more intuitive and subjective, less precise and more blurred, which are fundamental.” (ref 3) • “For them, imagination is an unconscious synthesizer of experience at the root of our consciousness” (ref 3)

11. The Conscience Mind • “Visual art is the human ability to design stable visual worlds.” (ref 4) • “Visual design is involved in most human activities: from the simple act of choosing clothes, to the act of designing the fabrics and the shapes of these clothes” (ref 4) • “Visual design in involved in the simple act of choosing a house and its furniture, to the design of a house and of furniture.” (ref 4)

12. The Conscience Mind • “A significant proportion of our environment, the human-made part of it, is the product of some kind of visual design. Every human is inherently a visual artist.” (ref 4) • “Visual art is inherently abstract. Visual artists deal with the relations between their visual world, their medium, and their image making techniques” (ref 4)

13. Research References • 1) • http://www.creativityworks.net/creativity.html • 2) http://www.ensc.sfu.ca/people/grad/brassard/personal/THESIS/node62.html • 3) http://www.ensc.sfu.ca/people/grad/brassard/personal/THESIS/node63.html • 4) http://www.ensc.sfu.ca/people/grad/brassard/personal/THESIS/node69.html

14. Image References • 1) http://www.follisinc.com/images/Imagination.gif • 2) http://www.dreambox.com/images/scratchboard/imagination.jpg • 3) http://www.bryceimages.hpg.ig.com.br/vision.jpg • 4) http://www.bryceimages.hpg.ig.com.br/icecomet.jpg • 5) http://www.bryceimages.hpg.ig.com.br/imagination.jpg

15. Image References • 6) http://www.eventhorizonbackgrounds.com/Desktops/Imagination.jpg • 7) http://dedesigns4u.homestead.com/files/img/imagination.jpg • 8) http://www.aerogfx.com/Wallpapers/Imagination.jpg • 9) http://www.aerogfx.com/Wallpapers/Ayu.jpg • 10 http://www.rhede.de/veranstaltungen/2003/Kirmes2003/imgs/imagination.jpg

16. The End