Heroes Not Zombies

I’ve been thinking about imagination.
I’m updating my knowledge of neuroscience at the moment and learning a lot about brain function and the mental processes from the perspective that a definition of mind would be “an embodied, inter-relational process of regulation of energy and information flow”. That’s a wonderfully dynamic and holistic model of the mind. The brain in this model is the organ which produces the mind, and on which the mind acts, and we can see how energy and information flows around the brain, between the brain and the rest of the body, and between brains.

Given that the brain has 100 billion neurons and that each neuron has up to 10,000 connections, the number of distinct brain states (where each neuron is either “on” or “off”) is as great as the number of known stars in the universe!

Each brain state represents an act of remembering, perceiving and imagining – all at once!

So, what’s this imagining process? I’ve been wondering if it’s the process of making connections – of putting elements together to make a pattern. Those patterns might represent what we’ve already experienced, what we are currently experiencing, or, perhaps even more astonishingly, ones which nobody has ever experienced…..not even ourselves!

Remembering is a creative act. Perceiving is a creative act. Both involve focusing the imagination. In the former, we focus it on the past, and in the latter, we focus it on the present. But when we focus imagination on either the future, or use it to play with the patterns inside our own minds, then we make new connections – like seeing these feathers on this plant and imagining a feather-plant……ah that’s where feathers come from! That must be why we find birds in trees and bushes so often….they’re collecting feathers to cover their bodies and make their wings so they can fly!

See how easy it is to get your imagination flowing when you make connections?