Pragmatic Imagination notes, part 3

Roy — Sun, 04 Feb 2018 23:00:04 +0000

/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/subject-object-medium.png?itok=CeMCNcQw

Minding the gap / resolving the gap

Vygotsky: considers human perception as a triangular relation between Subject, Object and the cultural Medium the subject belongs to.

Subject to Object = direct experience (shape, color, smell, etc.)
Subject through Medium to Object = indirect experience, mediated by feelings, memories, cultural/social context

Both ways of connecting with the Object occur in parallel. The object can be more or less familiar to our cultural frame. The more unfamiliar, the wider the gap. The imagination is called upon to fill in the difference. Unfamiliar objects, events become more familiar over time. Objects and places develop patinas of meaning.

The imagination is used to close the gap, figuring out how to fit the novel into the known. In reasoning this happens in different ways:

deductive: small gap, closed easily & quickly
inductive: not all facts are know, the gap is wider. Might need analogy and metaphor to find ways to explain the novel/unknown.
abductive: critical pieces are missing. The gap is too wide to to close directly: we need to start to speculate. Instead of directly closing the gap, multiple options need to be generated to work on the space of the gap.

At the far edge of abductive reasoning, into speculation, the imagination shifts from sense-making to sense-breaking. The gap is widened first with multiple ideas, scenarios, hypotheses. Then, together with reasoning, these are worked upon to close the gap, assimilating the novelty into the known.

Pragmatic Imagination: imagination put to purpose

(The book changes pace here, outlining principles 3 to 6 in quick succession).

So, again: the imagination powers a whole range of cognitive processes. From know to novel, from sense-making to sense-breaking. Especially the poïetic part of the spectrum is needed to work on the challgens of a rapidly changing and interrelated world. (poiesis: the activity in which a person brings something into being that did not exist before).

Making the imagination pragmatic means:

The actual must be seen in light of meaningful, purposeful possibilities and opportunities

Any event one experiences can be interrogated in terms of what it means and what other events, or relationships, it might lead to, what possibilities it might open up.

Thought and action are indivisible and reciprocal.

Thought and action for meaningful anticipation of the world. Thought and action for turning ideas into action.

The imagination must be instrumentalized to turn ideas into action

To move from “anticipating the world” to “turning ideas into action” requires envisioning and scaffolding of unfolding action, the imagination must be instrumentalized.

Because the imagiation is not under conscious control, we need to understand, find and design ways to set it in motion and scaffold it throughout meaningful activity.

We need new tools for setting the imagination in motion, scaffold its emergence and then instrumentalizing its products to accomplish real world things.

Setting the imagination in motion

Ways to overcome the fear of the blank canvas and trick the free play imagination into action.

The Surrealists invented methods to spark the imagination: cadavre exquis, nonsense, automatic writing, free association, etc.
Introducing chance as an agent for coming up with new ideas
Drugs
The derivé, an urban “drifting” invented by The Situationists.
Evocative objects and precedents

Pragmatic Imagination notes, part 2

Roy — Mon, 29 Jan 2018 21:34:02 +0000

/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/20180129-imagination-spectrum.png?itok=_CactVBa

Part 1: The imagination plays a role in a wide spectrum of cognitive processes, from perception to reasoning.

The spectrum

Perception
Reasoning
- Deductive – conclusion follows directly from given premises
- Inductive – some missing pieces for the conclusion
- Abductive – not enough facts available for a clear conclusion. Define “best guess” hypotheses that can be tested. See: Sherlock Holmes
Speculation
Experimentation
Free play

“At the far edge of abductive reasoning, as personfified by Holmes, we begin to sense a shift in our spectrum. Imaginations becomes an agent of more than perception and reasoning. It becomes fundamental to wellbeing and generative activities that aid the development of the individual in society and culture as well as the development of society and culture themselves.”

Speculation

Pragmatist philosophy, originating in the 1870’s in the US, was a “movement that sought to clarify meaning in terms of action”. Action and meaning as a continuous exchange. They understood the actual in light of the possible. Everything is understood as 1, what is in the here and now, and 2, the possibilities the imagination lets us see in it (speculation): “By generating a whole host of potential versions of what is present and actual today, it drives inquiry, which drives action, which in turn druves knowledge building that leads back to action”.

John Dewey’s concept of a ‘Moral Imagination’ extends “what could be” to “what should be”. Using empathy and creatively imagining possibilities to think through the consequences of a particular scenario as a way to find the ethical option(s).

“The purpose of speculation is to unsettle the present rather than to predict the future.”

Speculation is not fantasizing, the imagination is still grounded in present reality, then extended into possibilities. Speculative imagination is generative and can be used for:

Emphatic projection
Creatively exploring possibilities
Presenting possibilities as viable by giving them texture

The experimental imagination

Beyond speculation we arrive in the experimental domain: “trying things out in an emerging context”.

The experimental imagination is about “forming images in action”. Doing something driven by curiosity, looking for novelty. Supported by the individuals personal context, knowledge and skills, but these are held in the background so that the experiment itself can lead the way in a continous back and forth between imagining and doing. A.k.a. improvisation.

“A great irony of the improvisers lot is that there is an enourmous technical requirement to meet… yet there is also a need to transcend if not negate it in order to find something truly novel.” – Keith Jarrett

The difference with the speculative imagination is that the experimental imagination turns of self-monitoring, self-censoring.

“The experimental imagination builds momentum by turning off critical faculties so that improisational making/action can take over."

Free play imagination

The experimental imagination still starts from a question and/or an individuals creative context and skills. It’s focussed play. Instead, the free play imagination is after

Bondary crossing (or breaking) instead of boundary pushing
Disrupting versus experimenting
Breaking with one’s creative history
Surprise and awe

In the zone between abductive reasoning and speculation, the role of the imagination shifts from creating understanding through synthesis to generative creation of new possible understandings.