Actual Freedom ~ Frequently Flogged Misconceptions

Could you please elaborate on how the brain can think without visually imaging, or perhaps I have misunderstood what you mean?

I cannot help but wonder whether there isn’t a skerrick of imagination which also needs no ‘I’ to operate and function? Is all imagery connected to the limbic system, to feeling, as the synesthetes above? Could it be that there are non feeling images, that we create an image of sorts, in our mind for each and every thought?

Do you really expect me to believe that you have not thought in images for a year or more? Having a hard time imagining that. Do you really expect me to believe that you have not thought in images for a year or more? Having a hard time imagining that.

Why do you say that there is no imaginative faculty? To ‘imagine’ is a sane faculty of this multi-media-brain-mind.

Ability to imagine creatively or intuit is not problematic. The ability to remember through use of images is essential to effectively function. For example, I can study a geographical map of an area and later picture and recollect where places, streets, cities, etc are in relationship to each other. It is almost like calling up a screen on the computer. Another common example – I am looking for an object used yesterday and can recall through images step by step what occurred the day before. By retracing steps, I can bring back the specific memory of where the object was left. When I find the information needed, no further energy is given to image-making. The images occur on a subconscious level.

With regards to your statement that it is impossible to visualize images any more (if I have understood correctly): if you close your eyes and try and do some physical action, like turn on the TV, are there no mental images there to guide you? If not, how do you guess where the buttons are? What is memory if not partly mental images (along with words, sounds etc)? If I say to you get me an egg, there must be some kind of visual image of an egg to compare it to the real thing?

In some ways the brain cannot even tell the difference between events in ‘mindspace’ and events in physical space. Eg. (this was relayed to me second hand, so I’m not 100% sure of the details but I’m sure of the conclusion): in a recent experiment, some people were taught to play certain melodies on a flute, while another group were told to simply imagine themselves playing these melodies (visualising the fingerings precisely as they ought to be). At the conclusion of the experiment, the actual neural hardware of both groups had changed in the same way (i.e. new neurons and connections between them had formed in the same areas of the brain).