The Rational Imagination

The human imagination remains one of the last uncharted terrains of the mind. This accessible and original monograph explores a central aspect of the imagination, the creation of counterfactual alternatives to reality, and claims that imaginative thoughts are guided by the same principles that underlie rational thoughts. Research has shown that rational thought is more imaginative than cognitive scientists had supposed; in The Rational Imagination, Ruth Byrne argues that imaginative thought is more rational than scientists have imagined. People often create alternatives to reality and imagine how events might have turned out "if only" something had been different. Byrne explores the "fault lines" of reality, the aspects of reality that are more readily changed in imaginative thoughts. She finds that our tendencies to imagine alternatives to actions, controllable events, socially unacceptable actions, causal and enabling relations, and events that come last in a temporal sequence provide clues to the cognitive processes upon which the counterfactual imagination depends. The explanation of these processes, Byrne argues, rests on the idea that imaginative thought and rational thought have much in common.

An exploration of the biology of meaning that integrates the role of subjective processes with current knowledge of brain/mind function.

This book shows that our Rational Trinity evolved through our precursors to constancy in our species Homo sapiens, and that everything we have done is a consequence of being the group-species we are. Thus, we have an awareness of the unknown and the unknowable which stimulates our imagination to produce beliefs which we validate to knowledge consistent with reality or which otherwise remain beliefs because we cannot yet reality-evaluate them or because they are beyond reality-evaluation in principle. Thus, this book shows that our craftsmanship and self-knowledge have accrued since time immemorial by reality-evaluation of our imaginative beliefs as to the usability of reality and the maintenance of our survival dependent social cohesion, and that this self-knowledge was progressively reflected in the deities of our imaginative belief to the reinforcement of adherence to our behaviour codes in reality. Again, this book shows that the methods of craftsmanship led to the experimentation which defines scientific method which from the seventeenth century onwards enabled beliefs concerning the underlying nature of our reality to be validated to the knowledge which inter alia transformed craftsmanship to technology. However, this book also shows that while differences in belief have been the source of conflict from time immemorial, knowledge has been accepted by religious believers regardless of such differences; that in contrast, secular belief now opposes aspects of our self-knowledge and technology; that scientific knowledge and method are now being corrupted to pseudo-science in support of a secular belief supremacy reminiscent of the religious belief supremacy which destroyed the Roman Empire; and that it is imperative to replace our current belief-based democracy with a knowledge-based alternative before democracy itself is lost to the reality rejection of postmodernist relative belief.

As a radically new world emerges from one of the deepest global crises in living memory, individuals, teams, organizations and even entire countries will feel the urge to reinvent themselves in order to fit in. They will need to apply their imagination – their capacity to dream – and to pursue those dreams with determination.

What is the role of spiritual experience in poetry? What are the marks of a religious imagination? How close can the secular and the religious be brought together? How do poetic imagination and religious beliefs interact? Exploring such questions through the concept of the religious imagination, this book integrates interdisciplinary research in the area of poetry on the one hand, and theology, philosophy and Christian spirituality on the other. Established theologians, philosophers, literary critics and creative writers explain, by way of contemporary and historical examples, the primary role of the religious imagination in the writing as well as in the reading of poetry.

Offering a unique perspective on the very notions and practices of storytelling, history, memory, and language, Clio’s Laws collects ten essays (some new and some previously published in Spanish) by a revered voice in global history. Taking its title from the Greek muse of history, this opus considers issues related to the historian’s craft, including nationalism and identity, and draws on Tenorio-Trillo’s own lifetime of experiences as a historian with deep roots in both Mexico and the United States. By turns deeply ironic, provocative, and experimental, and covering topics both lowbrow and highbrow, the essays form a dialogue with Clio about idiosyncratic yet profound matters. Tenorio-Trillo presents his own version of an ars historica (what history is, why we write it, and how we abuse it) alongside a very personal essay on the relationship between poetry and history. Other selections include an exploration of the effects of a historian’s autobiography, a critique of history’s celebratory obsession, and a guide to reading history in an era of internet searches and too many books. A self-described exile, Tenorio-Trillo has produced a singular tour of the historical imagination and its universal traits.

Etymologically, "rational" derives from the Latin "ratio", relating to calculation. The word calculation recalls an ancient practice of handling small pebbles. Rational thought is a thought that calculates. A computer rationally performs all the calculations one wants - logical calculations included. Should we think that it thinks? Descartes in Règles pour la Direction de l'Esprit does not think this way. On closer inspection, his Method is rather a way to organize findings of the imagination. Resulting from 3 dreams of Descartes - dreams as rational as all the others - the Method is however not foreign to the principles of the division of labor as deployed in the Dutch industry of the time. Given a goal, the Method will probably achieve it. But where do its goals come from? Genius - that of Descartes included - is an incomparable encounter. It wanders, but it finds, and suddenly revolutionizes entire semantic fields. Like Darwinian pre-adaptations at work in biological evolution, genius creates, in one single move, both the solution and its problem . Imagination does not come from Heavens, but is rooted in Evolution. The work of 3 Nobel Prize winners on the spatial imagination of mice (2014) and two other Nobel Prize winners on adaptive immunity (1972 and 1987) provide an idea of ​​some of the mechanisms implemented by living beings.