Imagination
Imagination is the may-be but isn’t-yet. It’s the feeling of possibilities, the sensations of the what-was enmeshing with the immediate experience of what may come. It is imaginative speculation that allows us to experience the in-between; the space on the preface of what is and what could be (Whitehead, 1929).
The backgrounds of the images below were generated by AI as a nod to the entangled nature of AI with society. Drawing from existing information informed by social discourses and unpredictable in their creative outputs, AI behaves in a more human way than we give it credit for. Additionally, the process by which AI generates responses is similar to the process of concrescence in Whitehead’s philosophy of organism. Inheriting information from the past and integrating this information into the immediate present to generate a particular output, its product is fed back into the system to serve as newly generated data for the next request.
Alfred North Whitehead’s (1929) concept of imagination is offered to us as a type of proposition. In Whitehead's (1929) philosophy, propositions are not simply declarations to be deemed true or false, but dynamic beacons of possibility. They invite the imagination to step beyond the ordinary, enmeshing the reality we inhabit with the potentialities that beckon from the horizon. Here, imagination is elevated from mere ‘pretending’ to a potent force of transformation, capable of melding what is with visions of what could be.
Within this framework, imagination acts as a bridge, a creative intermediary, through which the potentialities offered by propositions merge with the fabric of actuality. This process is the heart of creativity, allowing for the creative advance of reality itself, constructed through a lure for feeling novel experience. Whitehead’s (1929) conception places imagination at the center of existence, as both a creator and a navigator, steering the ever-unfolding narrative of the universe. Through this lens, propositions and imagination come together in a symbiotic effort, driving the endless emergence of new realities in a cosmos teeming with potential.
References:
Segall, M., D. (2023). Crossing the Threshold: Etheric Imagination in the Post-Kantian Process Philosophy of Schelling and Whitehead. Integral Imprint.
Sheldrake, M. (2021). Entangled life: How fungi make our worlds, change our minds & shape our futures. Random House Trade Paperbacks.
Whitehead, A., N. (1929). Process and Reality. Free Press. (1985).