Imaging.
Losing
the ability to experience images within our minds.
When
humans first evolved into their present form, they found themselves in
a tough world, where the most important information entering
into their brains came though their eyes. They had to develop and store
a vast inventory of images in their minds for imediate recognition.
Images of food , signs of danger, sexual signals, and the ability to
recognize friends and enemies were among the most important. Such
images
were essential for a successful life and the difference
between a short miserable life and a long comfortable one. Not only was
it useful for survival to recognise these images but it was even more
useful to be able to manipulate the images in their minds as a kind
of internal self communication. Early humans could move objects in
their minds, make additions and subtractions, place them inside other
objects or environments. This mental imagery played out in
their minds and was watched by an inner eye. This thought code
enabled them to
imagine and understand what other animals could not, and gave them a
huge advantage.
The
problem with an internal image code was that it was very limited in
value for creating a code that could be used for communicating with
others. With the development of vocal cords and the invention of
language based on sound, this internal manipulation of images was
replaced by an internal speech as the default form of thought. Vocal
language became so important for humans that more and more brain space
was allocated to it. Thus it came to be that most children would begin
to lose the ability to manipulate internal imagery as there ability to
use language improved. Because vocal language is being used for
external communication the tendency is to use it for internal
communication as well, which in turn means that imaging is usually
neglected if not simply abandoned. Indeed it may even be discouraged by
parents who may encourage children to suppress it being percieved when
it occurs naturally.
The
constant stream of Images.
In
his book "The Einstein Factor" Wenger and Poe make the suggestion that
when we are thinking, that thinking is accompanied by a constant stream
of visual impressions or images. Indeed he goes as far as to suggest
that we are constantly dreaming even while awake but that we suppress
this steam of data so we can concentrate on the word symbols
that
they surround. Although this seems a strange idea at first, it make a
lot of sense in terms of how this site has presented the concept of
meaninfulness and how meaningfulness is represented and expressed in
the brain.
This
site holds
that meaningfulness is built up by means of associations. An object or
idea or concept is first associated with the emotions that are
experienced in
concert with the idea or object's appearence this is then associated
with the tactile physical interaction that takes place in concert with
the object, idea or concept's appearence. Finally it is associated with
other
sensory input that occurs in concert with the object or idea such as
it's visual form it's sound, it's taste and it's smell. Obviously, of these final
associations, the visual components of shape, colour, dimentionality
and movement,
would be the most salient and most likely for people to be aware of. Meaningfulness then is not
someting stored in a particular part of the brain but is rather stored
in the web of connections to various parts of the brain. Meaningfulness
lies in the connections between neurons and not in the neurons
themselves. The more oconnections there are for a concept the more
meaning it has for us.
Visual imaging.
The average person only
thinks in sounds and usually only those sounds used in his/her native
language. However, the people we call genius such as Einstein and other
types of people of great creative ability often talk about thinking
visually. It is difficult for the rest of us to imagine what thinking
visually might be like because we are unable to do it. Wenger and and
Poe point our that about 25% of humans have the greatest difficulty in
even percieving any internal images. However, in their book
"Sparks of Genius" Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein
produce many
introspective accounts of an ability, to not only see, but to
manipulate internal imagery. The people they site range from the well
known to the not so well
known creative people and are convincing that such a phenomenon must
exist. Not only that but as the Root-Bernsteins point out this facility
seems to be almost a necessary ingredient in genius level creative
ability.
This
it would seem is the very same pictorial imagery this site has referred
to elsewhere as iconic code. Iconic code is actually borrowed from the
cognitive psychological study of memory. Such studies suggest that
visual information is stored in the mind and recalled in this visual
code. Here however we are not just talking about recalling visual
images or other abbreviated visual data but rather manipulating such
code in the mind.
It
seems that although many people are able to use this visualizing
facility that they vary considerably in their ability to do it.
Psychologists now recognize that if asked to imagine a triangle
introspective accounts vary from a little success to a lot of success.
Some people cannot see the triangle till they draw it on paper or at
least draw it with their finger on say the desk in front of them. Some
people need to close their eyes and sort of project the image of a
triangle on to the backs of their eyelids. Some rare individuals can
bring up the image of the triangle with their eyes open, superimposing
the triangle on what ever they are looking at.
Steinmetz and Tesla.
Very
rare individuals can make the
triangle change size, color, and perspective; they can make it twirl,
jump, and pass through other figures. Presumably they can also add to
it in a modular fashion, subtract from it the same way, multiply and
divide, and probably perform any mathematical operation on it including
the ability to morph it into a different shape. From their own accounts
it would seem that both Charles Steinmetz and Nikola Tesla had
this ultimate ability. This ability would allow problems to be
solved in the mind without ever putting pen to paper. It also allows a
kind of visual rehearsal that would be invaluable to inventors,
designers and choreographers.
This
ability was fairly well documented in the life of Tesla. Tesla himself
described his ability in the following:
"I
started by first picturing in my mind a direct current machine, running
it and following the changing flow of currents. Next I would visualize
systems comprised of motors and generators and operate them in various
ways. The images I saw were perfectly real and tangible."
"It
is absolutely immaterial to me whether I run my turbine in thought or
test it in my shop. I even note if it is out of balance. In this way I
am able to rapidly develop and perfect a conception without touching
anything. When I have gone so far as to embody in the invention every
possible improvement I can think of and see no fault anywhere, I put
into concrete form this final product of my brain. Invariably my device
works as I conceived that it should, and the experiment comes out
exactly as I planned it. In twenty years there has not been a single
exception."
In
her book "Nikola Tesla" Carol Dommermuth-Costa said:
"Because
of Nikola's unusual powers of visualization, he could actually see the
machines in his mind and work on them without ever drawing a diagram or
or building a model."
"As
soon as a laboratory was rented on Fifth Avenue in New York City,
Nikola got to work building various electrical machines. Since he had
already worked out the problems in his mind, he was able to produce
these units very quickly. All of the designs that had been resting
inside his head since the breakthrough he had in Budapest could now be
constructed. Although several years had elapsed since the day in the
park with his friend Anital, he remembered the designs down to the last
detail. Nikola had spent much time testing the designs in his head, and
they all worked exactly as he anticipated."
This
geometric representation of three dimensional four dimensional or
whatever dimensional space within the mind it seem is not the only way
visualization can be used in the mind. It seems that some people such
as Fred Hoyle are able to think in what they call an algebraic form of
what still must be a form of visualization. This presumably involves
being able to visualize mathematical and algebraic symbols within the
mind and being able to manipulate them there. Presumably formulas from
physics and chemistry could be manipulated in the same way. This kind
of symbol manipulation would kind of be like the equivalent of language
in iconic code.
Visual
imaging is not only useful for the visual arts and sciences but it is
also reported by many of our most famous novelists, poets and
play-writes as being the manner in which they first experience their
works of art. The obvious example is Samuel Coleridge who wrote to a
friend that, "a whole essay might be written on the danger of
thinking without images". Dryden wrote that "imaging
is the very height and life of of poetry". Among visual
imagers can also be counted Charles Dickens and Tennessee Williams.
Other types of imaging.
Imaging
is not restricted to visual imaging. As stated before we are all aware
that we we are able to think in our native language, and this is a kind
of sound imaging.
Aural imaging.
Being
able to hear sounds other than language inside your head is
usually referred to as aural imaging. Do we just hear words when
thinking or are we able to hear inflections, rise and fall of tone,
loudness or whispers. Do we hear the hmm and ah and other sounds used
in speaking but not considered language. Can we reproduce in our minds
other sounds like the sound of a motor car or the slosh of water as
waves role in on the shore. Think about the following. Is there any
reason that the sounds we hear when we think about them should be
restricted to the noises we can make with our vocal cords? Most of us
may be able to do these things a little but the creative geniuses can
do this imaging accurately.
Some
bilingual people can think in in both languages
and switch back and forth with ease. Most people can reproduce music in
their minds. The great composers like Mozart and Beethoven could
manipulate and change the music as they heard it inside their heads.
Mozart once wrote "The whole, though it be long, stands
almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a
fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear it in my
imagination the parts successively, but I here them as it were, all at
once." Beethoven likewise speaks of building whole
compositions in his mind till all that remained was to transcribe them
into musical notation. Also he was able to continue to write music
after he became profoundly deaf. Sometimes a visual stimulus if it has
somehow captured or expressed sound in visual form can help in
activating this aural imagery. Look at the painting of the 'Scream' by
Edvard Munch. Can you hear the scream? Even the cartoon representation
below should evoke the aural image of a scream.
Gustatory and and aromatic
imaging.
Motor,
touch and balance imaging will be discussed under body thinking but
there are two more senses that we absorb data in namely smell and taste
that presumably imaging is possible in also. While many people need to
be able to use their noses for discrimination probably very few people
need to use their noses to be creative. Perhaps some of the great
perfumers might have developed the ability to mix aromas and fragrances
in their minds. Consider the character in the movie "Perfume". However
although there is also little information on taste imaging a few master
chefs have indicated that they use taste imaging. Both Charlie Trotter
and Pierre Herme reveal that the finished taste that the 'finished
taste' of a dish is cooked up in the imagination before it is cooked in
the kitchen. Herme says, "When I create a cake I put the
flavors and textures together in my mind... I already know what it will
taste like before it comes out of the oven."
You
may be tempted to think that the imaging of taste and smell have no
place in creative genius just because they are not mentioned by many of
those classified as geniuses. But it may well be that they are reported
little because they are rare and might be quite useful to geniuses if
they had them. Or maybe there is simply just less ways they can be
useful because of our current culture and socialization.
How to image.
The
Root-Bernsteins suggest that this facility to visualize can be
cultivated by simply trying to do it. They suggest trying to first to
visualize simple geometric shapes then progress to geometric solids
etc. In each case the idea would be once you have mastered the
rendering of such objects to then try and make them move rotate expand
etc. Max Wertheimer wrote a book first published in 1959 called
"Productive Thinking" which proposes more complicated imaging exercises
that can be used to continue this self training in imaging. Another way
of proceeding is to try and recall some image that you greatly enjoy
seeing such as a painting or part of a movie or maybe some element
ballet, or try and envision some idyllic beautiful scene from your
childhood. Nobel laureate and biologist Francois Jacob reported that he
began each day with by mentally recreating his room, then his house,
then his neighborhood, and eventually the entire world while while
lying in bed with his eyes shut. Lying in bed in the morning or when
you first get into bed at night are ideal times to practice
visualizing. In the book "The Einstein Factor" Win Wenger and Richard
Poe have their own suggestion for inducing what they call image
streaming. In that book they suggest the following procedure:
"You sit back in a comfortable
chair, close your eyes, and describe aloud the flow of mental images
through your mind. Three factors are are absolutely crucial. I call
them the Three Commandments of Image Streaming:
-
You
must describe the images aloud, either to another person or to a tape
recorder. Describing them silently will defeat the purpose of the
exercise.
-
You
must use all five senses in your descriptions. if you see a snow
covered mountain don't just describe how it looks. Describe its taste,
its texture, its smell, and the sound of the wind howling across its
peak.
-
Phrase all your descriptions in
the present tense.
Children and
Imaging.
Children are not only good
at imaging it seems
likely that it is the method and code they use when communicating with
themselves in thought especially early before they become conversant
with language. It is of course the seductive lure of language that is
ultimately the reason for the demise of imaging. Language is vital for
communication and as young people use it more and more they begin to
use it also for encoding thoughts and communicating with themselves. As
this happens, imaging is used less and less, until eventually it is no
longer used at all. While language is truly superior to imaging for
doing our thinking, there is no real need to dispense with it.
There
is no reason for discarding it like an old shoe.
Many people lose all imaging ability. It is said
that about thirty percent of all humans have lost the ability
completely. Even the other seventy percent for the most part retain it
in a very weak form. Still, even the people in the 30% group
can still be
highly creative and may even manage to become a genius. This skill
though not essential to genius, is an
extra advantage that can mean the difference between producing
something creative and producing something truly extraordinary.
It is a truly useful way of thinking and people
who
can use it as well in thinking have an enormous advantage
both in getting an a truly unique perspective, and thus in being
creative, and being able to perform the kinds of feats we attribute to
geniuses.
Practice as
iterative improvement is a necessity for life long creativity.
If
we
are to preserve the ability to perform imaging, to multiply our
creative
ability and improve our chance of achieving genius status later in
life, it needs to be continually practiced with improvement
throughout life. At
the
moment, the practice of imaging in the home and school are generally
thought to
be detrimental to learning language and are thus discouraged and even
forbidden or suppressed. If we continually try to perform improved
imaging in
our daily lives we will find this ability not only does not fade, but
rather
becomes stronger until it may be manipulated in the way that such
people as Tesla have described. This site is suggesting that
concentrating on learning language and arriving at ideas only through
the use of language may actually be a way of killing off this
incredible ability, and we would do well to be patient with children
learning language. Einstein for instance never spoke until he was four
years old and he clearly describes doing most of his thinking in
abstract images and the manipulation of those images. This site asserts that every
effort
should be made to retain this invaluable facility or talent which is
useful for a whole range of human activities, including learning
itself, not
just creative ones.
Most
of the time most
modern people, are in all probability, suppressing their ability to
perceive images in their minds, and in doing so are, depriving
themselves of a rich variety of connections for concepts that could
well form the basis of new and unique ideas. Sure, the
presence of images while we are permorming some actions could be
dangerous and their presence could have some distracting influence on
the development of a native language, but if we hope to have genius
ever reach epidemic proportions it may well be a necessary ability. The
amount of associations we build into our concepts may well be
impoverished by our lack of skill in performing this ability. For us to
have a chance at being a genius life long practice in using this
ability may be a necessity.
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