In Praise of Folly of Imagination

Imagination is the key ingredient of the creative process par excellence. Whatever artistic expression we’d like to present, hardly any is worthwhile without the embellishing pictorial values of expressing one experience in terms of another, perhaps more entrancing one.

A dry, factual representation of events may be considered as the equivalent of taking of a photo rather than the painting of a picture. But even here, there’s a certain form of abstraction taking place deriving from the fact that the author must limit him/herself to certain aspects he/she finds important to present to the observer: This exquisite choice of alluring framework, this mind-boggling choice of seducing limitations should not be underestimated and is also a product of an imagination; an aesthetic imagination of what will and what will not appeal to the audience.

More enticing are however the spells of metaphors and similes; the tropes with which the writer takes the reader on a journey through the realm of his/her imagination. Seasoned with moments of interrogation, which allow the reader to formulate and spice up his/her own answers and contributions that can then be compared to those of the writer that follow. And thus, the reader embarks on an interplay of minds; an exchange and synergy of feelings and reflections, which results in a mental banquet that is more than the sum of the parts of the contributing writer and reader alone.

The picture becomes a map, and the concerto reaches its climax, as a kaleidoscopic multiplication of viewpoints brings the soul to its epiphany of apophenia. This is the ecstasy of the imaginative involution, as we complete the transmutation of the raw unimprinted fool’s mind to become the self-entertaining Magician and master of the ignited mental firework.

Drunken from this alchemical broth we lose ourselves in unintelligible glossolalia where we imagine ourselves as God, the Universe and Everything. And tumble, tumble into the abyss of the Ouroboric Tailbiting to awaken disenchanted in the routine of eternal return. Insatiably longing for a new dose of this addictive drug called Imagination.

Antonin Tuynman, Ph.D, is author of the books, The Ouroboros Code: Reality’s Digital Alchemy Self-Simulation Bridging Science and Spirituality, and Is Intelligence an Algorithm?, and co-author and editor of Is Reality a Simulation? An Anthology (along with Alex Vikoulov)