One might think this means that imaginary numbers are just a mathematical game having nothing to do with the real world. From the viewpoint of positivist philosophy, however, one cannot determine what is real. All one can do is find which mathematical models describe the Universe we live in. It turns out that a mathematical model involving imaginary time predicts not only effects we have already observed but also effects we have not been able to measure yet nevertheless believes in for other reasons. So what is real and what is imaginary? Is the distinction just in our minds?
-Stephen Hawking
It is said that our subconscious mind could not differentiate between real and imaginary because it uses the same mechanism to process both phenomena. The brain is the center where the reception and transmission of incoming messages and their transformation into outgoing messages are made, being a sort of central switchboard which permits the sense organs to come into communication with muscles. The brain communicates with electrical spikes. Sense organs receive input from stimulus and produce sequences of electrical spikes that go to the brain. The sequence of spikes is a code that represents actual sensation received by the sense organs. But somehow, through a yet unexplained process, the spikes are transformed into the experience. Similar experience is also found in case of thoughts or feelings. This experience is called image in the mind. It appears from etymology of the word image that it is derived from the Latin word ‘imāgō’ which means copy or likeness. The subconscious mind only processes the image (copy) to produce muscular movements. Imagination is, thus, the formation of copies of experience that could be of senses or feelings on the floor of mind to generate muscular movements.
Let me make it clear. An experiment was conducted during 1980 Olympic called 'visual motor rehearsal.' Olympic athletes were asked to run the event within their mind with actual emotions. It was found that the same muscles were fired in the same sequence as real event on tracks. One could also experience the same after seeing a dreadful dream. The tiny droplets of sweat could be easily traced on the forehead of the experiencer along with his increased heart beat.
The images which flash in the mind could be interpreted as archetypes of Jungian collective unconscious. Carl Jung believed in the possibility that his concepts of archetypes and synchronicity might be related to the unus mundus (Latin for one world) and both the observer and the connected phenomena ultimately stem from the same source, the unus mundus. In somewhat similar concept profounded by Roger Penrose, the archetype images could be considered as fundamental properties of nature like mass, spin or charge and unus mundus (Jungian collective unconscious) as basic field of proto-conscious experience where events or occasions of experience may be comparable to quantum state reductions, or actual events in physical reality. This suggests that consciousness may involve quantum state reductions (e.g. a form of quantum computation). Regarding the transitions from pre-conscious processes to consciousness itself, the pre-conscious processes may equate to the quantum superposition/quantum computation phase, and consciousness itself to the actual (instantaneous) objective reduction events. As Penrose objective reductions are proposed to be non-computable (reflecting influences from space-time geometry which are neither random, nor algorithmic) conscious choices and understanding may be similarly non-computable, so is imagination. Stuart Hameroff proposed tubulin in microtubules of neuron as biological basis for Penrose theorem and the joint proposal of Penrose and Hameroff for human consciousness is called Orch-OR model. The interpretation of consciousness in terms of quantum physics especially quantum entanglement and quantum superposition with imaginary time concept of Hawking opens the door of enormous possibilities for active imagination such as telepathy, clairvoyance etc.
Apart from the parapsychology and the metaphysical concepts of imagination, it is also a matter of fact that geniuses have the access to the power of imagination even in the field of science which is thought to be reason driven. The eminent scientists, from Tesla to Einstein, acknowledged the use of faculty of imagination in their scientific works. Tesla admitted that he did not need models, drawings or experiments. He could picture them all as real in his mind. Einstein started talking after age of two. It is likely that his tendency to think in pictures rather than in words accounted for his verbal slowness. He later said, I rarely think in words at all. A thought comes, and I may try to express it in words afterwards."
There was a man in Air Force, Colonel George Hall, who was kept in prison for seven years in the North Vietnam. Every day he played a full game of golf in his imagination. One week after his release, he entered the Greater New Orleans Open and shot a 76.
Now allow me to introduce a licensed massage therapist, an esthetician, a makeup artist, a model, an actress, spoke person of many companies and organizations including Element Skateboards, co-founder of Adaptive Action Sports, a highest ranked female adaptive snowboarder who won two world cup gold medals back to back but only one Amy Purdy who was born in the year 1979. On the other side of story, at the age of 19, she suffered from bacterial meningitis with less than 2% survival chance. She remained in coma for nearly three weeks. Over a period of two and half months, she lost her spleen, kidneys, hearing ability of left ear and both of her legs below the knees. She was transplanted a kidney donated by her father. In spite of these odds, she managed to be successful. How? In her own words; she said "I imagined myself walking gracefully and helping others through my journey and snowboarding again. I didnt see myself carving down the mountain but actually felt it. I felt the wind against my face and the beat of my racing heart as it was happening in that very moment."
Our imaginations could be used as tools to break borders.
-Amy Purdy
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