Attending to Imaginations
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George Clark, September 2000
Recuperating from a hernia operation involved just sitting. While doing so attention was captured by present externalities – by feelings from the wound, by the sound of traffic in the street, by the sight of blue sky through the window. What else might capture attention? There appear at first to be six possibilities:
 

Internalities

Externalities

past

1

4

present

2

5

future

3

6
 But the past exists only in memory and the future only in imagination: so past and future externalities are obviously sub sets of their relevant internalities. The only difference between past and future internalities (like justice) and externalities (like the Millenium Dome) is the extent of their rather loose (see below) relationship to a ‘concrete referent’. Thus if past and future ‘referents’ exist they do so only in memory and imagination.

How are concrete referents like the Millenium Dome known? Do we know them as they are in themselves? No! Our sense organs receive inputs (sight, sound, smell, taste, touch) and send electrical impulses which are processed in the brain to generate ’imaginations’ which link to pre-existing imaginations including feelings (magnificent monument celebrating a thousand years of human progress v disgraceful waste of taxpayers’ money). So where does the present externality which is the Millenium Dome exist? Surely, from the standpoint of human knowledge, it exists as a widely dispersed set of diverse present internalities (ie as imaginations) which may be stored in, and retrieved from, memories.
This suggests that memory is a storehouse of those imaginations upon which the spotlight of attention does not presently shine. This in turn suggests the idea of ‘attending to imaginations’. And this begs two linked and very tough questions, "Does an imagination exist if attention is not being given to it? And, if it does, where, and what ‘form’ does it take?" 

A gentler question would be, "What are the characteristics of an imagination to which attention is being given?" 

Dodging answers can approach from two directions.

The question assumes an imaginer imagining an imagination – a subject, a verb and an object. But to assume = to imagine. So the imaginer imagines an imaginer imagining an imagination. And there would logically be an imaginer imagining the imaginer imagining an imaginer imagining … and so on in infinite regress to First Cause. Another approach suggests that ‘the answer’ is impossible to capture in words. It involves a type of knowing which predates the recent linguistic incapacities of the naked ape. It is intuitive rather than rational, poetic rather than pragmatic, spiritual rather than scientific, and holistic rather than reductionist. It is famously said that those who know do not speak. Annoying isn’t it.

More people should have to recuperate from hernias. They might thereby come to appreciate that their lives are the creation of their minds. 

You are what you think, and it is never too late to change your mind. 

Reality is present internality.

Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Suffering follows an evil thought as the wheels of a cart follow the oxen that draw it. Joy follows a pure thought like a shadow that never leaves. (Dhammapada)

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