![]() Good or bad, Davies examines how thinking works, always in a complicated way, since, as he notes, “there’s a saying in neuroscience: if the brain can do things five different ways, it does all ten.” His discussion covers such matters as hallucinations, which defy description, and imaginary friends: Some readers may take comfort in knowing that there’s no requirement that one abandon them at an early age. Memory recall is a work of imagination “because memories are reconstructed every time they are retrieved”-and therein lies the possibility of negative consequences, since reconstructed memories can be unhappy ones. ![]() ![]() As the author reveals, imagination is strongly linked as well to the related word “imagery,” which opens onto a universe of symbols with its own grammar, declarative and otherwise. Either way, it shouldn’t keep us from trying: Imagination is, after all, a component of creativity and of problem-solving. Riveted: The Science of Why Jokes Make Us Laugh, Movies Make Us Cry, and Religion Makes Us Feel One With the Universe, 2014), but given that imagination seems to be strongly tied to memory, it may be that we can’t really know what we haven’t experienced-or perhaps we can. Per John Lennon, can we really imagine that there’s no heaven? Perhaps, writes Davies (Cognitive Science/Carleton Univ. ![]() ![]() When asked to imagine a brown cow, what takes place inside your head? This pleasantly winding survey offers some clues. ![]()
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