Sense, Imagination, and Active Fantasy in Cognitive Processes
Sense, Imagination, and Active Fantasy in Cognitive Processes
Imagination and Fantasy
Imagination (*wahm*) and fantasy (*khayāl*) are internal, latent faculties of the mind. They interface with the nervous system, akin to external senses. Cognitive science can investigate them. These faculties enable simulation, counterfactual reasoning, and semantic association in mental frameworks. They foster creativity, invention, and boundless diversification in fulfilling human needs. They also facilitate mental judgments about imagined or fantastical entities.
External and Internal Senses
Senses divide into external (*ḥawāss-i ẓāhirī*) and internal (*ḥawāss-i bāṭinī*). External senses process sensory and experiential perceptions. Internal senses handle imaginative, fantastical, and rational perceptions. External senses include touch (*lāmsa* or *basāwāyī*), hearing (*shenāwāyī*), sight (*bīnāyī*), taste (*chashāyī*), smell (*būyāyī*), balance (*tawāzun*, governing sitting, standing, or reclining), vibration (*irt‘āsh*), pain (*dard*), spatial awareness of limbs (*‘umq*), altitude (*irtifā‘*), motion (*ḥarakat*), passage of time (*goẕar-e zamān*), temperature (*dama*, encompassing heat or cold), itching (*khāresh*), breathing (*tanafos*), visceral sensations (*eḥsās-e aḥshāyī*), and internal needs like hunger (*gorosnagi*), thirst (*tashnagi*), or waste elimination (*daf‘-e mādda-yi zāyid*). In these perceptions, the sensed object, the sensing faculty, and the act of perception are unified.
Functions of Imagination
Imagination directly engages sensible phenomena via bodily senses. It apprehends non-sensible, particular meanings without representation or embodiment. For instance, it perceives the intangible fear of a wolf, the significance of specific darkness, or the self entangled in attachments like arrogance (*istikbār*) or false self-aggrandizement. Imaginative perception (*idrāk-i wahmī*) grasps non-material, semantic qualities in tangible objects dynamically and vividly. Though imagination overlaps with reason in meaning-making, it requires direct engagement with external reality to generate awareness.1 This distinguishes it from fantasy or reason. Imaginative meaning is particular, unlike the universal meaning of reason.
1 *Wahm* (imagination) in Islamic epistemology refers to a faculty that perceives particular, non-sensible meanings in sensory objects without forming mental images, distinct from fantasy’s representational capacity.
Cognitive Role of Imagination
Imagination, like fantasy, associates meanings, quantifies details, creates abrupt scenarios, and evokes pleasure or astonishment. It issues judgments on particular matters, such as deeming a yellow, sweet substance as honey. Unlike external senses, imagination depends on the presence of external matter. Its meanings lack the representational specificity of fantasy. Imagination can accept propaganda, injected propositions, or suggestive claims as certain, regardless of their veracity, influencing decisions and actions.
Limitations of Imagination
Imagination is an internal faculty of consciousness and perception. In individuals who substitute vague, superficial understanding for profound, qualitative knowledge, imagination predominates. It overshadows other cognitive faculties. Its particular meanings neither serve as evidence nor lead to true knowledge. Such meanings lack definitional or evidential value.
Creative Power of Fantasy
Fantasy (*takhayyul*) constructs representations of sensory, intuitive, or rational meanings after their absence. Unlike sensory or imaginative perception, fantasy does not require direct sensory engagement. It can endow particular meanings with shape, color, dimensions, or material form. Fantasy generates delicate, novel awareness of absent phenomena using prior sensory, rational, or intuitive data. It evokes these in a fluid, inspirational manner within uncharted mental spaces. Fantasy is pivotal in knowledge production and discovery. It is an active, generative faculty, not a passive receptor. It produces descriptive, identifying awareness.2
2 *Khayāl* (fantasy) in this context denotes a creative faculty that constructs mental representations, distinct from imagination’s direct engagement with sensory objects.
Fantasy Compared to Other Faculties
Fantasy differs from rational thought (*fikr-i ma‘qūl*) and imagination, though all three yield pleasure. Fantasy is subtler than sensory perception. It initially constructs representations using pre-existing understandings. Subsequently, it employs sensory, rational, and intuitive tools to create complex, deliberate representations. Forgotten memories can be retrieved through fantasy’s rapid associations.
Fantasy in Dreams and Visions
Dreams (*rū’yā*), discoveries (*kashf*), and visions manifest within the realm of fantasy. They reconstruct familiar representations proportionately. Potent fantasy can facilitate divination, weaken external senses, and connect with esoteric meanings. It represents hidden meanings as particular ones. For instance, the magicians of Pharaoh employed fantasy to create illusions against Moses, as described in the Qur’an (Taha, 20:66–68): their ropes and staffs appeared to slither due to their sorcery, instilling fear in Moses until divine reassurance prevailed.
Pleasure of Fantasy
Fantasy’s pleasure stems from empathetic engagement and mental experience of life events. It exchanges shared signals and associations. This experience surpasses sensory reality in intensity and delight. Fantasy’s reality exceeds lived sensory experience. However, objective experiences in higher realms outstrip connected fantasy. Fantasy is an internal mental faculty, not an external entity. Purer fantasy supports stronger, more luminous representations. For example, it can depict rational pleasures as a verdant Persian garden (*bāgh-hā-yi ma‘rūf-i Īrānī*). Immersion in material pleasures can corrupt fantasy, leading to errors, distortions, and neglect of proportional relations.
Fantasy in Communication
Philosophical and deductive systems (*niẓām-i istinbāṭī wa falsafī*) must engage fantasy to connect with people. They should use everyday language, stories, myths, dreamscapes, or visual media to create simple, engaging discourses. This mobilizes society toward intended actions. Fantasy-driven communication inspires motivation. Marketers harness fantasy for branding and customer loyalty, converting it into market share and profit.
Risks of Unregulated Imagination and Fantasy
Without logical grounding or proportional associations, imagination and fantasy produce false illusions (*wahmīyāt*) and erroneous beliefs. Unchecked fantasy can immerse the mind, obstructing awareness of material reality, rational insights, lucid dreams, or inner visions. Its intense pleasure can surpass sensory delights, creating a higher perceived value. Particular perceptions—sense, imagination, and fantasy—evoke pleasure or aversion, influencing behavior. They can shape beliefs but lack stability due to their focus on particulars.
Dangers of Misaligned Imagination and Fantasy
Improper engagement with imagination and fantasy hinders knowledge production. It obstructs submission to true understanding (*ma‘rifat*). It fosters confusion, reliance on chance, materialism, deception, and indulgence in pleasure. Fantasy’s rapid transitions require restraint. Otherwise, it distracts the mind with fleeting imaginings, diverting it from awareness and knowledge production toward aimless wandering.
Sense, Imagination, and Fantasy in Khademi’s Epistemology
Imagination and Fantasy
Imagination (*wahm*) and fantasy (*khayāl*) are internal faculties of mental awareness. They connect with the nervous system, similar to external senses. Cognitive science can study them. These faculties enable simulation, counterfactual thinking, and semantic association within mental patterns. They drive creativity, invention, and endless diversification in meeting human needs. They also allow mental judgments about imagined or fantastical entities.
External and Internal Senses
Senses are divided into external (*ḥawāss-i ẓāhirī*) and internal (*ḥawāss-i bāṭinī*). External senses process sensory and experiential perceptions. Internal senses handle imaginative, fantastical, and rational perceptions. External senses include touch (*lāmsa* or *basāwāyī*), hearing (*shenāwāyī*), sight (*bīnāyī*), taste (*chashāyī*), smell (*būyāyī*), balance (*tawāzun*, for sitting, standing, or reclining), vibration (*irt‘āsh*), pain (*dard*), spatial awareness of limbs (*‘umq*), altitude (*irtifā‘*), motion (*ḥarakat*), passage of time (*goẕar-e zamān*), temperature (*dama*, encompassing heat or cold), itching (*khāresh*), breathing (*tanafos*), visceral sensations (*eḥsās-e aḥshāyī*), and needs like hunger (*gorosnagi*), thirst (*tashnagi*), or waste elimination (*daf‘-e mādda-yi zāyid*). In these, the sensed object, the sensing faculty, and the perception are unified.
Functions of Imagination
Imagination engages sensible phenomena directly through bodily senses. It perceives non-sensible, particular meanings without representation.1 For example, it grasps fear of a wolf, the significance of specific darkness, or self-entanglement in attachments like arrogance (*istikbār*). Imaginative perception (*idrāk-i wahmī*) apprehends non-sensible, semantic qualities in tangible objects dynamically. Though imagination overlaps with reason in meaning-making, it requires engagement with external reality to produce awareness. This distinguishes it from fantasy or reason. Imaginative meaning is particular, unlike reason’s universal meaning.
1 *Wahm* denotes a faculty that perceives particular, non-sensible qualities in sensory objects without forming mental images, distinct from fantasy’s representational capacity.
Cognitive Role of Imagination
Imagination, like fantasy, associates meanings, quantifies details, creates sudden scenarios, and evokes pleasure or wonder. It judges particular matters, such as deeming a yellow, sweet substance as honey. Unlike external senses, imagination requires external matter’s presence. Its meanings lack fantasy’s representational specificity. Imagination can accept propaganda or suggestive claims as certain, regardless of truth, influencing decisions and actions.
Limitations of Imagination
Imagination is an internal faculty of consciousness. In those who mistake superficial understanding for deep knowledge, imagination dominates other faculties. Its particular meanings neither serve as evidence nor lead to true knowledge. Such meanings lack definitional or evidential value.
Creative Power of Fantasy
Fantasy (*takhayyul*) constructs representations of sensory, intuitive, or rational meanings after their absence.2 Unlike sensory or imaginative perception, fantasy does not require direct sensory engagement. It can assign shape, color, or dimensions to particular meanings. Fantasy generates novel, delicate awareness of absent phenomena using prior sensory, rational, or intuitive data. It evokes these in a fluid, inspirational manner. Fantasy is central to knowledge production and discovery. It is an active, generative faculty, not a passive receptor. It produces descriptive, identifying awareness.
2 *Khayāl* refers to a creative faculty that constructs mental representations, enabling novel awareness of absent phenomena.
Fantasy Compared to Other Faculties
Fantasy differs from rational thought and imagination, though all three are pleasurable. Fantasy is subtler than sensory perception. It initially constructs representations using pre-existing understandings. Then, it employs sensory, rational, and intuitive tools to create complex, deliberate representations. Forgotten memories can be retrieved through fantasy’s rapid associations.
Fantasy in Dreams and Visions
Dreams (*rū’yā*), discoveries (*kashf*), and visions manifest in fantasy’s realm. They reconstruct familiar representations proportionately. Potent fantasy can facilitate divination, weaken external senses, and connect with esoteric meanings. It represents hidden meanings as particular ones. For example, Pharaoh’s magicians used fantasy to create illusions against Moses, as described in the Qur’an (Taha, 20:66–68).
Pleasure of Fantasy
Fantasy’s pleasure lies in empathetic engagement and mental experience of life events. It exchanges shared signals and associations. This experience surpasses sensory reality in intensity. Fantasy’s reality exceeds lived sensory experience. Fantasy is an internal mental faculty, not an external entity. Purer fantasy supports stronger, luminous representations. For instance, it can depict rational pleasures as a verdant Persian garden (*bāgh-hā-yi ma‘rūf-i Īrānī*). Immersion in material pleasures can corrupt fantasy, leading to errors and distorted realities.
Fantasy in Communication
Deductive philosophical systems (*niẓām-i istinbāṭī*)3 must engage fantasy to connect with people. They should use everyday language, stories, myths, or visual media to create engaging narratives. This mobilizes society toward intended actions. Fantasy-driven communication inspires motivation. Marketers leverage fantasy for branding and customer loyalty, converting it into profit.
3 *Niẓām-i istinbāṭī* denotes deductive philosophical frameworks that structure knowledge logically, requiring fantasy for accessible communication.
Risks of Unregulated Imagination and Fantasy
Without logic or proportional associations, imagination and fantasy produce false illusions (*wahmīyāt*) and erroneous beliefs. Unchecked fantasy can immerse the mind, blocking awareness of material reality, rational insights, lucid dreams, or inner visions. Its intense pleasure can surpass sensory delights. Particular perceptions—sense, imagination, and fantasy—evoke pleasure or aversion, influencing behavior. They can shape beliefs but lack stability due to their focus on particulars.
Dangers of Misaligned Imagination and Fantasy
Improper engagement with imagination and fantasy hinders knowledge production. It obstructs true understanding (*ma‘rifat*). It fosters confusion, reliance on chance, materialism, deception, and indulgence in pleasure. Fantasy’s rapid transitions require restraint. Otherwise, it distracts the mind with fleeting imaginings, diverting it from awareness and knowledge production.
