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The Rational Imagination: How People Create Alternatives to Reality
The human imagination remains one of the last uncharted terrains of the mind. This accessible and original monograph explores a central aspect of the imagination, the creation of counterfactual alternatives to reality, and claims that imaginative thoughts are guided by the same principles that underlie rational thoughts. Research has shown that rational thought is more imaginative than cognitive scientists had supposed; in The Rational Imagination , Ruth Byrne argues that imaginative thought is more rational than scientists have imagined. People often create alternatives to reality and imagine how events might have turned out "if only" something had been different. Byrne explores the "fault lines" of reality, the aspects of reality that are more readily changed in imaginative thoughts. She finds that our tendencies to imagine alternatives to actions, controllable events, socially unacceptable actions, causal and enabling relations, and events that come last in a temporal sequence provide clues to the cognitive processes upon which the counterfactual imagination depends. The explanation of these processes, Byrne argues, rests on the idea that imaginative thought and rational thought have much in common.
254 pages, Paperback
First published March 30, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 9, 2016
Um, okay?
Usually I can get into a book, even if it's far from my bailiwick, if I understand what the author wants to do. One of the best ways of understanding what an author is up to is figuring out who she is arguing against.
I can't figure that out here, though.
Byrne's points are clear enough. She repeats them again and again. I just don't know who beyond a small circle of people would care and, beyond that, would disagree with her.
Her point is that when people use counterfactuals, they process them logically--rationally, even when they do (often) make mistakes. She then hedges this point by saying that when people do create counterfactuals, they do so according to their own sets of beliefs and the lability of their own imagination.
The result of this idea is that people think counterfactuals through logically given their own biases. Which isn't saying a whole lot.
Indeed, the main point that Byrne seems to want the reader to take away is equally trivial: that the imagination and rationality are not opposed ways of thinking, but rely on each other. (The only mildly interesting point I took from the book was that when thinking through decisions, people do not often--or usually--rely on logical inferences or application of social mores, but on imagining the various scenarios.)
Underlying this view is what she calls a three-process: that human reasoning in general is rational--she devotes the first chapter to this point--human reasoning depends upon the imagination of possibilities--this is the claim I found interesting, though least supported--and that the set of principles used when thinking through these counterfactuals is the same kind of principles used in rational thought more generally.
The bulk of the book then goes through and classifies the various kinds of counterfactual thinking, which is mind-numbing for the most part. It never rises above a taxonomic exercise, and Byrne admits that the classificatory scheme she creates is not exhaustive at all. Rather, it is what her research has focused on.
Indeed, the book seems mostly a summa of her career research. Which is fine. But I cannot say that it deserves a book. Short as it is, it could just as easily have been a review article.
Byrne, though, does have some big names praising her work on the back cover, and it is entirely possible--probable--that I missed the genius of the book; that I just don't know enough psychology to see the breakthroughs she is making.
The book is certainly clear enough but, again, without a sense of who--or what ideas--she is opposing--how she thinks her ideas fit into the wider universe of ideas--I just don't get it.
Usually I can get into a book, even if it's far from my bailiwick, if I understand what the author wants to do. One of the best ways of understanding what an author is up to is figuring out who she is arguing against.
I can't figure that out here, though.
Byrne's points are clear enough. She repeats them again and again. I just don't know who beyond a small circle of people would care and, beyond that, would disagree with her.
Her point is that when people use counterfactuals, they process them logically--rationally, even when they do (often) make mistakes. She then hedges this point by saying that when people do create counterfactuals, they do so according to their own sets of beliefs and the lability of their own imagination.
The result of this idea is that people think counterfactuals through logically given their own biases. Which isn't saying a whole lot.
Indeed, the main point that Byrne seems to want the reader to take away is equally trivial: that the imagination and rationality are not opposed ways of thinking, but rely on each other. (The only mildly interesting point I took from the book was that when thinking through decisions, people do not often--or usually--rely on logical inferences or application of social mores, but on imagining the various scenarios.)
Underlying this view is what she calls a three-process: that human reasoning in general is rational--she devotes the first chapter to this point--human reasoning depends upon the imagination of possibilities--this is the claim I found interesting, though least supported--and that the set of principles used when thinking through these counterfactuals is the same kind of principles used in rational thought more generally.
The bulk of the book then goes through and classifies the various kinds of counterfactual thinking, which is mind-numbing for the most part. It never rises above a taxonomic exercise, and Byrne admits that the classificatory scheme she creates is not exhaustive at all. Rather, it is what her research has focused on.
Indeed, the book seems mostly a summa of her career research. Which is fine. But I cannot say that it deserves a book. Short as it is, it could just as easily have been a review article.
Byrne, though, does have some big names praising her work on the back cover, and it is entirely possible--probable--that I missed the genius of the book; that I just don't know enough psychology to see the breakthroughs she is making.
The book is certainly clear enough but, again, without a sense of who--or what ideas--she is opposing--how she thinks her ideas fit into the wider universe of ideas--I just don't get it.
Want to read
September 13, 2022RK Cited in Zittoun, Imagination in Human and Cultural Development
January 26, 2013
Interesting research but very redundant presentation of information. Difficult to get through.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews