Ontological Aspects of Human Imagination

Abstract

Article is devoted to the recently published Suetin`s article «Reality of Fantasy». The author does not agree with the basic thesis of Suetin that the imagination is the special substantial form of a reality. Unlike Suetin, the author believes that the imagination is a property of high-organized thinking and cannot be considered on an equal basis with the reason, mind and morals. Moreover, not every consciousness possesses property of «constructive imagination», i. e. possibility of generation of new information, which resists to the growth of entropy and, thus, provides stability of our world.

To show complexity of a problem of interaction of reality and imagination, the review of ontological concepts of modern physics in a context of a problem of the physical reality, raised by Albert Einstein and actively discussed now by philosophers and methodologists of science. The article discusses the basic question of «non-objectivity» of objects of physical theories, which appeared with introduction of corpuscular-wave dualism in the context of quantum theory. It transformed today in a conclusion that the quantum object in a sense does not exist before the process of its observation.

The modern ideas of Everette-Willer about possibility of existence of the plural Universes and participation of the observer in process of formation of an observable reality are discussed.

The evolution of the concept of the information is considered from Brilluen`s ideas to the works of Ralf Landauer and Boris Kadomtsev. The conclusion is made that the matter today is inseparable from the information and, probably, it is necessary to pass from understanding of a matter as an energy, that was valid for 20-th century (just as for 19-th century the identification of matter with substance was relevant), to information understanding of matter.

The author also reviews ideas of Michael Mensky who expanded concept of Everett. Mensky considered the world surrounding us as quantum super-position of set of the worlds, while a choice of the concrete classical world in which we live and operate is defined (is made) by our consciousness.

The author marks the big importance of the analysis of a phenomenon of imagination and heuristics of Suetin’s approaches, however believes, that for understanding of this phenomenon the new approaches, distinct from traditional division of the world on matter and consciousness, are required. The important theoretical contribution to the development of physical theory could be an elaboration of the notion of border of biological system.

The text of article discusses some steps to formation of this concept. Other perspective approach could be the computer metaphor of the person, which is generalisation of ideas of Howard Patti about «semantic closure» of dynamic and linguistic descriptions of biological system.

In particular, even the description of boundary of a human body demands sending to the Other (to the «external» observer) as the boundaries of a body of the person appear connected with metrological maintenance of the observer.