Saturday, 28 July 2018

The 'What might have beens' of life...

It’s something contrary to the facts! Or Counter to the facts!

Something that develops on you, especially when you sport wonderful imaginative thoughts early on in childhood! Something that syncs well with a person with a literary bent of mind! :-)

It’s called the counterfactual imagination!

What T. S. Eliot calls the ‘what might have beens’ of life.

When you ask yourself, “What if?" or "If I had only..." when you think about how things could have turned out differently.

What Leibniz would term as the infinite number of alternate worlds available for those with a wonderful imaginative capability on them.

Although there are theories that talk about the Counterfactual as an escapist mode for those seeking to flee from the harshness of reality, current theories have also suggested that a strong counterfactual imagination could act as a great beneficial behavioral regulator!

Well, now, with a wonderful book that’s got such a delightful exclusive take on the Counterfactual, it’s only meet to man up to the powerful potential that’s privy to the counterfactual.

This book is by Ruth Byrne, and it’s titled, The Counterfactual Imagination

So here goes some wonderful tippie snippies from the book for y’all -

Martin Luther King Jr. almost died when he was stabbed in 1958. A decade later he made the following remarks during a speech:

The tip of the blade was on the edge of my aorta. . . . It came out in the New York Times the next morning that if I had merely sneezed I would have died. . . .

And I want to say tonight, I want to say tonight that I too am happy that I didn’t sneeze.

Because if I had sneezed, I wouldn’t have been around here in 1960 when students all over the South started sitting in at lunch counters. . . .

If I had sneezed, I wouldn’t have been here in 1963 when the black people of Birmingham, Alabama aroused the conscience of this nation and brought into being the Civil Rights bill. . .

If I had sneezed I wouldn’t have had the chance later that year in August to try to tell America about a dream that I had had. . . . I’m so happy that I didn’t sneeze.

His reflections highlight the impact that something as insignificant and ordinary as a sneeze could have had on the course of civil rights in American history. King’s remarks are particularly poignant given that he was assassinated the next day. He was thirty-nine years old when he died.

Who can say what would have happened if he had lived longer?

This book is about how people imagine alternatives to reality.

My interest is in how people think about what might have been.

In daily life, people imagine how events might have turned out differently, ‘‘if only . . .’’. Often, thoughts about what might have been can seem irresistible.

They emerge at a very young age. They seem to exist in most cultures. Their existence demonstrates that thoughts are not tied to facts.

Thoughts can go beyond facts to encompass other possibilities.

People can think about facts—for example, that Martin Luther King was murdered.

They can also think about counterfactual possibilities that may once have been possible but are no longer possible—for instance they can imagine that Martin Luther King had been killed when he was stabbed in 1958.

They can even think about impossibilities that could never happen—for example, they can imagine that Martin Luther King was a European civil rights leader.

This book focuses on counterfactual possibilities.

It offers an explanation of how the mind creates alternatives to reality. The explanation relies on the idea that imaginative thought and rational thought have a lot in common.

To be contd…

What People Imagine

Consider the last time you were late for an appointment with a friend. What sort of excuse did you offer? If it was based on something you were obliged to do, such as ‘‘I had to visit my parents,’’ then your friend probably forgave you. But if your excuse was based on something socially unacceptable, such as ‘‘I had to have a stiff drink,’’ then your friend may have been less understanding.

As another example consider an individual, Steven, who is delayed on his way home by several events.

For example, he gets stuck in a traffic jam, he has to take a detour because of a fallen log on the road, and he decides to have a beer in a bar.

He arrives home to find that his grandmother has had a heart attack and he is too late to save her.

In the months that follow he is haunted by thoughts of what might have been, and he often says ‘‘if only . . .’’. How do you think he completes this assertion?

Most people believe that Steven says ‘‘if only I had not stopped for that beer!’’ The result shows that people imagine alternatives to events that are within their control more than to those outside their control!

More than that, they tend to imagine alternatives to particular sorts of controllable actions: socially unacceptable ones.

to be contd…

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