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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