The Rational Imagination: How People Create Alternatives to RealityThe 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. |
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I found the examples and fictitious stories quite helpful! The concepts have a broad range of applications. For example the fact that if there's a forest fire one could think either "if only that lightening had not happened..." or "if only there were no dry leaves in the forest..." really shows how the manner in which we think about events affects what we can learn from them. I can sure do something about dry leaves, but no so much about lightening. The book also made laugh! If I went to a cinema, changed seats, and then if my previous seat were to win a prize, I sure would think "I was so close. That was for me..." I laughed because I know rationally that the prize truly was not quite meant for me--it just feels that way. Finally the ideas of concept combination, category expansion as well as transforming fault lines in general are very well explained.
Recommending for: researchers, innovators
Thank you for such an informative book!
Christopher Luwanga
Contents
The Counterfactual Imagination | 1 |
Imagination | 2 |
Counterfactual Imagination | 3 |
What People Imagine | 5 |
Imaginative Thoughts and Emotions | 8 |
What People Do Not Imagine | 9 |
Summary | 14 |
Imagination and Rational Thought | 15 |
Enabling Relations and Prevention | 117 |
Why Counterfactual and Causal Thoughts Differ | 118 |
People Generate More Causal Than Counterfactual Thoughts | 119 |
What Makes People Think about a Cause or Imagine an Alternative? | 123 |
Summary | 126 |
Even If | 129 |
People Imagine Semifactual Alternatives | 130 |
Semifactual Alternatives Deny a Causal Link | 132 |
Rational Thought | 16 |
The Interpretation of If | 19 |
Conditionals and Possibilities | 20 |
Conditional Inferences | 22 |
Inferences and Possibilities | 25 |
Rationality and Conditional Inferences | 28 |
Rational Thought and Imaginative Thought | 30 |
DualPossibility Ideas | 34 |
The Mutability of DualPossibility Concepts | 36 |
The Rationality of the Counterfactual Imagination | 38 |
Summary | 40 |
Imagining How Actions Might Have Been Different | 43 |
Counterfactual Conditionals | 48 |
Why People Imagine Alternatives to Actions | 52 |
Actions and Dual Possibilities | 53 |
Failures to Act | 54 |
Dual Possibilities for Inactions | 57 |
The Inaction Effect | 62 |
Summary | 66 |
Thinking about What Should Have Happened | 69 |
Controllable Events and Acceptable Events | 70 |
Inferences about Obligations | 74 |
Forbidden Possibilities and Inferences | 76 |
Two Forbidden Possibilities | 81 |
Counterfactual Obligations | 83 |
Why People Focus on Forbidden Fruit | 87 |
Imagined Alternatives and Obligations | 88 |
Obligations and DomainSpecific Possibilities | 92 |
Forbidden Possibilities Permissions and Social Contracts | 95 |
Summary | 97 |
Causal Relations and Counterfactuals | 99 |
The Focus of Counterfactual and Causal Thoughts | 100 |
The Causal Chicken and the Counterfactual Egg | 102 |
Strong Causal and Enabling Relations | 106 |
Counterfactual Thoughts and Enabling Relations | 107 |
The Possibilities for Enabling Relations | 108 |
Different Interpretations Lead to Different Inferences | 111 |
How Do People Distinguish Causal and Enabling Relations? | 114 |
Semifactual Alternatives and Weak Causal Relations | 135 |
Even If Conditionals and Inferences | 137 |
Semifactual Conditionals and Inferences | 138 |
Conditionals as Primes | 143 |
Imagined Semifactuals and Causality | 145 |
The Hidden Possibility | 149 |
Counterfactuals Are Not Biconditionals | 150 |
Even If Conditionals and the Third Possibility | 152 |
Summary | 155 |
The Last Chance | 157 |
The Case of Only If Conditionals | 158 |
Only If Conditionals and Inferences | 159 |
Possibilities Preserve Temporal Order | 162 |
Why People Change Recent Events | 167 |
A Program to Simulate Temporal Anchoring | 169 |
Anchored Possibilities and Dual Possibilities | 171 |
The Space of Counterfactual Possibilities | 175 |
Summary | 179 |
Individuals and Creative Thoughts | 181 |
Individual Differences in Imaginative Thoughts | 182 |
Facts and Other Possibilities | 183 |
Multiple Possibilities | 185 |
Heuristics and Strategies | 189 |
Creative Thoughts | 190 |
Concept Combination | 192 |
Insight | 194 |
Summary | 196 |
The Idea of a Rational Imagination | 197 |
Reality and Other Possibilities | 198 |
Possibilities and Principles | 200 |
The Counterfactual Imagination | 202 |
The Rationality of the Counterfactual Imagination | 208 |
Creating Different Counterfactuals | 212 |
Summary | 214 |
| 217 | |
| 243 | |
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The Rational Imagination: How People Create Alternatives to Reality Ruth M. J. Byrne No preview available - 2007 |
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Bibliographic information
| Title | The Rational Imagination: How People Create Alternatives to Reality A Bradford Book |
| Author | Ruth M. J. Byrne |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | MIT Press, 2007 |
| ISBN | 0262261847, 9780262261845 |
| Length | 268 pages |
| Subjects | › Psychology / Cognitive Psychology & Cognition |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |