It seems pretty clear that there are two entire ranges at play here -- the sensory and those computations that can be traced to patterns of sensory piickup -- and the realm which includes what is broadly and generally thought of as " imagining ", which includes, itself, two spectrums of phenomenology.

1. The realm of projected imaginings, where the individual knowingly projects images of what has not been in order to fool around with possibility, or entertain oneself, or avoid something distasteful.

2. The realm of "detected" imaginings in which an individual opens their attention to layers of reality that cannot be ascribed to ordinary sensory inputs -- such as, for example, the water in Carol's squash, or the stress in a distant loved one's thoughts facing an emergency or catastrophe. The evidence for such things can almost only be anecdotal, because of several factors hat have been discussed ad absurdum in these threads.

The problem with these two realms of the "imagined" universe, the postulated versus the detected, is that they spill into each other frequently, and the discipline of sorting out the one from the other is not known or widely practiced in our culture. So you get overlays and dub-ins and confusion between perception and generated realities. It is as much a mistake to say it is all projected imagination than it would be to assert that the pink elephants dancing on teacups one dreamed about were material objects.

WHile we have no problem with an artist phrasing a line of music in a way that blows us out of our skulls, we seem entirely prejudiced against the notion of anyone else being able to sense that event when we experience it. In my view this is very narrow-minded and unrealistic.

There are more ways to know than in your philosophy, Horatio!!


A