Manipulating Concepts

Let us draw a Concept Line™ for manipulating concepts.

At the far end we start with imagination. Without the use of imagination no manipulation of any concept is possible. It is possible, without words or questions, to manipulate a concept. To prove this we picture clouds in our mind. Clouds are a concept. Now we add wind. Wind is also a concept. Allow the wind to freely blow the clouds around that you have in your mind. Or if you prefer you can picture a stream. Allow your mind to freely picture birds, fish, or anything else to intrude upon your stream.

A unicorn perhaps.

Once we add imagination we next need the most useful ingredient of imagination. Play. Without a sense of play, humor, and fun, imagination is useless.

We start with sensory experience.
Sensory experience becomes memory.
Imagination is the ability to manipulate memory.

You can recall an experience as emotional, visual, auditory, etc as accurately as possible.

You can subtract from the remembered experience.
For example you can remember a physically or emotionally painful experience and cut yourself off from feeling (reliving) the actual pain.
You can picture a house with no walls, only a roof to give shade even if you have never seen such a thing.
You can picture a city with no people. You can picture a pigmy horse.

You can add to remembered experience.
You can picture a bean stalk a thousand foot tall. You can look at a puddle and conceive of an ocean even if you have never seen or heard of one. You can imagine a giant.

You can combine remembered experiences.

Thus:
That which you perceive of reality is your raw material.
Your imagination is the tool whereby you can manipulate, explore, and understand the material you have gained.
The only limits too your manipulation of this material are those things you believe to be true and explore no further. Even if what you believe to be true is true, you are still limiting yourself if you do not question it. You thus prevent yourself from discovering any deeper truths it may contain.

A true Map Thinker™ rejects all limits to thinking freely.
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