Cognitive practice of creative imagination

Volkova Vera Olegovna Doctor of Philosophy Professor; Department of Methodology, History and Philosophy of Science; Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University named after R. E. Alekseev 603155, Russia, Nizhny Novgorod region, Nizhny Novgorod, Minina str., 24 veravolkova@mail.ru

Kotomina Elena Ivanovna Teacher-psychologist, GBU 'SRCN 'Smile' of Nizhny Novgorod 603146, Russia, Nizhny Novgorod region, Nizhny Novgorod, Beketova str., 66, sq. 6 golovchiz_@mail.ru

Introduction Until the second half of the last century, intellectual tasks were solved within the framework of traditional, classically rational approaches; at the same time, there was an exaggerated emphasis on the intellectual component of cognitive activity. Changes in the epistemology of cognition and creativity began with the publication of Ulrich Neisser's book Cognitive Psychology in 1967. In the study of cognitive activity, a cognitive approach has been identified: cognitio (Latin) - knowledge, cognition. That is, the cognitive approach involves the study of cognitive processes such as memory, attention, thinking, and imagination. The main tasks of the cognitive approach are to understand and explain how these processes are arranged and function. However, cognitive sciences are in active interaction with other areas of research, such as phenomenology, anthropology, and epistemology.

Their interaction in the aspect of creativity is based on the identification of a conceptual attitude to the exploration of the world. For an in-depth understanding of the specifics of the modern understanding of cognition, it is necessary to turn to the understanding of cognitive practice, which combines ideas about both the mind and the imagination. There is some kinship between them, noticed by the Russian philosopher S. L. Frank. S. L. Frank points out that "in the field of knowledge, potential possession is possible (italics of the author), which is not identical with the actual realized possession" ^{[4, p. 124]}. In addition to the potentiality of knowledge, S. L. Frank notes the possibility of substantiating the "evidence and primacy" of knowledge. Primacy and uncertainty are given to human consciousness in the same way as "the contents of direct experience" ^{[4, p. 123]}. Therefore, mind and imagination can be combined in conceptual structures of primacy and potentiality. With this view of conceptualization as the germ (Latin conceptum) of philosophical ideas about imagination, the "boundary" between sensory cognition and rationality becomes clearer, where the image turns out to be an instrument of understanding in the status of a creative mechanism of understanding – a mental image, an acting image, a creative image, etc. In this case, it can be considered as a conceptual scheme.

At the same time, the image, according to J.P. Sartre, ceases to be the "content of the psyche" ^{[17, p. 109]} and becomes a phenomenological "intentional structure" ^{[17, p.110]}, moving from the level of inert content of consciousness to the level of synthetic unified consciousness to create compositional solutions. Referring to E. Husserl, J. P. Sartre says that "the function of the image is to fill the void of knowledge" ^{[17, p. 111]}. However, a number of authors (A. L. Nikiforov, I. T. Kasavin, A.M. Dorozhkin, 2018) are developing a philosophical approach to understanding knowledge. In the focus of epistemological analysis of non-classical concepts, knowledge goes beyond the boundaries of individual concepts and is considered in specific types of the "integral dimension of man" ^{[18, p.40]}.

Imagination is one of the cognitive mental processes through which a person transforms the information available to him and creates images that are not given to him in perception and are not stored by memory as elements of past experience. Therefore, imagination is an essential component of creative activity. It is no coincidence that S. M. Smirnova writes that "etymologically, to create an image means to create an image" ^{[2, p. 9]}.

At the same time, imagination is also noted as a problem of solving urgent problems: the creative self-preservation of the system as a property of "living nature" (U. R. Maturana, F.H. Varela, 2001), the effect of self-organization at the level of "invention" of natural forms (E. N. Knyazeva, 2008), comprehension of complexity in the communicative dimension of knowledge (I.T. Kasavin, 2013), on the scale of network communication (Budanov V. G., Arshinov V. I., 2022).

In the context of this study, cognitive practice makes it possible to interpret conceptual schemes of mental images beyond the limits of creative imagination, which is usually attributed to artistic deeds. A mental image can be considered a natural form rooted in the ontology of mankind.

Cognitive practice in the teachings of nature

Creative imagination is an active participant in the use of self-organizing images and ideas in social and humanitarian cognition. Cognitive practice connects the exploration of creative imagination with the creative power inherent in nature.

In the classic work "Creative Evolution" A. Bergson ^[3] extends the concept of creativity to the patterns of biological evolution. Creativity is a property of "living nature". U.R. Maturana and F.H. Varela point to "autopoiesis" – creative self-preservation in changeable conditions of any element base of cyclic mechanisms ^[9]. Creativity is the result of the internal state of the system.

Man is a part of nature. Synergetics as a scientific field provides its own interpretation of creativity and cognitive practice. Cognitive practice includes creativity in the aspect of self-assembly at various levels of self-organization of a nonlinear system. A nonlinear self-reproducible system can be the consciousness of a person who develops an epistemological space of "dialogues-events-meetings" in his life.

Each element of this space can serve as "mediated knowledge", as S. L. Frank believed, and awareness of the events of a dialogue or meeting can become a real "subject of knowledge" with its own foundation, since "a genuine starting point for the development of knowledge must have such properties that, on the one hand, it can be a real beginning, i.e. to contain moments that are really sufficient to move on to the next, and, on the other hand, to be only the beginning, i.e. to lead to the next, and not to contain it in itself" (italics of the author) ^{[4, p. 188]}. With the emergence of this principle in the events of a dialogue or meeting with another person, a resonance mode is introduced into the self-organizing system of knowledge as the beginning of many creative acts, the connections between which require the inclusion of imagination in consciousness.

The ability to construct "the life of knowledge, which is the organic coherence of its contents" ^{[4, p. 192]} in the study of nature may have a starting point in "patterns of self-organization" ^{[11, p. 54-69]}, when the movement of images in human consciousness correlates with the objective self-organization of the "universe" at various levels of its hierarchical self-organization ^[11]. According to E. N. Knyazeva, nature can be considered the "inventor of forms", and cognitive practice is revealed in the universal construction of conceptual mechanisms using creative imagination. It is organized by the ability to see what others may not notice.

Self-organization becomes visible and formalized when the internal observer adjusts the mechanisms of his vision ^{[12, pp. 10-26]}. This means that the structures of natural processes (spiral structures, hexagonal structures and fractals according to E. N. Knyazeva) are held in the universality of the synergetic vision of the world. The spiral associates a "vortex" and small-scale vortices leading to the processes of scattering, dissipation and chaos. The symbolic embodiment of this form can be attributed by the imagination to culture and psychology. The hexagon shape is a more stable form of connectivity of the medium in conditions of constant small fluctuations. A "game of two principles" is embedded in this form: the factor of increasing heterogeneity and the dissipative factor scattering heterogeneity. E. N. Knyazeva names another structure of natural processes – a fractal with fractional dimension. The author calls the stimulus of creative imagination a "thought-image" ^{[12, p. 66]}.

According to this concept, the "thought-image" goes beyond the limits of the creative imagination and can be considered a natural form rooted in the ontology of mankind. The natural structures removed from the landscape of nature are assimilated as symbols and can be transferred to the sphere of life and the field of science. Psychophysiology ^[8] considers creativity as the creation of a new construct from existing elements in the inner world of a person. The nature of creativity is the emergence of an indicative reaction to the transformation of internal images. The appearance of the result of such a transformation is accompanied by a positive emotion. And only after that, the product of creativity reaches a conscious level, where it is analyzed and compared with other thoughts, ideas, images. The prerequisite for the success of creativity is the need for knowledge, for obtaining new information.

The disclosure of the creative potential of imagination is associated with the construction of a relationship between knowledge (as information) and reality. Traditional forms of cognitive activity are used to reveal this relationship. However, in the modern situation of uncertainty and "dynamic chaos" of cognition, it is necessary to involve the constructive possibilities of "potential possession" or the creation of "semantic spaces" of ordered intersubjective creative constructions linking sensually-given positions and "open rationality" ^{[5, pp. 21-33]}.

Creative imagination in comprehending complexity

Modern cognition turns to human nature and a new understanding of rationality. It includes creative imagination, which causes the contradiction of feeling and mind. The inconsistency is reflected in philosophical ideas about creative imagination as a cognitive practice. "Practice" as a concept spontaneously manifests itself in the actions of the imagination and cognitive activity of a scientist as an ideal product, often not even realized by him. It is a methodological construct created by the scientist himself. The idea of practice is influenced by the socio-anthropological challenges of "complexity-network thinking" ^{[6, p. 129]}. Creative imagination turns out to be an active participant in the methodology of comprehending modern complexity.

Rationality can be not only linear and unidirectional. It is associated with the ability of the mind to construct, express its objective meanings in words and pictures of virtual reality. Rationality is manifested in the "communicative dimension of knowledge" ^{[7, pp. 46-57]}, which has its own resource of the organization. Therefore, the idea of cognitive practice develops in a cultural context as a part of human consciousness, absorbing the generation of acts of consciousness and the resulting knowledge. This concept is based on the creative ability to understand and interpret.

The most important cognitive tool for the practice of imagination is language. On the one hand, it manifests itself as a sign system encoding information. On the other hand, language does not depend on a person, it is subject to assimilation as an inseparable part of communication ^{[7, pp. 46-57]}. Language transforms information in a special way by creative capture. The cognitive practice of creative imagination is an activity or set of procedures that translate unobservable mental abstractions into the reality of their imaginative existence. It is difficult to classify in the methodology and study of the conditions for the manifestation of the productivity of imagination.

Creative imagination as the boundary and middle link between sensuality and rationality leads to a rethinking of the role of chaos in the universe. In the positivist branches of science, chaos was rejected as an "image of ignorance." In recent years, his role has been rethought. It is not necessarily subject to elimination, but opens up a "horizon of unpredictability" ^{[6, p. 50]}.

From the perspective of synergetics, creativity unfolds in a "post-non-classical epistemological space" ^{[6, p. 56]}, which is important not only for explaining and understanding reality, but also for reproducing in human consciousness "various dialogues-events-meetings" organized initially "according to a chaotically constructed network, fractal principle" ^{[6, ibid]}. The transcription of this space is presented in the teachings of psychoanalysis. For its interpretation, a developed creative imagination is necessary, fixed by the logic of "deductively deployed statements and statements" ^{[6, ibid.]}.

The counteraction of imagination in the opposition of feeling and mind

Contradiction (from Latin. contra vs and dictio – utterance) in relation to imagination means that a person is able to embody not what is given in nature and sensuality, but to translate the imaginary into a specific intellectual form.

It can be used in the process of generalization. N. M. Smirnova points out that creative imagination acquires from the German classic of philosophical thought I. Kant the appearance of "transcendental imagination" as a productive ability. Imagination can be a reproductive ability of an empirical subject, obeying the laws of association and should be attributed to psychology. Productive imagination or the "inner form of feeling" is the basis for "figurative synthesis" or an instrument of mental activity. The juxtaposition of feeling and mind denotes a generalized representation in which the "variety of sensual contemplations" is reduced to a single one (italics of the author) ^{[2, p. 16]}.

N. M. Smirnova interprets I. Kant's understanding of imagination as "something third, homogeneous in one respect with categories, and in another respect with phenomena and determining the possibility of applying categories to phenomena" ^{[2, p. 17]}. In this understanding, the opposition of sensuality and reason is revealed, according to I. Kant.

The images that arise in the inner sphere are visual, and therefore sensual. They create the opportunity to synthesize a feeling from the side of its form a priori, i.e. before a person's ability to understand any contents appears. The feeling thus aroused is expressed in some form of mediating representation, which is free from empirical content. This is the "something third", which can be considered intellectual and, at the same time, sensual.

The instrument for connecting feeling and mind is a transcendental scheme, homogeneous with categories as explanatory constructions and phenomena of a sensual nature. N. M. Smirnova notes that the function of the scheme is the transformation of images "on the way of forming concepts" ^{[2, p. 17]}.

Thus, it can be concluded that the opposition of sensuality and mind is resolved in the process of generalization, which takes thought beyond the framework of empirical experience in the interpretation of sensory data. An example is the construction of a visual mechanical model in classical sciences. The way thought goes beyond empirical experience participates in the visual interpretation of the mathematical language of abstract theoretical constructs of non-classical natural science, the reconstruction of a thought experiment ^{[13, pp. 19-20]}.

Unlike the experiment of natural sciences, thought experiments are carried out "in the mind and in an imaginary reality" and are characteristic of research in hypothetical situations ^{[13, pp. 19-20]}.

An important issue is the cognitive practice of a scientist, the formation of which involves not only an explanatory attitude to theory, but also the ability of a scientist to attract not only empirical knowledge, but also to use intuition data, to construct imaginary situations of thought experiments when creating explanatory models ^[14].

As I. A. Beskova notes, "... the thought process cannot be adequately modeled as exclusively intellectual, carried out in isolation from the entire wealth of human existence..." ^{[1, p. 75]}.

Imagination participates in the construction of relations between knowledge and reality in the contours of the "problematic field of existential challenges accelerated in the real being of modern science..." ^{[15, pp. 7-21]}. Existential challenges include the publication in 1967 of Ulrich Neisser's book Cognitive Psychology, which defined the beginning of research in the epistemology of creative representations. It became possible to move from identifying impersonal universal patterns to studying the individual, unique characteristics of a particular individual.

The authors of various approaches to the study of imagination ^[16] agree in recognizing the importance of understanding the nature and functions of imagination for the correct interpretation of an individual's creative activity and scientific activity.

It is the imagination that is responsible for the form of presentation of the product of creativity to oneself: "... the specificity of the products generated by the play of each person's imagination is a transformed form of the characteristic features of his personality (in cognitive, socio-cultural, bodily, emotional aspects." ^{[1, p. 90]}

Imagination is directed into the sphere of constructing worlds, but the roots of its activation remain in the current moment.

The basis for imagination is: routine practical experience, as well as the structure and content of mental information from the currently available field of knowledge. This reality forms a human system of meanings. Imagination transforms meanings, without which an individual's participation in science is impossible. I. T. Kasavin and V. N. Porus argue that a person of science has his own "subjective dimension" in which he manifests himself as "overcoming personal collisions, a free and thinking being" ^[15]. Consequently, the counteraction of imagination is resolved in finding the "third" moment – the achievement of a subjective dimension in science and modeling the thought process with the help of a thought experiment, inner feelings as phenomena of the subjective sphere and categorical generalizations in modeling practical objects.

Conclusions

Creativity is a property of living nature and the result of the internal state of the system.

Human consciousness is a nonlinear self-reproducing, self-organizing system; self-organization refers to the movement of images of consciousness.

The stimulus of creative imagination is conceptual images/schemes that go beyond the human imagination.

The most important cognitive tool for the practice of imagination is language; language transforms information in a special way through creative capture.

The cognitive practice of creative imagination is a set of procedures that translate unobservable mental abstractions into the reality of their imaginative existence as cognitive phenomena.

To manifest self-organization, the inner observer needs to adjust the mechanisms of his vision, i.e. translate his contemplation into conscious action.

The transformation of meanings through the imagination of a man of science takes place in the process of a thought experiment based on the subjective dimension of both science and its individual figure.

In order to correctly interpret the creative activity of an individual and his scientific activity, it is necessary to understand the nature and functions of imagination - it is imagination that is responsible for the form of presentation of the product of creativity to itself.