The Moon Pool II

De: Alex Stone

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Image thinking is a phenomenon when a concrete image intimates an abstract notion or viewpoint to express. In the sense, the term ‘image’ supposes a certain figure and its explanation (or with no verbal explanation), as well as a figure’s significance and its associations. Structure of the universe has come from three components: images, numbers and principles/ideas. There are numbers behind imagery, which can be true and false, while numbers are always changeable. An image is a product of thought; therefore, we can find an image through contemplating an idea.” In the world of constant changes, there are myriads of things and affairs with their various qualities and rules, which can be handled well only through their opposite alternatives to bring a situation to the state of poise and proper result. This is the way to avoid one-sidedness, which is an equivalent of extremity and downfall. To explain the image we use language, while the idea of it reflects its abstract thought, which is our quest. As is well-known, language is an instrument of thinking, imagery makes a thought content. However, language is unable to express the idea or thought content directly; for this, it resorts to concrete imagery. Category of ‘imagery’ is the most significant in poetry and contains two main functions: firstly, it represents an abstract image or imitated image; secondly, the imagery is represented by concrete forms and objects. The images reside within figures while qualitative features of the latter represent the imagery. Thus, the main purpose of images is to express the meaning of the figures. The imagery, together with numbers, is the most fundamental method to represent poetic works. First things are born to get then their images; upon getting their proper images, they multiply to possess then their appropriate numbers. We have a series of real images, such as Heaven, Earth, Water, Fire, as well as a bunch of using images (a good fortune and ill) and ‘false’ images, such as incompleteness to reflect the idea of endlessness of the worldly affairs. What is unknown today will be known tomorrow, because the course of human thought is ceaseless and has no end of imagination. Everything what mankind has in hand has come out from the imagination. This sort of thinking cannot be explained by means of ‘flat images’; this is the subject of great imagination and the thousand-year history of literary tradition is the striking example of the greater cultural amplitude of the ancient world. The image thinking aim is to express the meaning of abstract categories. How does it work? To do this, we have to forget the language to realize the meaning, or forget imagery for grasping ideas. But once we are overfed with lots of images and numeric symbols, we are unable to get the true meaning of things behind them. It is evidently the deepest reason why the ancients valued images of metaphors and aphorisms as the theoretical basis for the sage ruler’s policy in setting up the images to expose the philosophical ideas in full. It is noteworthy that such “metaphorical images” differ from that of “images are able to expose the ideas,” as the latter emphasizes the exact correspondence between “images” and “ideas,” whereas the former expression stresses that the purpose for the sages is to set up “metaphorical images” to fully expose the “philosophical ideas.” This terminology appears to be unique and is difficult to express clearly in this poetic imagery. ‘Image,’ as a manifestation of a graphic notion, is 'a real expression' of the word, which is prior itself to that expression and is always unreal or virtual. Actions, too, are real manifestations of objects. The word used for ‘manifestation of object’ can be likened to ratio or proportion, which is used, in extended sense, of its meaning 'a counterpart.' A counterpart is a real equivalent of the idea of a worldly event in whatever, probably virtual existence.