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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 6227548" data-attributes="member: 59082">[MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] and [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], I apologize for dropping the ball yesterday - life intervened. But I really appreciate our conversation(s), which have been quite fruitful, I think.I do want to try to pick up a couple threads. I cannot disagree with you here insofar as I understand what you are saying, but perhaps I haven't been clear with what I'm trying to express. I think we may be using the word "imagination" slight, but importantly, differently - or at least have a different understanding of what it "is." I agree with you if imagination is relatively static and has to do with forming images within one's "mindscape." But I see imagination as having multiple aspects or types, with not only a more passive image-perceiving aspect, but also a more dynamic activity, one that is generative. What I am hypothesizing is that different kinds of "input" lead to different degrees, or quality even, of the generative or dynamic aspect of imagination. Or rather it could be that imagination runs a gamut from passive reception to active generation. On one extreme we have video games in which there is absolutely no generation of imagination, just reception of input. On the other we have an artist or writer facing the blank page, or a worldbuilder, and "creating something from nothing" (or, if we want to get metaphysically speculative, the primordial creator being generation the world from the causal void).With Sephen King's prose, the reader's imagination can be more passive than with Cormac McCarthy's, where the reader's imagination is pushed more towards its generative mode.  But both are much closer along the spectrum than the example of a video game vs. a worldbuilder.Yes, I agree. But this doesn't address what I'm calling the dynamic-generative aspect of imagination. I agree with you when you use the word universally. I'm speaking in terms of generalities - which I find meaningful, especially when utilized flexibly and not subscribed to in a rigid manner.My concern, as someone interested in human imagination and creativity, is that the cultural trend is towards more passivity, more of the receptive mode, and I feel that the trend of Dungeons & Dragons has loosely followed this, with and emphasis on more passive modes with "New School" editions, 3e and 4e. This isn't to say that rules are bad, or even that passive imagination is bad, but I'd prefer to turn it around and put the cart back behind the horse.</blockquote>

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