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by mensetmanusman 607 days ago
Is the imagination real? Is it made of fermions or bosons?
2 comments

“Real” in the sense it exists within your mind, which exists (somehow) within your brain, which is itself likely real. So your imagination must have some physical basis, but it would exist entirely within your brain (or body, to the extent the rest of your body influences the brain itself).

Your brain imagining a specter in a doorway does not mean there is any anomaly within the physical space of the doorway at all that anyone else could perceive or measure - they would need to measure your brain to (theoretically) detect the physical basis of it.

What you see, feel, hear, taste is an interpretation of your physical environment, and may not accurately reflect it at all times.

Are fields physical in your explanation?
Fields and their influence on matter can be detected and measured, and even perceived directly by humans. So, yes.
Fields are absolutely physical - physical contact is due to the interaction of electromagnetic fields, for example.
It’s interesting, because there are textbooks that say the magnetic field lines aren’t real, but are a good visual of what happens when a magnetic particle is there…
Yes field lines are just an indicator of where the field is - a bit like how maps have contours showing height above sea level; those contours aren't physical things but they describe the physical environment in a schematic way.
Imagination is real; imagined things are not necessarily.

Imaginary numbers are also not real.

The whole situation is quite complex.

I know funny isn't really the goal for comments around here but man that made me laugh. So subtle and obvious at the same time and quite an appropriate response to the posed question!

Complex indeed...

To tack on to the amount of complexity; your brain’s operation allows you to perceive a world outside your brain, but the actual perceiving of it happens inside your brain, which again rests inside the perceived world more or less..
Real gets complicated when human minds are involved :)