Research Program / Claims / imagination-10
Imagination and reason complement each other: imagination deals with the implicit universe, reason with immediate evidence; every act of imagination includes reasoning, and every act of reasoning includes imagination.
想象力与理性互补：想象力处理隐含宇宙，理性处理眼前证据，任何想象力行为包含推理，任何推理行为包含想象力。
Concept imagination · Domain Belief Dynamics and Mind–Body Regulation · ontological claim · interface 3/3 · testability 3/3 · status untested · ★ fundable
This program treats the Seth Material as a source of hypotheses, not as doctrine to be validated. Lead dossiers are AI-compiled from the corpus with a book-and-session citation after every statement; literature reviews are AI web-search summaries whose references were all DOI-verified against Crossref; the agenda draft is an AI synthesis. None of it is Seth's original text, and none of it represents scientific consensus. English fields are machine-translated; the Chinese text is authoritative.
Seth sources (book §session)
Adjudicating experiment
Question 2: Approximately 150 participants, including about 50 aphantasic individuals confirmed by multiple indicators, complete formal logic, imagination-assisted logic, standalone episodic imagination, and working-memory control tasks; with matched difficulty, reaction time, and verbal load, each undergoes two fMRI sessions, with independent localization of default-mode, executive control, and sensory imagery networks, combined with multivariate decoding and behavioral interference tests. Question 5: An additional approximately 300 participants are recruited and randomized to compare first imagining possible outcomes then evaluating, direct rational evaluation, and time-matched verbal listing, using decision tasks with clear correct answers or payoff distributions, measuring accuracy, calibration, payoff, and heart-rate variability after controlled breathing; repeated testing at 4 weeks, with the overall project lasting 9–12 months.
Suggested paper title
Imagery–Reasoning Interactions in Deduction and Decision Accuracy: Pre-registered Behavioral, fMRI, and Autonomic Tests
What it would overturn
If it is rigorously demonstrated that any reasoning necessarily invokes an independently defined imagination mechanism, it would overturn the hypothesis that "at least some propositional reasoning can be completed without sensory imagery."
Candidate labs / funders
Jérôme Prado; Daniel L. Schacter; Roger E. Beaty; Pennsylvania State University, Cognitive Neuroscience of Creativity Laboratory
Specificity of Seth's formulation
"Any" is a stronger prediction than the general complementary relation; however, if all internal representations are defined as imagination, the proposition becomes definitionally circular, and the "implicit universe" currently has no measurable counterpart.
Note
Addressing Questions 2 and 5: Both types of experiments are feasible, but DMN activation alone cannot prove imagination, nor can non-activation prove its absence; heart-rate variability is not an indicator of knowledge correctness, and finite tasks cannot prove universal propositions. [Related laboratory](https://beatylab.la.psu.edu/)
Evidence (2, DOI-verified via Crossref)
Cite: Future Mind Institute, Seth Material Research Agenda, claim imagination-10, https://www.seth.org.cn/en/research/claims/imagination-10