The distinction between what is real and what is imaginary is not one that can be finely maintained. All existing things are imaginary.
John Stuart Mackenzie, the late 19th century British philosopher, was a Fellow at Edinburgh, as well as Trinity College at Cambridge. In 1895, he became professor of logic and philosophy at the University College at Cardiff. Mackenzie is considered a Hegelian in philosophy circles, which means he agreed with Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s philosophical beliefs. Hegel was an early 19th century German philosopher. Hegel believed that spirit manifests itself in contradictions and opposites in order to unify and expand. Hegel thought that finite things don’t determine themselves as finite; their character is determined by their boundaries as they pertain to other things. In order to become real they must go beyond their finitude.
Mackenzie believed that as finite beings we are imaginary, and so is ever other physical manifestation. Reality as we know it is a catalog of beliefs. That catalogue is put together by our conscious mind and ego, which are aspects of our infinite being. We use our belief catalogue to make the finite real.
Jacob Bohme the 17th century philosopher, as well as shoemaker, said that the imaginary separation of spirit and body was a necessary stage in the evolution of awareness. Through the contradiction and negation we experience in our reality or in our belief structure, we expand the infinite. Contradictions and contrast are self-created phases that expand the awareness of the finite self. That awareness is then projected into the infinite reality of our whole, which is constantly expanding.
Our whole is not a thing or a being that exists outside of our imaginary physical being. It is an element of all consciousness, which expands as the philosophical comprehension of each imaginary self experiences some sort of reality.
All realties are imaginary, but they are very real in terms of experiences. Linear time experiences are expressed in physical contradictions as well as in unity. Experiences that are real today are in our imagination tomorrow. Experiences that are real tomorrow are imagination today. We imagine and create. The infinite creates the finite so consciousness can feel itself physically.
