Rhetoric and Persuasion

The human imagination is an amazing instrument; it allows our minds to wander in space and time, contemplating bison and exoplanets, even as our bodies are completely still. I can imagine myself in London at Covent Garden in summer while I sit hunched at this computer in Alexandria in winter (see Figure 2.1 ). My imagining is supported by my memory of having in fact been at Covent Garden in summer. Imagining now that I am back there, I’m not remembering any particular moment or event, so much as just being there, remembering the sounds of street musicians and hawkers, the smells from restaurants, the look and feel of the cobbled pavement. Teasing apart which bits are memories and which bits are imagined, though, is impossible. It’s always sunny in my mind, and I know that can’t possibly be an accurate memory of London. What differentiates a visualized memory from an imagined vision? In my remembered Covent Garden I can’t zoom into a mental image and peer around corners or open doors that I didn’t open when I was there. Thanks to Google, I have an image in my mind that includes Covent Garden from the air, even though I myself have never hovered above it. I can’t query my visual memory for details that I didn’t see at the time, but I can, however, imagine myself opening a door, walking up a stair, and into the sky above, and then I’m inventing, rather than remembering. I’m imagining a new geography. My Covent Garden is a mosaic of my experiences there, my recollections of having looked at my own photographs, as well as other images I’ve seen produced by others. It’s a mix of memory and imagination.