"Imagery is not past but present. It rests with what we call our mental processes to place these images in a temporal order"

George Herbert Mead's quote, "Imagery is not previous but present. It rests with what we call our mental procedures to put these images in a temporal order", welcomes us to explore the nature of human cognition and the role of images in our understanding of time. Mead, often connected with pragmatism and symbolic interactionism, emphasizes the immediacy of imagery and how our mental professors arrange these images into what we view as a timeline.

To start with, when Mead states, "Imagery is not previous but present", he is highlighting that images, or the mental representations we conjure, exist in the immediate consciousness. They are experienced in today moment, regardless of whether they are recollections, anticipations, or fantasies. Here, Mead is challenging the traditional notion that images simply refer to the past as memories. Instead, he suggests that these images reside in the active present as components of our psychological landscape.

The latter part of the quote, "It rests with what we call our psychological processes to put these images in a temporal order", moves the focus to the interpretative function of our cognitive functions. It's our mental processes that organize these present images into a meaningful temporal structure, enabling us to understand and engage with time as previous, present, and future. This act of organization is vital for making sense of our experiences and for the building and construction of personal and cumulative histories.

In addition, Mead's viewpoint aligns with his broader philosophical views on the self and society. Our understanding of time and imagery is not just a solitary act but often moderated through social interactions and symbols, reflecting Mead's belief in the interdependence of self-perception and social context. Therefore, our present images, shaped and ordered by our mental and social procedures, becomes a bridge in between our internal subjective world and the objective world around us.

In summary, George H. Mead's reflection on imagery and time prompts us to reassess how we internalize and arrange sensory experiences. He highlights the active function of the mind in producing temporal narratives, suggesting that our sense of past, present, and future is not fundamental in images themselves but built through our cognitive engagements.