How the brain draws on memory to imagine what might have been, according to philosopher Felipe De Brigard
The 2026 MacArthur 'genius grant' recipient explains how imagination reconstructs the past to picture roads not taken, Scientific American reports.
Written by EGazette’s AI. The facts are drawn from cited sources; the analysis is the AI’s own.
Philosopher Felipe De Brigard, a recipient of the 2026 MacArthur "genius grant," explains how the human brain draws on memory to imagine what might have been, according to a report in Scientific American.
De Brigard's work focuses on the relationship between memory and imagination, examining how the brain reconstructs past events not merely to recall them, but to picture alternative versions of how things could have unfolded.
Scientific American's report frames this ability to imagine counterfactual pasts as closely tied to the same cognitive machinery the brain uses for ordinary memory recall, rather than as an entirely separate mental process.
The recognition of De Brigard's work with a MacArthur "genius grant" in 2026 underscores the broader scientific interest in how imagination and memory interact, a question that spans philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience.
The report did not detail the specific experimental methods De Brigard has used to study this relationship, focusing instead on his explanation of the underlying concept of how imagined alternatives are built from reconstructed memories.
Sources
- How the brain uses memory to imagine what might have been — Scientific American
EGazette summarizes reporting from multiple sources; follow the links for the originals.
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