@Metalballrun Abstract is in the definition of only existing as an idea(the only definition for abstract), such things as souls, thoughts, emotions, personalities that can't exist in the physical world.
Even the page for abstract existence uses thoughts as an abstract thing, "the ability to embody an abstraction, such as a concept, thought, or information," "thought" is an abstract concept, they don't exist in the physical world and only exists as an idea. The simplest definition I can give is: "Have you ever touched a thought? No, because you can't"
Why does it matter? Well this is my theory for what imaginary spaces are, hell those two links exactly explains imaginary space as a place for souls, personalities, thoughts, etc. basically a collective for non-physical things(abstract ideas). Infinite Prison in the light novel is explained to have infinite imaginary space, and in volume 11 it is explained that the personality Chronoa was born inside Infinite Prison, Hinata's soul/memories were inside a skill that was confined inside Infinite Prison, this showcases that Infinite Prison can trap things such as souls, skills, personalities. If you don't think Hinata's soul was actually there then reread the definition for infinite Prison(physical bodies have 0% of escaping while the soul/spiritual body have 3-something % of escaping), Veldora's spiritual body was trapped inside Infinite Prison, and why am I even typing this when we know that Infinite Prison can trap a skill.
(“I know what Rimuru is thinking. I—Chloe had the same idea in the past too. But it didn’t work. Didn’t I say this before? The remnants of Hinata’s soul are also trapped in the ‘Infinite Prison.’ It’s a chaotic void, where everything mixes together. As someone who was born there, I can tell you that Hinata’s ‘Mathematician’ is probably integrated in that void already—” by Chronoa, volume 11)
skills are already known as abstract ideas in fiction, they don't need any explaining.
I'm not saying any character in the light novel is AE 2, I'm just explaining my theory for imaginary space (which holds out with what the two links say)
First Link:
"Likewise, we started our Microvita seminars in
2003, first considering
vacuum fluctuations, then shifting focus towards hyperspace (
Burkhard Heim) and quantum space-time (
Lee Smolin), just in order to arrive at the complex Minkowski space, fundamental to my book. In all these cases, the essence of Microvita was situated in space rather than waves, giving more and more emphasis to geometry instead of fields. The significant step, however, was to introduce imaginary dimensions, which allow for a clear distinction between physical (akasha) and mental (manas) space-time. From this perspective, the role of Microvita gets demystified: As minutely described, they now appear as an interface between the real and the imaginary. And as such, their function can be simulated by a calculus, comprising of a complex 4 x 4 x 4 tensor, processing matrices containing space-time coordinates and polar qualities, each real (1) and imaginary (2), as well as a ‘core’ matrix (3), supplying the initial energy.
But there is also a crucial difference to Rauscher & Targ’s Complex Eight-Space Picture, as they say: “… we cannot explain why these phenomena manifest in consciousness and apparently not in the rest of physics. Nor can we presently describe the mechanism by which consciousness has access to the complex space.“ In this respect, however, our picture is complete, as it defines imaginary space-time as a grid, basically made of the multiplied cognitive and operative aspects of the ‘supreme causal factor’. Consequently, the cognitive aspects are the ones to provide the ontological basis for subjective experience; and the changing distances to their operative counterparts allow for free will, i.e. non-random feedback onto our physical reality. Real space-time, on the other hand, is created by multiplication with a particular operator: Squaring the imaginary i gives a real -1, which is supposed to induce a quasi-coagulation in the medium hitherto susceptible to cognition."
Second Link:
"Conclusion:
A cosmology is just part of a hypothesis, and as such, it is a working model that requires continued testing and reformulating based on current evidence. The “Imaginary Space” cosmology is proposed as a refinement of the layer cake models one sees in some of systems of belief. Terms such as “plane” and “vibration” remain useful metaphors, but they are too often taken literally. This cosmology suggests “Loci of reality” or “collective” are more correct terms than “plane,” and “perceptual agreement” is more correct than “same vibration.”
