ImaginatioNation

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Imagination is Evolutionary

Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions.

-Albert Einstein

All men who have achieved great things have been great dreamers.

-Orison Swett Marden

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

-Carl Sagan

All of these quotes have one thing in common; the ideal that imagination is progression of mankind. In my opinion imagination is an evolutionary process. As one explores their imagination and exposes their ideas to the world, it creates a gateway for others to build on to that idea, reconstruct it, or erase it. Think of the use of the wheel now. It is used for so many purposes, from driving cars all the way to construction work pulleys.

Imagination is used in everything a human does, even though a person may not identify they are doing it, imagination coexists in every humans’ actions, whether consciously or subconsciously. For example if someone identifies a problem they consciously are using their imagination to configure a solution. However subconscious aspects of imagination in the use of daily actions, such as walking also play an important role in human’s lives. For example when one takes a footstep they imagine their self safely making that footstep before they take it, despite how unreasonable that sounds, there is a possibility that the floor could collapse under them. If people were for sure that the floor would collapse when they walk they would be hesitant to walk. So in every action humans’ imagination is used first.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

ANDREW’S LOOK AT IMAGINATION THROUGH A SKEPTIC’S EYE

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iU5XBukxKpQQ-JPIRNE0vnsYJK-SeRWVFPCW0ilAA7E/edit

Saying is Seeing: A Look at Language's Role in Imagination

“Figurative language is the language of the imagination, contrived to create thought through its appeal to the imagination.”

Now, can the language we speak limit how we are able to imagine? Imagination, for the most part, means ‘to see’, coming from the Latin root imag. What are we able to see then, as far as imagination goes?

In Chinese, the word “imagination” looks a little something like this:

想象力

Using my limited knowledge on what these individual characters mean, this comes to mean, very roughly and literally, “think-the-image power”. When thought of like this, I immediately begin to see that imagination is something ‘beyond’, that it does not in fact lay in the same scope as reality; it only uses reality as a grounds in which to refer back to.

If the Chinese were clever enough to say that imagination is something above and beyond, would their scope of imagination not be wider and stronger?

You may be surprised to find that, no, it isn't. In fact, Chinese students have, on a global scale, the least imaginative minds, and fall fifth-to-last on creativity. The emphasis does not fall on how creatively the students are supposed to solve a problem; rather, the emphasis is put on being able to solve a problem in the first place.

With this in mind, a new question arises: does culture and the environment a person is raised in reflect on their ability to be imaginative? If it does, then that means that as well as having a lack of imagination, an entire society can potentially be unable to know in such a way that requires the area of imagination.

Coming back to the language aspect: in English, we have access to the most colorful phrasing available. Mastering this language means being able to manipulate it in such a way that allows the one listening to actually ‘see’ the words being spoken; this is done through the use of figurative language:

“But look, the morn in russet mantle clad,

Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill”

-(Hamlet, Act I Scene I)

In this description, the morning, to me, is an armed warrior, brazenly trekking through the dark to bring about the new day. The modern translation looks a little like this:

“But look, morning is breaking beyond that hill in the east, turning the sky red.”

-(Hamlet, Act I Scene I)

Just like that, the words have taken on a totally different vision in my mind. This time I did not imagine a warrior; rather, I imagined a red sun peeking over a small hill, turning the night into day. Its interesting to know that these words, intended to have the same meaning, visualized themselves entirely different in my head. This leads to one final thought:

Does the way something is said (compare modern Shakespeare to the original) limit the imaginative quality? Imagination is the driving force behind good literature- it defines the ‘good’ and ‘bad’, but that's a later debate- and a more expansive imagination makes for a more expansive read. Imagination may or may not be enhanced based on translations into certain languages, but it will require to imagine in a ‘different’ kinda way.