Imagination is the ability to create “things” when they don’t exist. We envy imagination amongst children, and imaginative play is an activity that early childhood educators confirm is healthy for young children. It so healthy for their cognitive development, they many promote their programs as encouraging it.
As children get older, we are less concerned with their ability to be imaginative on play, but there are several cognitive skills that depend of imagination, and these skills are becoming more useful in an age when AI can generative most of the unimaginative ideas more quickly than we can. As children become adults, imagination seems to occupy an even seller part of our cognitive efforts. This is despite the fact that “being bored” so that we just sit and think and imagine things is something we are encouraged to do.
It might seem that as humans become more educated, mostly through school, but in our lives outside of school as well, it would seem we have a more we know about the more we can use that as fodder for our imaginations. I suppose that is one of the reasons we have distribution requirements as undergraduate students: if we are educated, then we have had certain experiences and broad exposure to ideas is one of them.
We seem to be ready to form a conclusion that the more we know, the more imaginative we will be. It seems, however, we are not. Nash (1963) observed “education contracts imaginative capacity to the extent that it suggests that only certain patterns are permissible or ‘right.’ In this respect some educations will be worse than others…. (p. 343).”
I find Nash’s words very troubling. When only “certain patterns are permissible,” we are in trouble as scientists, as thinkers, and as people who want to create a better world.
Reference
Nash, L. (1963). The nature of the natural sciences. Little, Brown.