12 Concepts Of Imagination: The Meaning Of Life

Improved Essays
“Use your imagination.” Everyone has been told this at least once in their lives if not many. It implies that doing so is easy, as if there was an on or off switch. In reality, using your imagination is far more complex than that. I personally have a big imagination and I use it a lot. I don’t know much about it though. The Imagination is an intricate instrument that is considered to be used in almost everything. I find it fascinating that people can come up with brand new things whether it’s magical lands or scientific hypotheses, by only using their minds. So how exactly does imagination work?
When you use your imagination you are using many parts of your brain. There has been a recent study at Dartmouth college to see what happened in the
…show more content…
Leslie Stevenson, an Honorary Reader in Logic and Metaphysics at the University of St. Andrews, wrote a paper listing twelve concepts of imagination. While all of them are important and meaningful the ones that stuck out to me are, “8. The ability to think of anything at all. 11. The ability to appreciate things that are expensive or revelatory of the meaning of human life. And 12. The ability to create works of art that express something deep about the meaning of life.” Number 8 stuck out to me because it is something that I had read in previous research as well. The idea that imagination gives us the capability to think at all is a big thing. Imagine not being able to think. That’s quite odd and scary. Number 11 stuck out to me because it brought up appreciating things. There are many times in life that everyone, including myself, forget to recognize the things we have and the things we can achieve in life. The specificity of human life reminds me of how our capability, our thoughts, are far more advanced than anything else. Finally, number 12 stuck out because it used “something deep about the meaning of life”. The meaning of life is a ginormous thought and due to the imagination we can not only acknowledge it, but we can question it and attempt to answer or explain

Related Documents

  • Great Essays

    Essay 1 Throughout the course of this first half of the semester we have read over multiple different readings by different authors that all have intertwined such as “The Framework for Information Literacy”(FIL) as well as “Only Connect” . “Imagination and Community” by Marilynne Robinson is a short essay we read over earlier this semester that brings up the question of our community and of those who make it up. One of Robinson’s biggest concerns is that her imagination of a community of acceptance and diversity can not be achieved. Putting it all together the FIL emphasization of consuming and producing information and the qualities of a liberal education from Only Connect give us the traits necessary for the community in which Robinson talks about.…

    • 1903 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dinner With Walter Mitty From what we’ve read in James Thurber’s “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” Walter Mitty has an ebullient and wandering imagination. There are multiple occasions in the short story in which Mitty is distracted by a daydream that is somehow tied to what’s happening in reality, causing him to lose sight of what he’s doing at the time. Absent-mindedness can cause some trouble if one finds themselves in a daydream while driving, or perhaps in the middle of a conversation. On the other hand, daydreams can be beneficial for coming up with ways to problem-solve, and for improving mood and brain function. With this in mind, I imagine a dinner with Walter Mitty as being an interesting-or at least, amusing- experience…

    • 489 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Art reveals how an artist felt or interpreted an event during their time. Somewhat like how John reads Shakespeare, John is reflecting on Shakespeare’s feelings and perceives it in his own way. Also the fact that Mond constantly tries to crush art shows that art is a representation of individuality, going directly against his utopian beliefs. Mond specifically tries to rid the utopia of individuality which is revealed and attributed to art. Art is a blank canvas for those with creativity and individuality.…

    • 781 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    “It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.” - Henry David Thoreau. He thinks people should look at the whole picture before making a resolution about something. You can look at something forever, therefore if you don’t look deep enough you might not ever see the good in someone or something. It’s human nature not see everything there is just too much to see and process on a day to day basis.…

    • 316 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout the novel The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien, imagination is explored as a complex concept. It is talked about immensely particularly with the character Jorgensen. O'Brien remembers how the younger version of himself and Azar torment Jorgensen by making sounds that they know will scare him and awaken his imagination. Imagination becomes a killer to Jorgensen both physically and emotionally; it causes him to physically put his body through certain movements that are abnormal, and it ignites a fear within him that makes him lose hope for survival and makes him think that he is about to die.…

    • 540 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Gilbert refers to this as our ‘old brain’, which has evolved from the beginning of time right up to current experience. Here lie our basic survival instincts of fight, flight or freeze. In contrast to that, we also have a ‘new brain’ with a distinct quality that allows us to ‘imagine’. Constructively we can create, invent, discover, intend, arouse. Other helpful qualities of the imagination are the ability to sympathise and empathise as a way of connecting and understanding.…

    • 1059 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The human mind is a fascinating machine. While humans may not be the biggest or strongest throughout the animal kingdom, our thoughts, and as a result, our intellectual power has lead us to become the dominating figure on this planet. Many people argue that one’s most powerful resource is their thoughts, but what kind of “thoughts” make them so fierce? Louis H. Sullivan, in his essay “Thoughts”, believes that creative thinking is the most powerful method of thinking. In order for one to think creatively, they must not use words, as words slow down the thought process due to having to find words and group them together which can be tedious.…

    • 774 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    With biotechnology advancing that would open our human capabilities to another plateau. Scientists have concluded that transhumanism has a long way from being attained. In conclusion, it is safe to say that imagination is the origin of knowledge. If there is no point of imagination how will one wonder?…

    • 513 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Jacob Bronowski was a distinguished scientist who spoke at the Blashfield Address for the American Academy of Art and Letters in 1966. He gave the speech “The Reach of Imagination” to an audience of top class artists and poets. The speech covered the subject of imagination within the human mind. Bronowski opens his speech with,“imagination is a specifically human gift” (193).…

    • 1240 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Pictionary Summary

    • 313 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The article written by Katie Palmer discusses several experiments done to be able to observe the activity of the brain and locate which area of the brain activates creativity. One study done by Stanford is to study the brain while the participants plays Pictionary because Pictionary is a great example of visual creativity. While playing Pictionary, Stanford’s goal is to study the are of the brain that is activated. A control task is carefully designed to eliminate other conditions and activities of the brain that does not relate to creativity.…

    • 313 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create” (Einstein). Einstein’s quote supports my position in that imagination is a critical piece of the process of…

    • 642 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It is considered the foundation of all thinking, because of its ability to be unlimited. Imagination has no limitations; therefore, people are able to reflect on past moments and react on present moments without fear. A person’s imagination carves the path of our future, because an imagination is what creates our future. Without imagination we would never grow in our technology, music, clothes, or arts, because our knowledge would not have the opportunity…

    • 1243 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Through this one is able to come up with various creative solutions to problems. Imagination and rumination are closely related to creative acts (Holohan…

    • 779 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    There have been many philosophers throughout time who’ve had ideas and opinions about the purpose and proper structure of the education systems. Two major examples would be Alfred North Whitehead and Wilhelm von Humboldt. This paper will present a succinct version of both of their thoughts on the integration of research and education within the system of universities, as well as a juxtaposition of their positions. In “Universities and their Function,” Whitehead writes that “[t]he universities are schools of education, and schools of research.”…

    • 1219 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    Imagination Vs Reality

    • 752 Words
    • 4 Pages

    It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.’ With imagination, we are able to set out and fulfill the targets we set, making our dreams become our reality. Imagination can also help to shape our perception of different issues in the world. And remember, your imagination might one day become your reality. Thank…

    • 752 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Great Essays

Related Topics