People seem to think that imagination, superstition, fantasy, scientific creativity are all from different sources in the mind. However we harness our imaginations, it matters little, all that matters is how we use them practically, they all have their uses, and flexing imaginative muscles in science or literature or art are things all people do whether author, scientist or fundamentalist.
The only difference I can see is that these days people are more selective in what they believe. But you don’t have to believe in something to make use of it, take Stephen King or Clive Barker for example, or a pure mathematician or philosophy as a whole, plenty of superstition in all of those. Because of the amount of fiction and fact we are subject to and the sheer amount of people and ideas, we are more imaginative than ever we could have been in history. Being almost overwhelmed with ideas, both fantastic and speculative. The question is then does one have to believe in superstition to make use of it? And are superstitions not more part of the collective culture of the world than ever they were? How many people in history would have known of the local superstitions of at least 5 dozen different cultures? And most people now a days do, they just don’t realise the source of all of them, although some like dragons and vampires and ghosts are fairly ubiquitous. What were the social uses of superstitions? Taboos, telling us not to do certain things, making us afraid of the dark, afraid of the unknown, enabling to put out fears in words and to deal with them? We still do that as much as ever we did, although some fears might have changed, in fact we do it more, in fact sometimes when we are alone at night or reading or watching a particularly scary story we even believe them.
Me for example I grew up on fantasy, did role playing games as a kid up to my early 20s, know a fair deal about religions mythology generally, and a little about the occult likewise, both Christian and pagan and will hopefully be studying for a degree in physics. All the most imaginative and creative areas of life I like to explore. I think I couldn’t really be subject to more superstition personally especially in physics ironically enough. There’s been a more imaginative time to be alive I think, in philosophy and science at least, or mythology, the only square peg is organised religion which tends to be a little dogmatic. Exercising your imagination strengthens it, whatever it is and whether you ultimately believe it or not.
Wake up with a hypothesis disprove it over breakfast, then you are ready to work.
Anon scientist.
As far as I can see the only real seat of ignorance, is thinking there is one true path to enlightenment or that we can discard any areas of the imagination just because we don’t exercise them or they aren’t immediately useful to us. I don’t want to go all Buddhist but its a fairly common sense idea that all things are ultimately connected, and in real life some ideas come from some amazingly unconnected spheres of thought, it’s a matter of how many connections you have in your head I suppose, as to how far your imagination can take you. And as I say: we’ve never been better placed to imagine. This is one thing I see as ironic about fear of science, it’s not as if it hasn’t expanded your mind and horizons in the media age further than ever they could of been, and in fact infinitely far in terms of space. Humbling how small a part of all that exists we really are isn’t it.
