Quotes About Imagination

Fiction isn't bad. It is vital.

Peugeot is a figment of our collective imagination. Lawyers call this a 'legal fiction'. It can't be pointed at; it is not a physical object. But it exists as a legal entity

They can nevertheless play the game with complete strangers because they have all learned an identical set of ideas about basketball. These ideas are entirely imaginary, but if everyone shares them, we can all play the game.

And what are the characteristics that evolved in humans? 'Life', certainly. But 'liberty'? There is no such thing in biology. Just like equality, rights and limited liability companies, liberty is something that people invented and that exists only in their imagination. From a biological viewpoint, it is meaningless to say that humans in democratic societies are free, whereas humans in dictatorships are unfree.

Bereitwillig glaubten die Menschen an Engel und Elfen, aber dass ein winziger Floh oder ein einziger Tropfen Wasser eine ganze Armada tödlicher Jäger enthielt, konnten sie sich nicht vorstellen.

However, fiction has enabled us not merely to imagine things, but to do so collectively.

A natural order is a stable order. There is no chance that gravity will cease to function tomorrow, even if people stop believing in it. In contrast, an imagined order is always in danger of collapse, because it depends upon myths, and myths vanish once people stop believing in them.

A natural order is a stable order. There is no chance that gravity will cease to function tomorrow, even if people stop believing in it. In contrast, an imagined order is always in danger of collapse, because it depends upon myths, and myths vanish once people stop believing in them. In order to safeguard an imagined order, continuous and strenuous efforts are imperative. Some of these efforts take the shape of violence and coercion.

El arte desempeña un papel clave en dar forma a la visión que la gente tiene del mundo,

In the twenty-first century fiction might thereby become the most potent force on earth, surpassing even wayward asteroids and natural selection. Hence if we want to understand our future, cracking genomes and crunching numbers is hardly enough. We must also decipher the fictions that give meaning to the world.

The imagined order is embedded in the material world.

Never before has peace been so prevalent that people could not even imagine war.

Without an ability to compose fiction, Neanderthals were unable to cooperate effectively in large numbers, nor could they adapt their social behaviour to rapidly changing challenges.

Your boss wants you to constantly check your emails rather than smell flowers or dream about fairies.

desde la revolución cognitiva, los sapiens han vivido en una realidad dual. Por un lado, la realidad objetiva de los ríos, los árboles y los leones; y por el otro, la realidad imaginada de los dioses, las naciones y las corporaciones. A medida que pasaba el tiempo, la realidad imaginada se hizo cada vez más poderosa, de modo que en la actualidad la supervivencia de ríos, árboles y leones depende de la gracia de entidades imaginadas tales como dioses, naciones y corporaciones.

Yet none of these things exists outside the stories that people invent and tell one another. There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings. People

There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings. People easily understand that 'primitives' cement their social order by believing in ghosts and spirits, and gathering each full moon to dance together around the campfire. What we fail to appreciate is that our modern institutions function on exactly the same basis. Take

The secret was probably the appearance of fiction. Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths. Any

The humanities and social sciences devote most of their energies to explaining exactly how the imagined order is woven into the tapestry of life.

It's relatively easy to agree that only Homo sapiens can speak about things that don't really exist, and believe six impossible things before breakfast. You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven. But why is it important? After all, fiction can be dangerously misleading or distracting.

The humanities, in contrast, emphasise the crucial importance of intersubjective entities, which cannot be reduced to hormones and neurons. To think historically means to ascribe real power to the contents of our imaginary stories.

Since all social orders and hierarchies are imagined, they are all fragile, and the larger the society, the more fragile it is.

Unlike lying, an imagined reality is something that everyone believes in, and as long as this communal belief persists, the imagined reality exerts force in the world.

The imagined order is embedded in the material world. Though the imagined order exists only in our minds, it can be woven into the material reality around us,