Imagination And How It Relates Essay, Research Paper

Imagination is involved in everything. It is impossible for the human race to do

anything without its imagination. It molds and shapes our society, our science and our art. It

makes things we dream about into real things. Imagination pushes the human mind to create,

to invent and to aspire to new heights. It revolves around everything. Music could not be

created without imagination. You can trace everything back to imagination. A person sitting

on top of a hill sees the landscape below and thinks to himself, “How beautiful.” And then

paints a picture of it. He imagined painting it, of how the landscape would look on canvas,

what exact colors to use. He imagined how others would think of his painting. Imagination

drives him to create and to use his mind. Imagination is what drives the person to buy a

certain product on the store shelf; imagining it to be better to the others of it’s kind. Even

animals must have at least a limited imagination. They play, they study things the way

humans might, and they hunt with quick thought processes. Science is ruled by imagination.

Not one scientist could come up with new ideas for his/her field without using his

imagination along with his learned skills. Imagination drives everything, makes everything

what it is.

Imagination is what is responsible for creating society. We all imagine how our lives

could be. What profession we want, house, clothing style, children. The human society is

never, and will never, be truly content with life. We always want more, better. For some

people, they want less. In my opinion, our society wants to achieve peace; to be content with

everything, to have everything they could need or want. We want to have no worries and no

stress. Every day we imagine what we want in life. A seven-year-old child may only

imagine a toy he wants to buy, or a television show he wants to watch. The child’s mind only

occasionally thinking towards the future seriously. An older child may think about what he

wants to do when he gets older. What he “wants to be when he grows up.” He imagines how

his life will be. How he wants it to be. A smart child will realize what he needs to do to

achieve those goals. The child then moves onward in his life, still dreaming and imagining.

Corporations use imagination to their advantage also. A bleach company puts out a

commercial to influence the imaginations of the viewer. The viewer sees the bleach

company’s bleach turn a sock from a dirty brown color to a bright white. The opposite

brand’s sock is still a little brown. The viewer may not realize it, but it influences his/her

imagination and his thought. When the viewer goes to the store he/she may buy the product,

thinking of the socks. The company itself imagines this is what will happen with the viewer,

and begin imagining more profit. The viewer wants their socks to be clean, while the

company wants to sell their product. Someone in the company had to create the commercial,

to come up with the idea. There were probably studies done to find out what the viewers

would buy and why. People in medieval times were all accustomed to their lives. They were

mostly poor, dying of unknown diseases, living with unfair laws. They all wanted a better

life, their basic needs to survive were there, but they imagined better. The Japanese people

created, and still create, beautiful gardens that have since become a part of their society. Each

stepping stone, tree, rock and sand formations has symbolic value, which is so important to

the designer of the garden. The inventor Johan Gutenburg imagines the printing press, an idea

for pre cutting blocks of wood, which fit into a metal frame. Slapping on some ink, and then

pressing paper onto the ink. Doing it again and again. It was a new idea, people wanted to use

it for their business. Gutenburg made money from using his imagination in a practical way.

Turning the idea into a real thing. People invent things for different reasons. Mostly to fulfill

a need quicker, faster, and with more quality, or to fulfill a want. They imagine what they

want for themselves or for others. If society had no wants, where everyone had everything

they wanted, and needed, it is possible that people would not need imagination. Since it

doesn’t work that way, imagination is required for society to survive. Do animals have

imagination? Some would say no. Some would say yes. A dog chasing a rabbit, it being

obvious to the owner because the dog may only growl in a particular way while going after a

rabbit. Is that instinct or imagination? In my opinion, instinct is around only get basic needs,

while imagination is there to fulfill wants. What need would dreaming of a rabbit fulfill? It

is closer to a want, possibly showing imagination and thought. From one view, the dog thinks

and imagines; it imagines to help it function in it’s way of life and it’s dog society. A dog

locked in a bathroom may play with the toilet paper roll, unwinding it all the way. A dog or

cat might watch the TV when bored. A dog will stare at something for a few minutes and

then do something completely unexpected. I doubt any of these actions are the cause of

instinct, but of thought and imagination. Wolves function as a society to survive. They hunt

deer with their instinct; but occasionally a problem arises in which instinct cannot help, the

wolves must use their imagination and thought to solve the problem. Each animal needs

imagination to survive in its society. Humans require imagination to function in society.

Little children playing games will not get along with other children without having some

imagination. They require it to play war games, playing house, etc. Adults require

imagination to survive in a high paced business world, where new thoughts and imaginings

can bring success and lack of imagination can bring failure.

Inventors throughout time have imagined different sciences and technology. In my

opinion, science is the method of getting wants and needs in better, newer and faster ways.

Sometimes turning a dream into reality. People dreamt and imagined that they could build

flying machines, which they believed would enable them to fly. Although they didn’t work

until fairly recently, those people’s imaginations were hard at work. Some of the first

scientists were alchemists. The alchemists believed they could change common metals into

gold. These people wanted money, and were willing to try anything to get it. There is an

amazing amount of sciences in the world. All stemming from people wanting and needing

cures for diseases, entertainment, and better business techniques. Archaeology coming from

people who wanted to learn and study ancient cultures that had their own thoughts,

imagination, and reasons for living in that culture. Science allows people to live more

comfortably. Each new advance helping to rid the world of diseases or to add more and more

entertainment to our lives which get bored so easily. To get new ideas in the fields of

science, a person must look in the gray area, not just black and white areas. According to the

Fuzzy Logic book, “There are no whole truths, all truths are half truths. It is trying to treat

them as whole truths that play the devil.” A scientist or inventor cannot create something

new without looking at all the possibilities in between. Using Fuzzy Logic, 0=Completely

False and 1=Completely True. This can be given the assignment of two statements. True

would be symbolized by; “The Nile is a long river.” False by, “The Nile is a short river.” In

between lies the possibility for many different ideas. “The Hudson is a long river” is given a

value of point-two. It is true, but not completely true. When compared to the Nile, the

Hudson is short. There are more rivers in the world longer than the Hudson is, so the

statement “The Hudson is a long river” is more false than true. Giving it a value of about

point-two. The statements that can be given values between one and zero are immense. The

scientist must always look for as much possible between 0 and 1. Only by using imagination

is invention possible. When Thomas Edison recorded his own voice singing Mary had a

Little Lamb, he recorded it on tin foil with his device. He knew the quality of it was poor, and

needed to improve it. He changed the cylinder made of tin, to being made of wax. Edison

used “Fuzzy Logic” without really knowing it. People imagine how things could be, and

then imagine ways to bring it about. People want to know more so they explore things. They

see tiny animals and look closer and see even smaller animals, putting ideas and new

imaginings to good use. According to Fuzzy Logic, “What makes society turn is science, and

the language of science is math, and the structure of math is logic.” In my opinion,

imagination is what allows all this to come about.

Not only does imagination influence science, but also art. The artist looks around him at

society and imagines how he can show it or something about it or someone in it. The artist

can create or improve upon an already existing art. The scope of art is so incredibly huge.

The phrase “What’s one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” is certainly true in this case.

To some societies of the world, ancient and recent, war is a burden. War being a thing to be

avoided and shunned. To the early Chinese people, war was a necessity. The tactics and

functions of a smart general turned into a complete art, still used today. Shakespeare wrote

amazing plays about a wide variety of thoughts, ideas and conflicts. The reason people love

his work is because each of his plays deals with the human spirit, imagination, hope, love,

torment and countless other things that relate directly with each of our lives. Everything he

wrote he created from watching the society about him and put his imagination to good use.

Each artist paints different pictures in a different personal style for each of them. In each

painting, if you really look at it for long enough, you can see what feelings the artist put into

it. In M.C. Escher’s drawing of himself holding a reflecting sphere, the obvious feeling in it

is introspection. Paintings or drawings of a person getting killed, or stabbed by a multitude

of people could mean the artist feels threatened or like he/she has been stabbed in the back. A

painting of a person being congratulated by a few people probably feels happy, like he/she

has achieved something. These are very obvious observations, easy to see, but in every well-

done painting, deep emotion can be found. Art can be found in a great multitude of places.

Even in the kitchen, art can be found. When a chef prepares a meal for a group of people,

each spice and herb is added to make the food as taste bud pleasing as possible. Every

different taste blended with the others to create a symphony of taste. The food is arranged on

the plate to create a visually pleasing meal as well as it being pleasing to the palate. The art

involved in cooking is absolutely necessary for people to enjoy food. Anyone can cook well

enough to ease the need of food in his or her stomachs, but only a true artist in the kitchen

can make someone enjoy what they eat. Music is the same way. Anyone can hit a drum and

call it music, but for someone to truly enjoy the music, it must be prepared and calculated

out. It must be sung and played with skill or it will give no enjoyment to those who listen. In

the book Volcano, Hongo writes about his step-uncle. His step-uncle lived a long life and

spent his time fishing in many different ways including torching, netting and using a regular

fishing pole, sometimes made out of bamboo. He spoke English, but not very well. During

the bombing of pearl harbor, he watched as the Japanese planes fly overhead. He was

brought in for questioning by the FBI and then released a couple days later. Kubotu held a

grudge against the government the rest of his life. Hongo wrote about his step-uncle and his

experiences with him with such a huge amount of feeling that it almost makes me want to

cry. Especially when Hongo told of when he visited his uncle in the hospital after having a

couple strokes. Hongo is a true artist to invoke so much feeling into his writing. Anyone

who can write with so much passion about any subject truly has my respect. Kubotu is an

artist as well, so experienced at fishing. From what I read it sounds like he could fish any

day in any weather and come back home with a bundle of fish, truly caring about the art.

Imagination is truly what makes art what it is. Not one artist could come up with the

masterpieces they do without the help of imagination. To paint, cook, write plays or novels,

and wage war, takes an incredible amount of skill, mind-power and imagination.

Imagination is extremely important in everything our society, science and art does. It

brings about the creation of things, runs our society and fuels our science and feeds our art.

Society is littered with art from every possible source, from commercials on TV to posters in

an average teenager’s bedroom. Art and science tend to form how society functions around

us. Even science can create new art. I once saw paintings of outer space made with the use of

electricity. The finished product being a mind-blowing painting with minute details of a

nebula or of a planet all created by the use of paint and electricity. Some things in society are

both art and science. The art of Japanese sword making may have first started out as a

science, but ended up as an art. First it was important for the military to function, a needed

weapon. As time went on it wasn’t needed as much any more, and swords were made for

decorative purposes. A Japanese sword maker could focus on his art. Folding the metal

more and more time to make it stronger, decorating it with meticulous care. None of the

things written about in this paper could have been accomplished without imagination.

Imagination is in everything. Sometimes having a positive or negative result. All lead to

progress and a better understanding of the human race. Only through imagination and the

mind is this possible.