Can the imagination truly be a flight of ideas or is it a byproduct of an experiential base? Where does the idea of a flying car come from if you have no vehicle, chariot or the first ford?
The imagination is sparked by something that causes the leap into a fantastical idea that seems to have no bounds.
As i sit on the airplane and at times gaze out the window (from the aisle) i see the clouds and with a past filled with my experiences i see the rabbits and snakes and mountain tops and other objects my mind shows me as it tries to make sense of what it is beholding.
But can i say that i have imagined something new? I’m reminded of the forefathers of science fiction dreaming up flying cars and teleporters, force shields and ways to control others. It’s not all good. They also extrapolate, probably based on their current politics, a future idea such as becoming dependent on technology or even too integrated with tech and man becoming subservient if not a slave. (Think Dune, Terminator and The Matrix).
These ideas and thoughts of the future can at the same time spur on our drive to invent and develop ways to accomplish these visions and work towards ways to control them and ourselves to hopefully prevent problems. From Jurassic Park, Malcom talks about how the scientists were so eager to do a thing that they forgot if they even should. Hmm… to pull another idea… with great power comes great responsibility. One problem though is in recognizing that what you are working on or made Is a great power. Perhaps an alarmist view but maybe presume that Everything is a great power and work down from there to mitigate any potential negative effects.
In today’s world, i wonder what will come from the Generation Me crowd. How well does the world of instant gratification lend itself to thinking about the future? If one feels they should be entitled to anything and everything, what will spur them on to want the future that they Need to be shaping?
Will we grow into a level of technology that resembles the Borg? A group consciousness that doesn’t need to dream and becomes focused with great drive to accomplish tasks can get a lot done but can you innovate without art? A future extrapolation of the Borg is that once they’ve assimilated everyone and everything there would be no more new ideas. Are they racing towards perfection only to be thwarted by their own present actions? That would be a righteous epic fail.
The acting of writing with only a concept and maybe a few ideas invokes my mind to push its boundary and if i’m lucky, expand it into uncharted territories. The boundary is not smooth but serpentine. It meanders around with some ideas and notions still stuck in the past and others like a spike toward the horizon stretching into infinity to touch an outlier concept.
Lack of sleep is slowing this thought process to a halt and really, the clouds and the ground offer so much more right now. I mean come on. Before i knew what they were, the circle and square patterns you can see on the ground sometimes are fascinating. That could be my cinnamon life being made down there. :)
Alas or finally, it’s time to disengage the brain and let it imagine all the wondrous things it sees before it.
-SFA