[Music]
this idea is at least 275 years old but
moreover it has been rediscovered at
least 50 times that I can find often
founding fields and by people who would
be very famous if I were to mention them
and they all call it something different
but I don’t think that’s why the idea is
unknown I think it’s unknown because it
goes against our cultural ideals our
personal experience and the way the
brain works what is the idea that
imagination isn’t what we think it’s how
we think now I’d like to go to the
originators of this and that would be
David Hume and Emanuel Khan who noted
that the imagination is situated between
our perceptions and our understanding as
cought wrote in 1780 that we do not see
the world the way it is we see the world
according to our instruments this also
could have been a quote from Daniel
Kahneman s best-selling book Thinking
Fast and Slow in 2011 which kind of
gives you an idea of where we are with
this well first most people wouldn’t
disagree with that ago yeah of course I
don’t see as well as an eagle I don’t
hear or smell as well as my dog does our
perceptions are limited but cotton
Khanna men are saying something much
more important they’re saying that our
instruments of perception our
instruments of understanding are such
that some things are going to be quite
easy for us to perceive and understand
some of the little bit difficult and
some of them are going to be impossible
it means the universe around us is
hidden in plain sight we can’t see it
and this might raise some disagreement
because you can see me standing up here
and I can see you and we’re in this room
and and that’s reality right that’s
what’s real and yet most of you I’m sure
know about Piaget and his experiments in
which he would find out that young
children saw a different world
they would take a glass of water and you
take a container you pour the water into
it and they need to ask the small child
which one has more and the child would
point at this one and go well this one
has more because it’s higher and of
course higher is more and we as we all
know more is better there were other
experiments that are not as well known
one of them involved a ball and it’s on
a string and if you spin it around let
it go my question to you will it go
straight or will it curved or will it do
something else think about that because
we’re gonna try it now it’s styrofoam so
mostly safe so did it curved or did it
go straight now if you saw it curved
you’re actually in good company Leonardo
da Vinci saw it curved Galileo and his
experiments saw it goes straight and
repeated that and afraid that’s what the
physics is the thing is that why would
we not see it that way well it turns out
in the cognitive sciences we can see
things we already know and won’t see
things that we don’t know now how does
that square with reality if you were
able to see them the cards are the wrong
colors the homage to Jerome Bruner who
found that if it looks like a duck if it
sounds like a duck it’s probably a duck
the thing is that we might not have that
perception okay it’s a cheap trick
but it points out this mental process
which is that our mind our imagination
will pick out a bit of what we know and
we’ll fill in the rest of the picture
and the thing is that we do this by the
way we dress what do we do we’re trying
to suggest something about ourselves
that’s more than just the clothing now
this idea is that some surface quality
is going to reflect some inner essence
so shiny will mean new and something is
young will mean fresh and if a dog
growls it’s best left alone the idea is
that from that little bit we spread out
and we have a reality and this is the
illusion of objectivity well in the
fields of anthropology this is known as
sympathetic magic and if you know
anything about anthropologists they
studied prehistoric people our species
so these are patterns and abilities that
have been going on for a very very very
long time and particularly one they call
the law of similarity which has to do
with this that like produces like that
like attracts like that like causes like
now again you look across other fields
you see the same idea of how to two
things connect and literary studies this
is called metaphor in social psychology
this is called stereotyping in
behavioral economics this is called
representativeness and in many other
fields something else there’s a lot of
jargon to go around what we call it is
that reminds me you know that’s just
like you know I remember when you know
last week we had the same kind of
problem if you begin to listen for this
you find out that we use it and we use
it practically everywhere this is one of
the principal ways that we make sense of
the world what gets you to think this is
a duck is it a bit of the bill is it the
yellow or the tail
let’s try something else here what do
you make of this now at this point you
may notice that you’re you’re resembling
trying to find out what it’s like is
slipping back and forth it gives you an
actual experience of that moment that we
don’t get very often well is it by the
way those of you who are sure that it’s
a horse what about that beak of course
you can resolve this problem by simply
going it’s a toy and that puts it in
another category and you can calm down
the thing is that we do this much more
quickly with people and without a second
thought we elect leaders who are taller
we think that attractive people are more
honest and and we pay them more and we
forgive them more often and if we find
people that we don’t like to be polite
about it we generally will lean into
thinking they’re bad or at least they’re
suspect and again we take some little
bit of behavior and we build it out to a
trait oh that person’s shy oh that
person is competitive oh that person and
so on and so on and so on winners and
losers introvert extrovert athletic
uncoordinated risk-takers wallflowers
when we apply those to ourselves
it limits our identity limits what we
might choose to do when other people
apply them to us well then it influences
how they perceive us and how they
respond to us and it’s taking something
that’s ambiguous and open to
interpretation and grabbing a hold in
one part of it this is a natural ability
and it happens very quickly and it
happens very unconsciously it also from
the work of Michel Foucault post
modernists naturalizes our environment
of course being French we wouldn’t know
what that means
but I’ll tell you that it’s where
something is taken as real
that may or may not be that we made up
let me give you an example the zero that
is a lot of civilizations didn’t come up
with a zero they they knew what nothing
was okay they not a zip so forth but
they didn’t have something to represent
nothing why would you it’s like a
Seinfeld episode
the thing is that Fibonacci comes along
brings the zero to Europe in the 12th
century and we’ve been finding it really
useful ever since then so here’s the
question is the zero natural and we
discover it or is it an act of
imagination now these same skills these
same abilities are at the basis of our
creativity that whenever something is
invented or created it’s always what is
this in terms of that and Tesla for
example figured out alternating current
by watching the spinning of a water
spring Picasso invented modern art by
looking at primitive art and of course
famously Steve Jobs thought of the
personal computer as an appliance so it
would seem like we’d want more imagine
we’d want to unleash the imagination
except you can find a lot of places
where the imagination is unleashed
they’re called conditions under
uncertainty they’re places where the
outcomes are not predictable and in
those places which include gambling
athletics and investing you see
superstitious thoughts and behaviors you
see elaborate rituals that people go
through you see where they have Taos
Manzano cool thing ‘king Michael Jordan
famous in Chicago wore his college
basketball uniform under his MBA uniform
his entire career
the mathematical trader who made Black
Swan famous he found himself trying to
go in a side door of the Chicago Board
of Trade because the day before he had
gone in through that door and made a lot
of money and in our times more and more
of us are experienced the world as
uncertain our careers our lives and we
see a rise in magical thinking even to
the point now where it’s
institutionalized and become a profit
Center so what to do well we still have
our rational thinking mind what Kahneman
and colleagues would call system two
three swear we deliberately think things
through in our own voice and this is a
curious thing because we’re thinking
with our own voice and we’re figuring
things out so clearly this is the most
important mental ability we have and
it’s obviously in control you know
there’s a number of fields questioning
that right now and we get down to how do
we control by language each of us grows
up in a language and we learn words and
this word means that and we learn things
like well a pig is called a pig because
well it wallows in the mud and it’s a
sloppy eater right well at least you
know pig seems to get a really good word
for our pig right the word is the thing
the word is like the thing like attracts
like we’re right back in the imagination
it turns out that our reasoning and our
rationales are steeped in the
imagination but that’s hard for you to
believe I’ll bet so I’ll show you
something
I have here some ordinary Morton Salt
what just happened as you look at them
on the screen is your willingness to use
one or the other changed a little bit
and even though you laugh and you would
do it
because you saw me but you’re good at
you have a reluctance suddenly and that
reluctance is signaling you about
something about words that words we have
are like things and moreover what we’re
getting at here is that in a heartbeat
our imagination makes reality different
what I’m getting at here is that words
don’t reflect reality words are actually
making things what they are in a certain
sense we go to the examples of how we
think of ourselves and the words like
winner and loser and success and failure
and so forth and we take that little bit
of experience that renamed and we put a
whole reality around it or somebody else
does that as well and so words evoke
experiences not realities and if you
listen to that you understand it then if
we use a number of words what will begin
to emerge as we put those experiences
together what do we use a story another
act of imagination stories by the way
our our first information storage and
retrieval device and they’re also our
favorite way of reasoning and a favorite
pastime
let me demonstrate to you how quickly
you can build a story some of you may be
familiar with the studies that show
whatever it is that you’re doing now in
10 years you’re likely to be doing
something else so if you were to imagine
that it’s 10 years from now and what
you’re doing is that you’re an architect
how do you make sense of that what led
up to that you’re noticing that you’re
bind can very easily begin to pick out
episodes in your life and string them
together and the thing is that if you
think
about that if you share that with
friends if you naturalize it then that
begins to feel real and then it becomes
something called fate or destiny I hope
in these in other ways I’m pointing out
the the fundamental power and
persuasiveness of this unconscious
process our imagination which is running
all the time I think this is where we
turn to Albert Einstein he noted that
imagination is more important than
knowledge he went on in that passage to
write that knowledge could be great
imagination greater any knowledge we
have came from something we previously
imagined let me give you an example
Aristotle knew of the universe that in
the heavens it was eternal and perfect
and on earth it was changing with time
Newton thought well if the heavens and
the earth had the same rules then the
laws of gravity would work everywhere in
other words Newton had a leap of
imagination now he was assisted in this
by Galileo because Galileo had seen that
the moon was imperfect
remember what cotton Kahneman said which
is that we do not see the world the way
it is we see the world as our
instruments allow and the instrument in
this case was the telescope and so
Newton was able to reimagine the
universe and the celestial mechanics
were so successful that people took them
as real and true they naturalized until
a couple centuries later when our
instruments became electric and it was
worked out that the speed of light was
constant and then the universe needed to
be reimagined and we have Einstein’s
theories of relativity Marshall McLuhan
wrote that our technologies extend us
they extend our instruments and so then
we have a way of understanding what’s
happening that is that technologies
science advanced as our instruments
exceed our imaginings and at that point
it’s time to reimagine the world I hope
you see by now that imagination and
knowledge are complementary and complete
each other it’s like they’re in an
endless dance in which imagination leads
thank you
[Applause]
this idea is at least 275 years old but
moreover it has been rediscovered at
least 50 times that I can find often
founding fields and by people who would
be very famous if I were to mention them
and they all call it something different
but I don’t think that’s why the idea is
unknown I think it’s unknown because it
goes against our cultural ideals our
personal experience and the way the
brain works what is the idea that
imagination isn’t what we think it’s how
we think now I’d like to go to the
originators of this and that would be
David Hume and Emanuel Khan who noted
that the imagination is situated between
our perceptions and our understanding as
cought wrote in 1780 that we do not see
the world the way it is we see the world
according to our instruments this also
could have been a quote from Daniel
Kahneman s best-selling book Thinking
Fast and Slow in 2011 which kind of
gives you an idea of where we are with
this well first most people wouldn’t
disagree with that ago yeah of course I
don’t see as well as an eagle I don’t
hear or smell as well as my dog does our
perceptions are limited but cotton
Khanna men are saying something much
more important they’re saying that our
instruments of perception our
instruments of understanding are such
that some things are going to be quite
easy for us to perceive and understand
some of the little bit difficult and
some of them are going to be impossible
it means the universe around us is
hidden in plain sight we can’t see it
and this might raise some disagreement
because you can see me standing up here
and I can see you and we’re in this room
and and that’s reality right that’s
what’s real and yet most of you I’m sure
know about Piaget and his experiments in
which he would find out that young
children saw a different world
they would take a glass of water and you
take a container you pour the water into
it and they need to ask the small child
which one has more and the child would
point at this one and go well this one
has more because it’s higher and of
course higher is more and we as we all
know more is better there were other
experiments that are not as well known
one of them involved a ball and it’s on
a string and if you spin it around let
it go my question to you will it go
straight or will it curved or will it do
something else think about that because
we’re gonna try it now it’s styrofoam so
mostly safe so did it curved or did it
go straight now if you saw it curved
you’re actually in good company Leonardo
da Vinci saw it curved Galileo and his
experiments saw it goes straight and
repeated that and afraid that’s what the
physics is the thing is that why would
we not see it that way well it turns out
in the cognitive sciences we can see
things we already know and won’t see
things that we don’t know now how does
that square with reality if you were
able to see them the cards are the wrong
colors the homage to Jerome Bruner who
found that if it looks like a duck if it
sounds like a duck it’s probably a duck
the thing is that we might not have that
perception okay it’s a cheap trick
but it points out this mental process
which is that our mind our imagination
will pick out a bit of what we know and
we’ll fill in the rest of the picture
and the thing is that we do this by the
way we dress what do we do we’re trying
to suggest something about ourselves
that’s more than just the clothing now
this idea is that some surface quality
is going to reflect some inner essence
so shiny will mean new and something is
young will mean fresh and if a dog
growls it’s best left alone the idea is
that from that little bit we spread out
and we have a reality and this is the
illusion of objectivity well in the
fields of anthropology this is known as
sympathetic magic and if you know
anything about anthropologists they
studied prehistoric people our species
so these are patterns and abilities that
have been going on for a very very very
long time and particularly one they call
the law of similarity which has to do
with this that like produces like that
like attracts like that like causes like
now again you look across other fields
you see the same idea of how to two
things connect and literary studies this
is called metaphor in social psychology
this is called stereotyping in
behavioral economics this is called
representativeness and in many other
fields something else there’s a lot of
jargon to go around what we call it is
that reminds me you know that’s just
like you know I remember when you know
last week we had the same kind of
problem if you begin to listen for this
you find out that we use it and we use
it practically everywhere this is one of
the principal ways that we make sense of
the world what gets you to think this is
a duck is it a bit of the bill is it the
yellow or the tail
let’s try something else here what do
you make of this now at this point you
may notice that you’re you’re resembling
trying to find out what it’s like is
slipping back and forth it gives you an
actual experience of that moment that we
don’t get very often well is it by the
way those of you who are sure that it’s
a horse what about that beak of course
you can resolve this problem by simply
going it’s a toy and that puts it in
another category and you can calm down
the thing is that we do this much more
quickly with people and without a second
thought we elect leaders who are taller
we think that attractive people are more
honest and and we pay them more and we
forgive them more often and if we find
people that we don’t like to be polite
about it we generally will lean into
thinking they’re bad or at least they’re
suspect and again we take some little
bit of behavior and we build it out to a
trait oh that person’s shy oh that
person is competitive oh that person and
so on and so on and so on winners and
losers introvert extrovert athletic
uncoordinated risk-takers wallflowers
when we apply those to ourselves
it limits our identity limits what we
might choose to do when other people
apply them to us well then it influences
how they perceive us and how they
respond to us and it’s taking something
that’s ambiguous and open to
interpretation and grabbing a hold in
one part of it this is a natural ability
and it happens very quickly and it
happens very unconsciously it also from
the work of Michel Foucault post
modernists naturalizes our environment
of course being French we wouldn’t know
what that means
but I’ll tell you that it’s where
something is taken as real
that may or may not be that we made up
let me give you an example the zero that
is a lot of civilizations didn’t come up
with a zero they they knew what nothing
was okay they not a zip so forth but
they didn’t have something to represent
nothing why would you it’s like a
Seinfeld episode
the thing is that Fibonacci comes along
brings the zero to Europe in the 12th
century and we’ve been finding it really
useful ever since then so here’s the
question is the zero natural and we
discover it or is it an act of
imagination now these same skills these
same abilities are at the basis of our
creativity that whenever something is
invented or created it’s always what is
this in terms of that and Tesla for
example figured out alternating current
by watching the spinning of a water
spring Picasso invented modern art by
looking at primitive art and of course
famously Steve Jobs thought of the
personal computer as an appliance so it
would seem like we’d want more imagine
we’d want to unleash the imagination
except you can find a lot of places
where the imagination is unleashed
they’re called conditions under
uncertainty they’re places where the
outcomes are not predictable and in
those places which include gambling
athletics and investing you see
superstitious thoughts and behaviors you
see elaborate rituals that people go
through you see where they have Taos
Manzano cool thing ‘king Michael Jordan
famous in Chicago wore his college
basketball uniform under his MBA uniform
his entire career
the mathematical trader who made Black
Swan famous he found himself trying to
go in a side door of the Chicago Board
of Trade because the day before he had
gone in through that door and made a lot
of money and in our times more and more
of us are experienced the world as
uncertain our careers our lives and we
see a rise in magical thinking even to
the point now where it’s
institutionalized and become a profit
Center so what to do well we still have
our rational thinking mind what Kahneman
and colleagues would call system two
three swear we deliberately think things
through in our own voice and this is a
curious thing because we’re thinking
with our own voice and we’re figuring
things out so clearly this is the most
important mental ability we have and
it’s obviously in control you know
there’s a number of fields questioning
that right now and we get down to how do
we control by language each of us grows
up in a language and we learn words and
this word means that and we learn things
like well a pig is called a pig because
well it wallows in the mud and it’s a
sloppy eater right well at least you
know pig seems to get a really good word
for our pig right the word is the thing
the word is like the thing like attracts
like we’re right back in the imagination
it turns out that our reasoning and our
rationales are steeped in the
imagination but that’s hard for you to
believe I’ll bet so I’ll show you
something
I have here some ordinary Morton Salt
what just happened as you look at them
on the screen is your willingness to use
one or the other changed a little bit
and even though you laugh and you would
do it
because you saw me but you’re good at
you have a reluctance suddenly and that
reluctance is signaling you about
something about words that words we have
are like things and moreover what we’re
getting at here is that in a heartbeat
our imagination makes reality different
what I’m getting at here is that words
don’t reflect reality words are actually
making things what they are in a certain
sense we go to the examples of how we
think of ourselves and the words like
winner and loser and success and failure
and so forth and we take that little bit
of experience that renamed and we put a
whole reality around it or somebody else
does that as well and so words evoke
experiences not realities and if you
listen to that you understand it then if
we use a number of words what will begin
to emerge as we put those experiences
together what do we use a story another
act of imagination stories by the way
our our first information storage and
retrieval device and they’re also our
favorite way of reasoning and a favorite
pastime
let me demonstrate to you how quickly
you can build a story some of you may be
familiar with the studies that show
whatever it is that you’re doing now in
10 years you’re likely to be doing
something else so if you were to imagine
that it’s 10 years from now and what
you’re doing is that you’re an architect
how do you make sense of that what led
up to that you’re noticing that you’re
bind can very easily begin to pick out
episodes in your life and string them
together and the thing is that if you
think
about that if you share that with
friends if you naturalize it then that
begins to feel real and then it becomes
something called fate or destiny I hope
in these in other ways I’m pointing out
the the fundamental power and
persuasiveness of this unconscious
process our imagination which is running
all the time I think this is where we
turn to Albert Einstein he noted that
imagination is more important than
knowledge he went on in that passage to
write that knowledge could be great
imagination greater any knowledge we
have came from something we previously
imagined let me give you an example
Aristotle knew of the universe that in
the heavens it was eternal and perfect
and on earth it was changing with time
Newton thought well if the heavens and
the earth had the same rules then the
laws of gravity would work everywhere in
other words Newton had a leap of
imagination now he was assisted in this
by Galileo because Galileo had seen that
the moon was imperfect
remember what cotton Kahneman said which
is that we do not see the world the way
it is we see the world as our
instruments allow and the instrument in
this case was the telescope and so
Newton was able to reimagine the
universe and the celestial mechanics
were so successful that people took them
as real and true they naturalized until
a couple centuries later when our
instruments became electric and it was
worked out that the speed of light was
constant and then the universe needed to
be reimagined and we have Einstein’s
theories of relativity Marshall McLuhan
wrote that our technologies extend us
they extend our instruments and so then
we have a way of understanding what’s
happening that is that technologies
science advanced as our instruments
exceed our imaginings and at that point
it’s time to reimagine the world I hope
you see by now that imagination and
knowledge are complementary and complete
each other it’s like they’re in an
endless dance in which imagination leads
thank you
[Applause]
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