With the recent events in Japan and in general in the world I think a lot of us start to reflect on what we are and what is the purpose of life and the usual questions. I've recently been watching some Sir Ken Robinson videos and although he mostly covers education he also gives some great views on life in general. What I'm about to quote comes from the last part of this video:
Where he comments on Bertrand Russel's quote: "Is man what he seems to the astronomer, a tiny lump of impure carbon and water impotently crawling on a small and unimportant planet? Or is he what he seems to Hamlet? Or is he both at once?"
He responded something like (I've rewritten it a little so it isn't an exact quote but it's the same concept, if you want to hear exactly what he says go to about 1:07:00 in that video.
We may be pitifully tiny in cosmic terms, but nonetheless we are the species that did produce Hamlet, and the Sistine Chapel, and the David, the great religions of the world, and quantum mechanics, and the digital culture and the 6000 languages currently spoken in the word, and these, are not insignificant achievements, and we all owe this to a single capacity that distinguishes us from every other species on earth, the power of imagination. The power to bring to mind the things that are not present in our senses. And we owe everything we take for granted to it.
Yeah it seems like creative artifacts are new combinations of things that are present in our senses. Animals do the same thing with the homes they build, their communication and the games they play. So either we both have imagination or neither of us truly have imagination.
On March 13 2011 04:55 zulu_nation8 wrote: How do you know animals don't have imagination?
I was wondering whether or not to add this to the post but seeing as it was long enough already I decided not to, he says that he doesn't know whether or not animals do or do not have imagination but he makes a great example at the kind of imagination that is being implied. Take a child into the garden and point at the moon and the child will look at the moon where as if you took a dog and did the exact same thing your dog would probably end up staring at your finger. Other animals often sing but they don't compose operas, they often look confused but they don't compose philosophical, they communicate but they don't write plays. As for Tyler's comment I believe he means imagining that what we do not sense at that moment, in the present. Being able to imagine what you cannot sense at that very moment, and MisterD I really don't know what to say to that sorry.
I really can't explain it as well as he does you only need to watch about 10 minutes starting from 1:07:00 that will better answering what you are getting at.
EDIT: To sort of reply to your comment MisterD I would like to say the word intelligent was never used, rather imagination and what incredible results a "lump of impure carbon and water" can achieve thanks to that imagination rather than intelligence.
On March 13 2011 04:48 powernapper wrote: We may be pitifully tiny in cosmic terms, but nonetheless we are the species that did produce Hamlet, and the Sistine Chapel, and the David, the great religions of the world, and quantum mechanics, and the digital culture and the 6000 languages currently spoken in the word, and these, are not insignificant achievements, and we all owe this to a single capacity that distinguishes us from every other species on earth, the power of imagination. The power to bring to mind the things that are not present in our senses. And we owe everything we take for granted to it.
We're tiny, so what? Why would size in the cosmic sense have to do with anything, a black hole is a singularity, pretty much as small as something can be, yet it's one of the most powerful things in the universe. As for significance, we're about as significant as a rock on the moon, if you look at things from an objective point of view. From a subjective view, everything is as significant as you want them to be.
EPT
![[image loading]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3417/3639696502_b41386771d_o.jpg)
