Imagination: the Bridge Between Knowledge and Understanding
It’s difficult to underestimate the importance of imagination, whether you’re a scientific researcher, a mother, an accountant, a student, or a curious redditor.
Imagination is what enables you to see and notice things that would never be noticed without a little creative experimentation with ideas, while simultaneously satisfying yout common need to touch the unknown.
Imagining the phenomena or processes you work with regularly allows you to see otherwise invisible phenomena occurring in places your instruments can’t. Your imagination serves as a tool to aid your understanding of the underlying principles that govern our lives.
As humans, we are constantly seeking ways to make sense of our world and how it works, and in doing so, we use tools such as abstract concepts, theories, models, and metaphors to help us explain the phenomena around us.
But these tools and models are only as useful as the creativity animating them.
It is by applying imagination to observation that concepts flower into understanding. Imagination electrifies the inner eye and sensitizes the inner feeling sense, allowing us to see beyond the immediate.
By imagining phenomena as being visible in some frame, we can gain insight into unseen phenomena occurring in all frames of reference.
For example, when looking at a physical phenomenon such as water flowing through a river, it is not always possible to fully comprehend what is happening without using our imagination and seeing the invisible forces that are causing the flow — like gravity or friction — which are difficult to observe directly. If we imagine ourselves standing inside the river and watching how its current affects objects around us, then suddenly these invisible forces become tangible and easier to understand.
In addition, by imagining how these invisible phenomena occur in multiple frames of reference — for example, from different angles or perspectives — we can gain an even deeper understanding of their nature and effects on our lives.
This can be especially useful for scientific research where different frames of reference provide invaluable data about processes that would otherwise remain hidden from view.
Ultimately, imagination allows us to bridge gaps between theory and reality; it helps us make sense of complex systems by forming mental models based on what we know while also enabling us to envision things that may never have been seen before.
Unfortunately, imagination is not taught at all in service of this principle and worse, it is often viewed as a frivolous activity. In the fields of mathematics, visualization is practically a lost art, and yet it is this very art that can help us to bridge the gap between abstract concepts and physical reality.
By applying and exercising your imagination, not only does your work become better — it becomes fundamentally satisfying. All it needs is your intent.
Most importantly, imagination reconnects you with the fundamental sense of awe and mystery that you started your journey with, but were robbed of when your teachers told you science means certainty.
Tell em to go solve a three-body problem while you explore the concepts that electrify you, because that’s where you’ll find your meaning.
