The Generative Area: A Mind for Imagination

During a difficult conversation, you look down and see what looks like a giraffe in the carpet. This phenomenon—the human brain’s ability to find patterns and images even where none exist—is called pareidolia. Research how pareidolia works. Then discuss with your team: would humanity be better off if we only saw what was literally in front of us? When does pareidolia most hurt us—and when does it most help us?

Are some settings better for creativity? “Beginnings are contagious there, they’re always setting stages there”—the song “Once Upon a Time in New York City” praises the Big Apple as a place for dreamers, fervent with opportunities for reinvention. Ernest Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald, among many other writers of their era, hung out with other writers in Paris. Explore the history of the salon, or gatherings where creative and intellectual spirits meet frequently to share and develop ideas, then discuss with your team: is there a place in your country that beckons to the creatively-minded? Has the salon been replaced in the modern world by the Internet—and if so, how?

Consider the neurobiology of imagination: what actually happens in your brain when you are imagining things? Explore the terms below, then hypothesize with your team: how might a person’s imagination be affected if you alter one or more of these elements? How do they relate to emotions, belief, suppositions, and fantasy?

• memory | mental imagery | perception | world view

• neocortex | thalamus | frontal cortex | REM sleep

Research drugs that stimulate the imagination, then discuss with your team: should all these be considered illegal hallucinogens? Be sure to consider how and to what degree a hallucination varies from a simulation, a rehearsal, or other acts of the imagination. For instance, when is a daydream a hallucination?

While how to become more imaginative is a question most frequently answered by self-help publications and clinics that also offer derriere implants, some mainstream treatments and techniques do exist and are practiced in the real world. Explore the following approaches and terms then discuss with your team: which do you think would be most effective?

• active imagination | hypnagogia | mind wandering | hypnosis | meditation

• psychological distance | nature experiences | novel experiences

One used by writers is called “writing with constraints”. If their options are limited—for instance, if they cannot use the letter A in a story—someone struggling to put words on a blank page might dodge that first paralyzing moment of decision-making. Artificial limitations “provide a certain level of texture against which a metaphorical match can more easily be struck,” says the writer Matthew Tomkinson. Many traditional poetic forms—especially strict ones, such as haiku—are examples of this approach. Read about others across different genres, including those of the French Oulipo movement, then learn more about the selections below. Afterward, discuss with your team: should more creators use this technique? When they do, should it be advertised to the public? Would you want to try it for your World Scholar’s Cup writing event?

• Yuen Ren Chao | “Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den” (c. 1930s)

• Marianne Moore | “No Swan So Fine” (1932)

• Ernest Vincent Wright | Gadsby, Chapter 1 (1939)

• Dylan Thomas | “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” (1951)

• Kimiko Hahn | “[the whale already]” (2022)

Disney’s theme park designers are infamously branded as “Imagineers”—in just one of the many ways that imagination is celebrated in popular culture. Check out the following works, then discuss with your team: what perspective do they take on imagination? Do they share any common messages?

• Tommy Dorsey | “Imagination” (1940)

• Gene Wilder | “Pure Imagination” (1971)

• John Lennon | “Imagine” (1971)

• Evanescence | “Imaginary” (2000)

• Cast of Mary Poppins Returns | “Can You Imagine That?” (2018)

The 2016 short film Shelter portrays a girl living alone in a simulation, passing her days imagining virtual worlds—until one day a letter arrives explaining how she got there. This film is one of many that explores how the human mind can remain active in a world without physical stimuli—which could be your fate if humans achieve digital immortality in our lifetimes. Learn more about the brain activities of coma patients and those living in isolation, then discuss with your team: what would it take for you to be happy living without a body?

After learning about the mechanics of imagination in the human brain, take a stand in the debate over whether current generative AI models possess actual imagination and creativity. Would it be possible to train these models to become more imaginative over time? Be sure to consider concerns over “model collapse” and yet-to-be-achieved artificial general intelligence, then discuss with your team: what makes human imagination so difficult to replicate?