Sunday, October 5, 2014

Beyond IQ: will 'Imagination Quotient' be the new way to understand creativity?

Imagination is more important than knowledge, knowledge has a limitation, imagination encircles the world!  -Albert Einstein

Imagination is the ability to form new images and sensations in the mind that are not perceived through senses such as sight, hearing, or other senses. Imagination helps make knowledge applicable in solving problems and is fundamental to integrating experience and the learning process. (Wikipedia). 

The term 'imagination' infers an environment of free thought with lower regard for the constraints of what is practical/possible. Whereas creativity infers a greater consideration of what can/could/should be given physical dimensions. Imagination may be used to describe those disparate and free associations contained within the mind; while creativity may be used to describe how a novel object/event was materialized into the physical/digital reality? Creativity can be defined as ‘having an idea or performing an action that the individual has not thought or done before.’ Putting it another way, ‘creativity occurs when people generate ideas that change their world.’ Although there may be some vagueness regards whether someone’s world was changed, or whether they had a particular idea before, this definition reflects a process and an individual one at that.

Imagination is like virtual Creativity, formless and intangible: Creativity brings into the form that reflects the individuality and uniqueness. The imagination can entertain the seemingly impossible, given the right resources of knowledge, experience, and talent; a bridge may be created between the current 'impossible' to a whole new 'possible.' This is probably our story from the first cave paintings to where we are at now, an evolutionary two-step between the imagination and creativity. "And work in modal epistemology has focused on the extent to which imaginability—and its cousin conceivability—can serve as guides to the possibility." 

Imagination is the fuel for the “Creativity Engine”. Creativity is an actual project or idea carried out in a tangible way that offers or shows something new or imagined. No imagination, the engine will not run. Imagination is conscious thinking in images. It is the thinking we are aware of. Conscious thinking (or imagination) is a precursor to expression.

Einstein said, “imagination be more important than knowledge.” The power of the right brain is much greater than we like to admit. Harnessing its power and using it to grow in the ways that we want is paramount to creating the life that we want and deserve. Perhaps this is what people mean when they say we only use 10% of our brain. When we allow both sides of our brain to work together, we can create change with more ease, flow, and speed. It is about how to use both our knowledge and imagination. It synthesizes everything your brain can bring to bear on the problem. If you use your imagination to program your subconscious mind and your subconscious is a goal-seeking machine, wouldn't it lead you to the knowledge you require to fulfill that goal?

How exactly do the precocious thinking, imagination, and creativity meet? Creativity depends upon the ability to think across different fields. These are activities that increase activity between brain hemispheres. 'Divergent thinking' is that one starts from one point and expands from there, whereas thinking across different fields does not assume any kind of particular starting point or linear progression. There is pseudo-randomness to thinking across different fields that can reasonably be called imagination. Here is the cause and effect relationship:
The base for higher accomplishment is thinking and doing differently. 
The base for thinking and doing differently is exceptional creativity. 
The base for exceptional creativity is exceptional imagination. 
And it is an exceptional imagination that moves the hearts, minds, and lives, of all people - as it has done for all of the time.

It's a mindfulness practice that connects information in the right and left brain, allowing us to release the fears and negative thoughts and emotions that our conscious mind may not even recognize. The brain is infinitely more powerful when you drop the assumed constraints of the education, culture burdens, and what others tell you, you will be full of imagination and become truly who you are.




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