Group members: Kate Meek, Leo Gao, Diego Martinez.
BRAIN TEASER: HAVE YOU EVER IMAGINED IMAGINING IMAGINATION?
Think about that question for a second... and start reading below.
Have you ever been so deep into daydreaming that you cannot concentrate on real life situations? Have you ever thought about the consequences of your actions by pondering on the various consequences? Have you ever thought about the way a situation is meant to occur? Every day, we spend so much time thinking about these things that may be real or not. To what extent are all these thoughts real? To what extent does imagination
23 FEB 2017 - 3 MAR 2017
23 Feb 2017: Imagination Quiz
Today, we took the imagination quiz. I completely forgot about it. I did not even prepare or read the chapter because I thought that we only had the presentation for the previous WOK project today. However, I took the quiz by eliminating the wrong answers and by reasoning. I got a 6 out of 10. The questions I missed were:
Which of the following statements best defines imagination as a way of knowing? (I chose "the ability to visualize possibilities which could never be real" ) but the right answer was: "the ability to form a representation of something which is not present to the senses.” This is because you can imagine possibilities that could be real. If I imagined getting a 90 and above on a test I studied well for, It could happen, It could be real. Therefore that answer was wrong. It is valid that imagination is a way of representing something that is not real to the senses. It may or may not be a mental image.
The other question I got wrong was: which is the most accurate representation of the image below.
I chose “gestalt psychology” but the right answer was the golden rule, which is defined as "an ethical principle found in many cultures and belief systems (religious or otherwise) states simply that you should behave towards others in a way you would like them to behave towards you."
However, after having time to skim through the book, I retook the quiz and I got a 10/10.
27 Feb 2017: Group Work Day
today we worked on our group project and carried out our experiment.Our essential question is “to what extent is imagination drawn from other ways of knowing?”
We chose to analyze memory as the other way of knowing. For our experiment, we are going to ask six people to draw what they imagine when they hear the word “world” to analyze the 3 different types of imagination: fantasy, realistic imagination and creativity. These six people include: an art teacher, a science teacher, a history teacher, two students (a female and a male) and a child. We concluded that having these different people will make them draw their representation of the word “world” differently. For example, a science teacher may draw atoms and chemical compounds.
Later on, we only chose to analyze two of them to be specific: creativity and realistic imagination. Since we got only 4 people to do the experiment, due to lack of time, we analyzed only the four drawings.
1 Mar 2017: Presentation Day
Today, we presented our project. In order to change the mode of presentation, I suggested making a cartoon video. Cartoons are imaginary and they tie in with the way of knowing. You know that the image represented for the interviewer cartoon is a woman because of the way you imagine a woman looks. I just thought would have been cool to make a cartoon animated video, which we did. In our project, our experiment was to ask people to draw the first thing they think of when they hear the word world. The goal was to categorize the drawings into creativity or realistic imagination: the 2 kinds of imagination we focused on. Our presentation was quite hectic as it raised a lot of questions and confusion at the end. People had conflicting and similar opinions and everyone had something to say. It went from a presentation to a discussion.
JOURNAL ENTRY/ FIELD TRIP ACTIVITY
3 Mar 2017: Field Trip
We read an extract from the book “From Pilgrim at Tanker Creek” by Annie Dilliard. In this extract, she explains her experience of being outside, by the creek, with great detail and accuracy down to the point that she is staring in the creek so closely and she falls in. After reading the first few pages of the handout, we went outside — 5-10 minute walk away from school— to explore. The goal was to use our sense perception to describe our surrounding. I wrote down a lot, probably everything I thought of while being outside. I wrote them in bullet points but I knew the story in my head.
But, my assembled story below is a short section of my thoughts that I had written down on my paper:
I’m waking on my way to some outside, nature destination and I think we are going to under a tree, so, I already imagine ants crawling on me. From my memory, I remember when I was younger and I went on a walk with my family and some friends to “some outside, nature destination,” again, and on my way there, fire ants bit me and I was itching for the rest of the day. I am disgusted and irritated, but I do not want to make a hasty generalization about all outside environment having fire ants. I am walking, and I hear the swift sound of cars, almost making me deaf. If I had no ears, my sense perception might have failed me to hear the cars. I am kind of disturbed. I thought the destination was going to be peaceful. Now, we are getting close, I smell fresh, crisp trees and newly-moved grass. Now, I actually see an ant! I am terrified. My imagination became reality. Moreover, the path we are walking on is divided. The path is dried and brown, but around it is green grass. I assume that there can be only two scenarios. It is either grass does not grow there because it is frequently trampled upon or no grass was planted there for a reason. This is an example of a logical fallacy of reason: false dilemma…
I find this speech really interesting because the speaker, Dr John Demartini, contests the validity of imagination and memory. He says that they are both lies! He says that "no matter what you see, it is the same, it is just in a different form." This is reasonable. Everybody has a unique expression from for all the different traits we have. People readily associate a memory with pain or pleasure. If you take a man who has been going through rough times and depression, they obviously have a pain-filled memory. But. if by chance, someone can fill up his memory with positives until it reaches an equilibrium, the negative memory is deleted. Hence, making the memory less substantiated. There is no weight to the memory anymore.
This article talks about how imagination plays a very important role in knowledge. It talks about how mathematics require a lot of imagination in most equations. Equations are only models and to understand the way they work, you have to imagine the scenario or the formulas and procedures in your head. Also, this article talks about how scientists use their imagination a lot to produce their knowledge about something. My understanding of this is as follows: if I was a scientist trying to invent a flying dishwasher, I would imagine the way it works and imagine how I will assemble the parts together. This will help me to gain my knowledge about what a flying dishwasher needs and how it will work. Then I may or may not be able to turn this imagination into reality.
BBC.com. Frank Wilczek. “Why science needs imagination and beauty.” http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20131127-secret-to-thinking-like-a-genius. Nov. 28 2013. Web. Nov 13, 2014.
thought experiment: an experiment carried out in one's imagination rather than in the world
empathy: the ability to imagine another person;s situation from their perspective.
empirically possible: consistent with the laws of nature.
golden rule: the principle that "you should do as you would be done by."
imagined community: a community, such as a nation, which is based not on direct face-to-face interaction but on an image people hold in their minds- since they exist in reality, imagined communities are not the same as imaginary ones.
realistic imagination: imagination which is informed and guided by relevant facts.
fantasy: an escapist form of imagination that is only distantly connected with the real world