What role do you think the imagination plays/played in man's evolution?

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1

I envy artists who learned to make their imaginations work for them. Mine destroyed me.

2

Albert Einstein believed imagination is more important than intelligence. I would say he needed a lot of both to do what he did.

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3

Well, imagination can be beneficial to our survival. We have developed the ability to imagine what might happen in response to a certain event. This allows us to assess what aspects might pose a danger, so that we can avoid what is dangerous and thereby we are more likely to survive.

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4

In evolution? Seems like tool-making is probably the most significant product of imagination. But imagination alone is useless. Someone who only imagines will not survive. So I think in evolution the extroverted or practically oriented imagination is fittest in the current industrial society.

5

I see imagination as a very valuable form of intelligence. It is what they call “remote associations”. It is the ability to apply principles across disciplines and across theoretical constructs. For instance, a cave man realizing that there are probably lots of other useful and nutritious things inside a log besides the grub worms they extract with their stone knives, and that there are probably other ways they can use their stone knives, like to whittle a tree branch to fit an ax head. That kind of thinking is fairly common, but someone with a good imagination will apply it in a new and more spectacular way.

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6

Obviously imagination has changed the world around us as far as inventions and technology, so yeah in way probably a lot. I guess that’s why Einstein said our imagination is better than intelligence. Inventing things wouldn’t have as to do with how smart we are, just what we imagined

7

Imagination as in being creative or imagination as in having the ability of foresight?

-S

8

A very important role. Starting with cave paintings in France.

9

Imagination is useful for creativity art and decision making to name a few things.

10

It helps him to conceptualize things visualy so that he can create complex things without writing it down.

Maybe its sort of the “paper” of the mind. Its very useful for recording ideas.

Im sure theres more to be said here. But its one of our useful facilities.

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