Many people remember the scene from the 1982 movie where a bicycle flies across the sky against the backdrop of a full moon. Even those who haven’t seen the movie do. Steven Spielberg’s “E.T.” directed and produced by Spielberg, tells the story of a special friendship between a wise and benevolent extraterrestrial, who becomes lost on Earth, and a young boy.
In a quiet village forest, a spaceship appears. As extraterrestrials disembark to collect various Earth specimens, humans arrive, causing the aliens to hurriedly leave, inadvertently abandoning one alien. Wandering alone, this alien hides in a family home where he meets Elliott. Elliott names the alien E.T. (Extra-Terrestrial) and secretly cares for him until he can return to his home planet. A friendship forms between Elliott, his siblings, and E.T., especially between Elliott and E.T., who communicate telepathically. However, E.T. must return to his planet, leaving with the promise, “I’ll be right here.”
All literary works are the result of imagination. In films, imagination determines the value of each scene as well as the storyline. The movie “E.T.” is a fusion of imagination. The scene where the bicycle flies in the sky is often praised as a masterpiece that transcends human imagination. However, the film’s true imagination lies in changing our perspective on extraterrestrials. Before “E.T.”, aliens were depicted as humanity’s enemies invading Earth. Spielberg changed this view through “E.T.” by presenting the alien as a boy’s friend, suggesting that all extraterrestrials could be friends of humanity. Although movies like “Independence Day”, “Mars Attacks!”, and “Men in Black” continued to depict aliens attacking Earth, other films like “My Stepmother Is an Alien” started showing aliens visiting to become friends.
The Chinese call a computer “電腦” (electric brain). Although the term implies a brain made of electronic devices, current computers and human brains differ significantly in thinking methods and capabilities. Modern computers are based on binary arithmetic proposed by Alan Turing and the logical structure designed by Hungarian-born mathematician John von Neumann. Turing believed that all human logical reasoning could be reduced to a series of yes (1) and no (0) and that machines could replicate any defined logical reasoning algorithm. Today, computers represent all information with 0s and 1s and think in terms of ‘yes’ and ‘no’. The term “digital” originates from the Latin word for finger, “digitus”. Just as you can count one, two with fingers without counting anything in between, digital represents discontinuous values. However, the world has more continuity than discontinuity. Interpreting such a continuous world with a discontinuous system like a digital computer reveals the limitations of this binary logic.
Our world is mostly continuous, with many answers existing between yes and no, so not everything can be answered with a yes (1) or no (0), as Alan Turing suggested. The human brain, on the other hand, can flexibly process ambiguous information, achieving its own answers. By sacrificing speed and accuracy, humans have developed the ability to handle uncertainty and make judgments on ambiguous matters. This capability allows humans to infer the unseen and sometimes deceive others. All of this stems from our ability to imagine. Imagination is the ability to see phenomena or objects that have not been experienced or are invisible. Simply put, imagination can be defined as the ability to think that something invisible can be seen and something visible cannot be seen.
Claiming to see the invisible is a form of lying, which is possible due to our special ability called imagination. Joanne Rowling, author of the “Harry Potter” series, confessed to being a child who was good at lying. Her ability to lie captivated the world with the charm of Harry Potter. Movies are also lies, created by imagining nonexistent facts. Even though computers can think of millions of numbers per second, humans can compete because we can see the unseen and make others believe we are thinking of different numbers. Imagination allows us to find the clues to great discoveries from limited experiences. When we meet this world and discover the unseen, we call it reasoning; when it empowers us to create something, we call it creativity. Although there are individual differences in imagination, it is an ability we all possess. Imagination is also the ability to see the future because none of us have experienced it. Without imagination, we cannot dream of the future or have a vision.
Imagination does not create something out of nothing but rather something out of something. Because 0 and 1 exist, we can imagine what lies between them. Because today exists, we can envision the future. Imagining dragons, mermaids, or winged horses is based on existing things. Thus, imagination is not the act of creating something from nothing but rather creating something from something. Discovery is ultimately finding what has always been there, unseen through ordinary vision. Invention can only utilize already existing laws and materials. Imagination, which consciousness cannot see but the unconscious can draw, might be hindered by our consciousness.
Training to enhance imagination can be found in these characteristics of imagination. To see the unseen, we must break away from our habitual ways of seeing. Having eyes to see things differently naturally fosters imagination. Only then can the unseen become visible. Reverse thinking means changing our perspective, sometimes flipping it. We can even view the world from the perspective of an alien or the object of observation. Advising to see the world through a child’s eyes means seeking a new perspective. Being fixated on the idea that a bicycle rolls means one cannot imagine a flying bicycle like in “E.T.” Imagination means abandoning prejudice and gaining a new perspective, as many sci-fi comics and films are created. Imagination, seeing the unseen, arises naturally from having a new perspective. Spielberg could see the alien as a benevolent friend rather than a scary enemy because he saw what others couldn’t. Conversely, we could view our lives from an alien’s perspective like E.T.
In “Future Think”, authors Edie Weiner and Arnold Brown advise changing the background and the subject through the eyes of an alien to discard prejudice. According to them, an alien might see humans as slaves to cars, working hard to feed and wash their cars while the cars play in the parking lot all day. Imagination is also about creating one’s own world, meaning there could be as many mental worlds as there are 6.5 billion people. Without creating one’s own world, one must remain in the world described by others, as Root-Bernstein suggested. A diverse self-created world equates to having diverse perspectives on the world. Marcel Proust, in “In Search of Lost Time”, recorded the following words:
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
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