The Imagined Is Not the Unreal

The imagined is not the unreal. Most of what defines modern civilization once existed only in someone's imagination. Before it became reality, it was an idea, a possibility someone believed could be realized. And how can you imagine a different future if your head is not, at least somewhat, in the clouds? If your thinking is constrained by what exists today, how can you conceive of what might exist tomorrow?

As David Deutsch argues, humans are universal explainers, capable of creating knowledge through conjecture, criticism and error correction. This is the foundation of his optimism: problems are inevitable, but problems are soluble. Progress is not guaranteed, but through the creation of new knowledge, we can discover solutions that were previously beyond our understanding. The limits of our current knowledge are not necessarily the limits of reality.