THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS IN PUBS
FOR BREAKFAST
IMAGINATION
1 SHARED WORLD
2 MANIFEST IT
3 STRENGTHEN YOUR IMAGINATION
1 SHARED WORLD
The Adventures of Cally Curah have gripped Gen Alpha. Most kids aged 9-13 are reading them.
As a result, literacy levels are growing and young people’s screentime over the Summer Holidays has significantly reduced.
The author of these books is anonymous and has no social media or internet presence. They have declined film offers from Netflix, the BBC, and Disney.
At the beginning of the Third Chronicle, which has just been released, they include a brief note to the readers:
“Thank you for joining me in this imaginary world. By reading these stories, you’re creating your own version, in your own mind. But you are also sharing something with everyone else who has read them.
Since these books have become so popular, I believe your generation will be connected by Cally’s world for the rest of your lives. You can always come back here in your minds.”
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:
How does shared imagination bring people together?
Do people who have had the same influences have more chance of understanding one another?
In an age when there are more and more options of different entertainment, is there anything special about reading?
How important is it to read popular books (/watch popular films/listen to popular podcasts) in terms of having points of connection with contemporaries?
SOURCE:
BA, THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS IN PUBS Group Member
2 MANIFEST IT
Your company holds a special meeting to introduce a new initiative: “Monday Morning Manifestation”.
Before you start work for the week, they want you and all your colleagues to spend 20 minutes imagining.
Specifically, you are asked to imagine
Where you want to be in 5 years
How you want to feel in your day-to-day life
How this week could go perfectly for you
It’s up to you how you do this. You can sit quietly and think about it, or jot it down in a notebook.
Your boss explains:
“The more we imagine what we want, the more likely we are to achieve it, to ‘manifest it’. Holding your goals in mind helps you to make goal oriented decisions, to make progress towards those personal goals, and to have a better life.”
After the meeting, one of your more cynical colleagues says to you:
“Well in 5 years I want to be out of here. In my day-to-day life I want to be rid of this nonsense. And this week would go perfectly if I could do as little as possible…let's see how they like me manifesting that every Monday morning!”
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:
How do you feel about this new initiative?
What do you think the company’s logic is?
How might the new initiative be valuable?
What do you think of the cynical colleague’s comments?
How powerful is our imagination? Can thinking about what you want really make it more likely to happen?
How much of a role does imagination play in achieving success?
SOURCE: BA, THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS IN PUBS Group Member
3 STRENGTHEN YOUR IMAGINATION
The Secretary of State for Education has announced a new major objective: to strengthen the power of children’s imaginations.
Scientists, educators, and politicians concur that our society would be improved if future humans had better imaginations. They believe that the solutions and breakthroughs that society needs will follow. Not to mention more empathy for fellow humans!
The question is, how? What is the best way to strengthen an imagination? You hear three pitches from three different working groups:
NURTURE IT: The first working group argues that children should be given more natural playtime.
“Children are naturally imaginative. Just look at them when they are playing. All we need to do is value this time more…it should be at least of equal importance to more structured learning.”
EXERCISE IT: The second working group is in favour of more reading.
“By reading, children are required to fill in the blanks, to colour in the picture. The author sets them up with their words, but the children’s imaginations do the real work. By reading more books of a greater variety, children will become more imaginative.”
EXPAND IT: The third working group thinks that children need more varied input into their minds.
“Children should see more than their homes, their schools, and the local park. They need to travel, to spend time in different places. They need to watch more films. They need virtual reality, and art. Reading is all very well, but their imaginations fill in the blanks in those stories with things that they’ve actually seen. The more you see, the more you can imagine. We need to expand their imaginations by showing them more.”
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:
Do you agree that society would be improved if people were more imaginative?
Which working group’s message speaks to you the most?
If you had to pick one, what would it be? If you had to pick 2, what would they be?
What other ideas do you have to make society more imaginative?
Can people become more imaginative? Or is our imaginativeness fixed? Does this change with age?
SOURCE: BA, THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS IN PUBS Group Member
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