Homo imaginativus

18 May 2021

We talk to Prof. Bartosz Brożek, member of the Programme Board of the Copernicus Festival.

ANNA MAZUR: The theme of this year’s Copernicus Festival is imagination. What do scientists use it for?
BARTOSZ BROŻEK
: Imagination, the way I understand it, is essential to all of us in our daily lives. It is the ability to picture in your mind a situation or object which does not exist. Cognitive scientists describe it as mental simulation and explain that we use it all the time, even when we aren’t aware of it. For example, it allows us to make sense of language: when we read or hear words, we understand them because we subconsciously simulate – or imagine – their meaning.
Do scientists use imagination in a special way? I don’t think so – I think they just imagine different things than the average Joe. As they work on scientific problems, they imagine physical processes or visualise the structure of DNA rather than creating a mental simulation of hanging out with their family.
But I would say that we generally don’t appreciate the importance of imagination in our lives, including in science. Making an effort to understand how it works could be extremely helpful in dealing with our problems – of the everyday and the scientific variety.

Soviet cosmonauts claimed that reading Stanisław Lem’s books helped them imagine themselves in space. Can literary ideas, especially those from science fiction, inspire scientists?
Anything can serve as a source of inspiration, and of course it extends to books. I don’t think that science fiction is unique in this context, and the history of science doesn’t record any breakthrough discoveries directly inspired by it. However, SF authors do another great service to science: by making it the protagonist of their stories, they awaken curiosity in their readers. This inspires us to become fascinated by science, contemplate its boundaries, and even inspires some of us to become scientists.

How do science and the humanities help us make sense of life under the pandemic?
I think it’s worth asking a more general question: how does science (without dividing it into disciplines) help us understand the world (without the added context of the pandemic)? I’d go as far as saying that science is at the very heart of culture. Scientific discoveries made over the course of the last three hundred years completely changed how we perceive the world. Natural sciences stand out in particular, and we can see this especially during the pandemic: scientists were rapidly able to elucidate the genetic structure of the virus causing COVID-19, and pharmaceutical companies developed vaccines in record time. This would have been unimaginable a few decades ago, never mind centuries. In the past we would have been utterly helpless in the face of disease and wouldn’t have even understood its cause. I’m concerned that we are less appreciative of the role played by social sciences and the humanities, though, even though they provide us with tools enabling us to understand how the pandemic is affecting our minds and our wellbeing. We would do well to pay heed to psychologists, sociologists and philosophers – as well damaging our physical health and wreaking havoc with the economy, the pandemic also bears serious mental and social costs.

What can we expect from this year’s Copernicus Festival?
We will discuss imagination and the role it plays in our lives. As usual, we will bring together representatives of different scientific disciplines to show that science is an integral part of our culture with strong ties to literature, art and mass culture. The festival will be held online once again, but I hope that we will have a major virtual audience joining us in our contemplations of the big questions.

The text published in the 1/2021 issue of the “Kraków Culture” quarterly.

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