Imagine there was no imagination.
The pool was dark, inky black and yet there was a colourless spark stirring deep within. Slowly and smoothly an iridescence bubbled to the surface and swirled with greens, blues, yellows and reds. The mirror surface of the pool gradually rippled and developed a deforming topography. Ripples of meaning generated and spread. Coloured organic base letters floated to the surface, fizzed, scintillated and dissipated with a slight pop as they entered the void. Sibilant voices hissed softly though the mist. Chemical letters grouped. They twisted. They linked and separated as mysterious attractants drew them together and repellents exploded them. Words formed and sentences evolved and thrashed the living surface with sinuous energy. Synesthetic coloured sounds rang, squeaked and twanged. Music and art resonated with their generating sources. Electricity flowed and chemicals came and went. The neurones in their billions waved their axons and dendrites as they linked and separated synaptically in dynamic pulsations. Photons arrived at the speed of light and were understood through magical interpretation. Images came and went, interwoven with smell, sound and touch. Perceptions interacted with their sources and memories solidified in the amniotic world. This was learning. Refinement, resolution, adaptation, sensory ebb and flow formed the physical structure of the brain. An inner universe of unfathomable depth and breadth with apparently limitless potential was born - metamorphosis indeed -out of nothing, everything.
Inexplicable sentience looked around in wonder. The brain was aware but did not comprehend. Consciousness came as a vexatious tool of evolution. The brain tried so hard to enquire. It developed scientific methods, invented scenarios and fled to introspection. A plethora of languages and a myriad of mathematical calculations attempted to model creation. Much was observed and much could be crafted through incredible cunning and cooperation into prediction. Practical problems were solved and technology extended the senses. It gave the illusion of understanding.
Nevertheless the unknowable was resolutely unknowable and invented absolutes proved evanescent. Dogmas were ultimately foolish. Understanding retreated ahead of the questing curiosity. Despite hubris there was no ultimate comprehension.
The brain thought to itself and thought and thought and then thought again. It was philosophical. It came to no firm conclusion but time passed and there was yet more time to be passed. Imagination coalesced and played with what it found. It reached for the stars and plucked them down. It plumbed the oceanic depths. It visited everywhere without moving. The resources are internal and the scope is massive. Is the imaginary less real than the real? Is the real really imaginary? Does the imagined create reality? Does it matter? All matter is energy. All energy is matter. How real is this? Has reality been imagined?
And now abideth faith, hope, charity and imagination, these four; the greatest of these is imagination – ask a child.
Three thousand million years in gestation - seven billion imaginations and counting. Imagine that.