Page 52 - Microsoft Word - The Future of Learning April 2017.docx

40
If we had to articulate all our thoughts in spoken words, our responses to many situations would be too slow. “Ah, yes, I need to slow down quite quickly as the car in front of me has stopped suddenly, or maybe I could swerve around it, or better still ...” Too late! The communication with our self, leverages our imagination. The definition of imagination, therefore, needs clarity.
Our imagination is the three-dimensional canvas on which we try out different combinations of our knowledge, ideas, concepts and concept frameworks. BUT our imagination has one further and somewhat unique characteristic, that the ridiculous, the impossible and the bizarre are also possible. In our imagination, we can fly or be in exotic places and at the time these perceptions can feel as real as any event we experience physically.
We define our imagination as the way in which our brain can ‘create real or combinations of real and imaginary events that may or may not be plausible in reality. This allows us to integrate all our senses and imagine the possible and the impossible, without importing any physical sensory data from outside our self. Dreams are the unconscious activation of our imagination, trying to sort, organise and connect the information it has received.
We consciously use our imagination, to bring together existing knowledge, ideas, concepts and concept frameworks in new arrangements within our mind, often without using words. Throughout our lives, we are consciously, non-consciously and subconsciously creating, refining and modifying our identity through our self-talk. The influence of self-talk is foundational in establishing who we are, how we learn and what we expect of our self.
Along with the notion of self-talk, we also have conversations with others where we encounter differences in perspective and worldview, and we must decide whether we integrate that knowledge and those ideas and concepts into our worldview. These conversations may result in us ‘changing our mind’. It is the richness of these conversations with both our self and others that ultimately provides us with the capacity to build a unique concept framework for our world, which becomes our constantly changing worldview.
Memories, in the form of knowledge, ideas, concepts and concept frameworks are not stored as words or held in our head as text or an oral recording. Memories are electrochemical in nature. Because of this, our thinking processes are constantly emitting electromagnetic radiation that we refer to as brainwaves.