Essay about Imagination; a Human's Special Sence

Words: 1792
Pages: 8

Daimaly Gines
10/25/12
FD #3
Expos, Section

Imagination: A Human’s Special Sense

Human beings have the ability to create their own individual worlds through imagination. However, the imagination is limited because of the constant use of technology and the reliance on vision. The technological culture has separated humans from the actual world and their senses; much like vision has done. In the essay “The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses”, Juhani Pallasmaa focuses on the exploration of the senses and how they interact with one another. We also see his discussion on how vision can affect the human experience. The more visually capable we are, the more we begin to lose our sense of imagination. Similarly in the essay
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Pallasmaa is conveying to us that the imagination can also begin with the sense of sound. The term ‘delineate’ is also presented in Pallasmaa’s text because sound and imagination led us to wake up and hear the train or imagine the train rushing by on the train tracks. The imagination is just as strong as any of the other senses. One’s vision has to be obscured in order to be able to imagine. Imagination can lead to a whole new sense, a new world and even a new way we experience our lives today. Today’s technological culture has the ability to paralyze our imagination because we spend a lot of time using the Internet. In order for one to be able to imagine vision and technology should be hidden. If we surround ourselves with technology and the Internet, then we will have no room for imagination. The Net absorbs content from our everyday lives and makes them into ads that individuals will quickly become attracted to when using the Internet. The Internet today wants to “scatter our attention and diffuse our concentration” (Carr 71). In other words, what Carr is arguing is that the purpose of technology and the Internet is to make us unfocused on what is going on around us. When one is constantly distracted by technology, there is no room for the mind to imagine. Our concentration often begins to drift because of the high use of technology. This is what leads our minds to begin to slumber into a daydream. The absence of