{"id":240526,"date":"2026-07-09T07:02:35","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T12:02:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/imagination-is-not-escapism-it-brings-us-closer-to-reality"},"modified":"2026-07-09T07:02:35","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T12:02:35","slug":"imagination-is-not-escapism-it-brings-us-closer-to-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/imagination-is-not-escapism-it-brings-us-closer-to-reality","title":{"rendered":"Imagination is not escapism, it brings us closer to reality"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Einstein called imagination \u201cmore important than knowledge,\u201d yet we increasingly treat it as a childhood pastime we outgrow. Philosopher of mind Amy Kind<\/strong> argues that it\u2019s something far more practical: the skill we draw on to make our hardest decisions, read the people around us, and work out who we want to become. Like any skill, it weakens without use \u2014 and we\u2019re using it less. Reading for pleasure has nearly halved in two decades, fewer parents play with their children each day, and we increasingly hand our creative work to machines. If we don\u2019t make time to exercise it, we\u2019ll lose the capacity to conceive of things being other than they are, and risk being trapped in the present, unable to imagine a different future, let alone build one.<\/em><\/p>\n

In recent years, amidst the hustle and bustle of contemporary life, people are devoting considerably less time to imaginative activities. Significantly fewer people are reading for pleasure<\/a> today compared to 20 years ago, and in just the last decade, significantly fewer parents are making time to play with their children<\/a> on a daily basis than used to be the case.<\/p>\n

This neglect of imagination has been accelerated by the increasing reliance on generative AI tools in both personal contexts and professional contexts. In one recent survey<\/a>, more than 50% of adults reported interacting with AI tool at least several times a week for personal purposes, often for learning, entertainment, or supporting their children\u2019s education. In another study<\/a> on business uses of AI, more than half of firms surveyed reported using AI in the creation of new products and services and, more generally, in their at innovation projects. With each passing day, we seem to be increasingly more willing\u2014and perhaps even eager\u2014to outsource our creative and imaginative efforts to machines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Einstein called imagination \u201cmore important than knowledge,\u201d yet we increasingly treat it as a childhood pastime we outgrow. Philosopher of mind Amy Kind argues that it\u2019s something far more practical: the skill we draw on to make our hardest decisions, read the people around us, and work out who we want to become. Like any [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":746,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,32,1495,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-240526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-education","category-health","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/746"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240526\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}