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| Imaginative Minds: An Interdisciplinary Symposium30 April-1 May 2004The British Academy, 10 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AHThe products of imagination: by-products or adaptations?Professor Pascal Boyer 1 A plausible and tempting account of the cultural explosion would suggest that humans acquired cognitive systems that allow decoupling from sensory input and motor action. As a result, off-line simulation and imagination were made possible. This would suggest that there are probably no constraints other than relevance on the products of imagination. This however may be insufficient to explain limits to imagination. Religious concepts for instance are much less varied than this ‘unshackled imagination’ account would imply. It may be the case that certain patterns of imaginary speculation are strongly constrained by evolved mental systems, and even that some specific products of imagination constitute adaptations.
1. Henry Luce Professor of Individual and Collective Memory, Washington University, St Louis |
