possibility studies

Numbers are just numbers; they cannot source possibilities from each other or find a way when the basic arithmetic says there is none—people can. Abstracting the solutions to numbers inherently dehumanizes and unnecessarily constrains the spectrum of possibilities. The metric logic removes the human breadth of experience and relationship. This cold

As beings dwelling within a world that is at once actual and possible, the human condition involves a radical open-endedness and orientation towards the future that change how we are and how we understand ourselves.

"Isn’t it telling that in modern usage the realist has become synonymous with the cynic–for someone with a pessimistic outlook? In truth, it’s the cynic who’s out of touch." (from "Humankind: A Hopeful History" by Rutger Bregman, Erica Moore, Elizabeth Manton)

All four dimensions of the imaginary need to evolve in harmony for imaginative ideas to last; they gather around them meanings and associations and become part of people’s identity. Visions that remain only visions do not survive, but equally, practical ideas that don’t have any supporting superstructure of ideas tend not to thrive because they

Experiences of the possible transform the self . The fact that humans can pretend things are not what they are, reimagine the past, envision multiple futures and conceive the impossible, are all transformative experiences.

It is not accidental, in this context, that the inability to reimagine one’s life is a primary indicator of traumatic experiences, and its reversal represents a key sign of recovering and, in some cases, of entering a new phase of post-traumatic growth.

Without curiosity, possibility cannot appear on the scene, and without possibility, curiosity has no scene to work with in the first place. The two make one another possible.

These might trigger a new sense of agency, finding a balance between “doing and not-doing” (Damhof, 2021) through grasping emergence as it happens and taking advantage of changes in the conditions of change (Miller, 2015a).