Zoe Scaman

Imagination is a socially shaped, foundational human capacity that is critical for navigating complexity, challenging dominant systems and shaping more just and desirable futures.

Unlike creativity, which can be treated as a technical skill, imagination operates at the intersection of perception, memory, cultural framing and ethical projection. In contexts of design and systems change, practical imagination is critical for challenging dominant imaginaries, surfacing suppressed alternatives and making non-linear futures actio... See more

Complex systems rarely evolve in straight lines. Instead, they move through phases of rapid growth, stagnation, and adaptation. As systems become more sophisticated, the interaction between perception, reasoning, and action becomes increasingly complex. Simple systems might exhibit a linear flow: perceive, reason, act. But advanced intelligence inv... See more

Because infinite players prepare themselves to be surprised by the future, they play in complete openness. It is not an openness as in candor, but an openness as in vulnerability. It is not a matter of exposing one's unchanging identity, the true self that has always been, but a way of exposing one's ceaseless growth, the dynamic self that has yet ... See more

In futures studies, imagination is often described as the precondition for anticipation: we can only shape futures we are able to imagine. Without imagination, we remain trapped within the constraints of the present, repeating and refining what already exists.

Practical imagination, then, is not a luxury. It is a cultural and political practice. It refuses the idea that the future is something to be predicted or owned. Instead, it understands the future as something to be imagined with others, through contradiction and against the assumptions of the present. This requires transforming how imagination is ... See more

In nature, simple rules give rise to complex behavior. A single ant follows pheromone trails, but an ant colony collectively optimizes food-gathering strategies, adjusts to environmental changes, and builds intricate structures—none of which any individual ant understands. Intelligence emerges not from a single unit, but from the interactions betwe... See more

Ann Pendleton-Jullian explains how this capacity is not only practical—it is also performative and embodied. When we admire characters like Sherlock Holmes, it is not simply for their logic. Holmes, when asked if he has a solution, often answers with a number—“Yes, three” or “Yes, seven”—signaling the number of hypothetical scenarios he has already... See more

I think that's where we are: moving past the stranglehold of the dogmatic rational materialist paradigm – the midwit – and towards something both ancient and cutting-edge: a world where technology and magic coexist, where consciousness is as fundamental as matter, and where direct experience matters as much as double-blind studies.