"The Philoctetes Center for the Multidisciplinary Study of Imagination was established to promote an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to the understanding of creativity and the imaginative process." To this end they hold regular roundtable discussions, streaming videos of which are available online. Some past highlights include: [more inside]
posted by jrb223 on Feb 22, 2009 - 6 comments

How experts think we'll live in the year 2000 [via Paleo-Future] [more inside]
posted by hadjiboy on Jan 31, 2008 - 43 comments

Gizmo - using news footage from the 1920s to the 1950s, Howard Smith created an amusing 1977 documentary about contraptions made by the inventors, technophiles, and eccentrics of yesteryear. The last 7 minutes is Letterman interviewing Smith. (Google video, 1 hr., 19 min. Via beans beans good for your heart)
posted by madamjujujive on Apr 24, 2007 - 10 comments

Float (youtube) is the first of a series of short films designed to stir the imagination. The brief film shows the streets of Melbourne as the letters & numbers from every sign in town begin to peel off & float away on the wind. The project lives here, and open contributions are being listed here.
posted by jonson on Oct 6, 2006 - 16 comments

Fabio Feminò has an enormous collection of science fiction magazines to share with us. AWESOME!
posted by tellurian on Apr 4, 2006 - 5 comments

There is a new question asking website. It is powered by humans via the Mechanical Turk program. Said the Gramophone has a bit of fun with it.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Feb 18, 2006 - 16 comments

Human beings have a gift for fantasy which shows itself at a very early age and then continues to make all sorts of contributions to our intellectual and emotional life throughout the life span.
posted by dfowler on Mar 28, 2005 - 8 comments

Idealist and realist: What we can learn from Albert Einstein's free spirit. "Einstein was a Freigeist, and his self-appointed, conscious task was to be a liberator –- a Befreier. In this he continued a great German cultural tradition established by Kant, Goethe, and simultaneously with Einstein, by Ernst Cassirer." [via]
posted by monju_bosatsu on Mar 11, 2005 - 4 comments

Galleries of the Society for Art of Imagination. [via Clifford Pickover's Reality Carnival]
We intend to assist the resurgence of interest in fantastic and visionary art and make the Art of Imagination accessible to all...
posted by moonbird on Jun 17, 2004 - 4 comments

Dream Dollars "Discover the mystery of Nadiria, the Lost Colony of Antarctica. Nadiria flourished as a utopian colony deep inside the Antarctican ice shelf for over thirty years until its mysterious disappearance in 1899. Here are the beautiful reproductions of its unusual currency, Dream-Dollars, studied by scholars and dream researchers for almost a century. Long unavailable, these exotic notes will amaze, astound, and fascinate all those interested in the strange and the beautiful."
posted by anastasiav on Jan 15, 2004 - 11 comments

We are because of others. We are born into this world with minds as naked as our bodies and we have to rely on others to feed, clothe us, and to teach us to think of ourselves as selves. The key is language -- grammatical speech and human culture build upon the brain's biological capacities to create a mind that is something different again than that with which we are born. We are conscious because we can speak to others and ourselves, because we can speak of ourselves to others and ourselves. Language gives us as individuals, memory, and as groups, culture, the social memory. Or so thought Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky, among others. Welcome to the the neuronaut's guide to the science of consciousness.
posted by y2karl on Jul 11, 2003 - 36 comments

During my day's aimless surfing I was feeling a mite wistful, and it did my heart a load of good to stumble on the internet home of Funny Face mugs. I also found the Mr. Men and Little Miss Club. Both of these bits of pop culture were objects of devotion to me as a tyke. Looking at the sweet simplicity of the products today, it amazes me how easy it was to invest plastic mugs and simple line drawings with meaning and personality. I wish there was a place for them in today's Kiddie Kulture which seems to be about filling in all the blanks before the kids get to use there imaginations.
posted by jonmc on Feb 24, 2002 - 7 comments

Work out? Why bother? Study shows that imaginary exercise builds muscles. Now if only imaginary friends worked the same way.
posted by o2b on Nov 12, 2001 - 22 comments