Natural selection in predictable life conditions of the modern civilization causes the human brain to shrink and turn off the most energy-consuming cognitive functions that were required to survive in conditions of uncertainty, including imagination. This morning I once again asked myself the question: Should we fight this trend? Or does Mother Nature know better and we just have to relax and enjoy as if in the case of an inevitable rape?

Imagination was necessary for a person to imagine the future in the face of uncertainty and incompleteness of information, when it is impossible to calculate everything in advance. This ability provided better chances of survival. Since the ordinary life of an ordinary person in a civilized country is now being conducted in a well-organized environment and is computable in advance, the need to imagine what can happen in order to evade unexpected threats and take advantage of unexpected opportunities has ceased to be a competitive advantage in natural selection.

All this is right, but many cognitive functions: empathy, compassion, consciousness, are built on imagination. Imagination is a necessary (albeit insufficient) condition for them. In fact, in order to empathize, one must imagine what another person feels. And for consciousness, one must imagine that other person knows and thinks. Imagine because information about what another person feels or thinks is always incomplete. Some prominent scientists argue that the brain is characterized by the dynamics of chaos. Take chaos (and imagination) out of the brain and you will get a machine that is incapable of making independent decisions.

So I answered myself. Imagination is not a cognitive “bow-knot” that exists only for beauty, but the very essence of a human being. It is the basis of humanity. Therefore humanness learning will model an environment enriched by chaos and unexpected uncertainties for the sake of preserving humanity. That’s it.

By the way, with cognitive decay imagination is gradually and subtly being replaced by a choice of a large number of known, not imaginary alternatives. We substitute imagination with the curve fitting in our brains! It’s not the same thing. A couple of years ago a friend explained to me that a robocar designed by his start-up for Formula-1 will react to the environment hundreds of times faster than a human driver can. And it will calculate the trajectory of motion that will be ideal taking into account all possible cues. I hesitated that human driver does not count, but foresees what will happen, but the friend did not listen. About a year ago, two prototypes of his robocar collided with each other on the first test drive on a real track. Apparently, both decided to compete for the ideal trajectory. And more recently a human driver was clearly the frontrunner against driverless track car prototype of my friend’s start-up with a roughly 26-second lead. Therefore, we must fight against the trend of loss of imagination. “Humans are underrated,” as Elon Musk recently admitted.