Comparing God, Science And Imagination, By Wendell Berry

The human brain will never fail to fascinate me; our brain never fully shuts off, even when we are sleeping our brains continue to work, these powerhouses are also very good at imagination and the imitation of others. Wendell Berry brings important aspects of imagination in his essay “God, Science and Imagination”. Berry talks about how imagination is key in believing in science and/or religion and also claims that imagination helps us understand things we cannot see or do not have factual proof. Berry believes imagination is “the power to make us see, and to see, moreover, things that without it would be unseeable” (25). On the other hand, Susan Blackmore talks about the replication of others humans naturally do in her essay “Strange Creatures”.

When we imagine our thoughts, these thoughts go on in our brains, and anything we can possibly imagine comes to mind, there is nothing that “filters” what we can imagine. . Blackmore states “[Dawkins] complained that many of his colleagues seemed unable to accept the idea that memes would spread for their own benefit (36). Blackmore talks about Richard Dawkins, the creator of the word meme, and how he believes that memes want to be passed down because they want to grow stronger. Dawkins compares memes to genes and how the stronger genes fight for the top and he feels that memes do the same. Berry also states “Worst of all fundamentalists of both science and religion do not adequately understand or respect imagination” (25). Berry feels that fundamentalists do not respect imagination enough and they do not understand it. These two quotes relate because with both memes and imagination people, whether they be fundamentalists or colleagues struggle with the thought of accepting and understanding memes or imagination. For Blackmore it is apparent that memes do not care if they are destructive or beneficial because they are just thoughts. Blackmore give examples of destructive memes such as fraud and chain letters, but they could also be beneficial such as a song. Imagination could become very harmful without meaning to. Technology which

For example a common meme that most are familiar with is shaking hands when we greet people. Somewhere, someone or some group had to come up with this on their own. In order for this to occur this person/people had to imagine a way for people to greet people professionally. From there this example of shaking hands has been passed down and continues to be passed down. The passing down of this ritual makes it a meme, while the process of creating this meme had to do with the imagination of the idea. Another example would be the ‘Happy Birthday to You.’ This song is a meme but it came about through imagination and possibly the use of other tunes. Blackmore talks about different memes and how they get passed around. She states, “Each of these memes has evoked in its own unique way with its own history, but each of them is using your behavior to get itself copied” (37). Blackmore is saying how each meme has been created and passed down in different ways but without us and the way we act by imitation, these memes would not be passed down at all. Each of these memes would not be considered a meme if it was not passed down. People will also use imagination to create their own memes. Berry talks about imagination as “We have much reason to think that it is a way of knowing things not otherwise knowable” (25). Berry helps us to understand how imagination helps us know things we otherwise would not see.