The Imagination Age is the period beyond the

Information Age The Information Age (also known as the Computer Age, Digital Age, Silicon Age, or New Media Age) is a historical period that began in the mid-20th century. It is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during ...

where

creativity Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and valuable is formed. The created item may be intangible (such as an idea, a scientific theory, a musical composition, or a joke) or a physical object (such as an invention, a printed Literature ...

and imagination become the primary creators of

economic value In economics, economic value is a measure of the benefit provided by a good or service to an economic agent. It is generally measured through units of currency, and the interpretation is therefore "what is the maximum amount of money a speci ...

. (In contrast, the main activities of the Information Age are analysis and thinking.) This concept holds that technologies like

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), e ...

and user created content will change the way humans interact with each other and create economic and

social structure In the social sciences, social structure is the aggregate of patterned social arrangements in society that are both emergent from and determinant of the actions of individuals. Likewise, society is believed to be grouped into structurally rel ...

s. A key concept is that the rise of an

immersive virtual reality Immersion into virtual reality (VR) is a perception of being physically present in a non-physical world. The perception is created by surrounding the user of the VR system in images, sound or other stimuli that provide an engrossing total enviro ...

—the

metaverse In science fiction, the "metaverse" is a hypothetical iteration of the Internet as a single, universal, and immersive virtual world that is facilitated by the use of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) headsets. In colloquial usa ...

or the cyberspace—will raise the value of "imagination work" done by designers, artists, etc. over rational thinking as a foundation of culture and economics. Some argue that the Imagination Age has already started, given that imagination, they argue, is the most valued skill in our modern society.

Origins of the term

The term ''Imagination Age'' (as well as ''Age of Imagination'') were first introduced in an essay by designer and writer Charlie Magee in 1993. His essay,"The Age of Imagination: Coming Soon to a Civilization Near You"
/ref> "The Age of Imagination: Coming Soon to a Civilization Near You" proposes the idea that the best way to assess the evolution of human civilization is through the lens of

communication Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inqui ...

The most successful groups throughout human history have had one thing in common: when compared to their competition they had the best system of communication. The fittest communicators—whether tribe, citystate, kingdom, corporation, or nation—had (1) a larger percentage of people with (2) access to (3) higher quality
information Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random ...
, (4) a greater ability to transform that information into
knowledge Knowledge can be defined as Descriptive knowledge, awareness of facts or as Procedural knowledge, practical skills, and may also refer to Knowledge by acquaintance, familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called pro ...
and action, (5) and more freedom to communicate that new knowledge to the other members of their group.

''Imagination Age'', as a

philosophical Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

tenet heralding a new wave of cultural and

economic An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the ...

innovation Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or services or improvement in offering goods or services. ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 defines innovation as "a new or changed entit ...

, appears to have been first introduced by artist, writer and cultural philosopher Rita J. King in November 2007 essay for the

British Council The British Council is a British organisation specialising in international cultural and educational opportunities. It works in over 100 countries: promoting a wider knowledge of the United Kingdom and the English language (and the Welsh lan ...

entitled, "The Emergence of a New Global Culture in the Imagination Age", where she began using the phrase, "Toward a New Global Culture and Economy in the Imagination Age":

Rather than exist as an unwitting victim of circumstance, all too often unaware of the impact of having been born in a certain place at a certain time, to parents firmly nestled within particular values and socioeconomic brackets, millions of people are creating new virtual identities and meaningful relationships with others who would have remained strangers, each isolated within their respective realities.

King further refined the development of her thinking in a 2008 Paris essay entitled, "Our Vision for Sustainable Culture in the Imagination Age" in which she states,

Active participants in the Imagination Age are becoming cultural ambassadors by introducing virtual strangers to unfamiliar customs, costumes, traditions, rituals and beliefs, which humanizes foreign cultures, contributes to a sense of belonging to one's own culture and fosters an interdependent perspective on sharing the riches of all systems. Cultural transformation is a constant process, and the challenges of modernization can threaten identity, which leads to unrest and eventually, if left unchecked, to violent conflict. Under such conditions it is tempting to impose homogeneity, which undermines the highly specific systems that encompass the myriad luminosity of the human experience.

King has expanded her interpretation of the Imagination Age concept through speeches at the O'Reilly Media,

TED TED may refer to: Economics and finance * TED spread between U.S. Treasuries and Eurodollar Education * ''Türk Eğitim Derneği'', the Turkish Education Association ** TED Ankara College Foundation Schools, Turkey ** Transvaal Education Depa ...

Cusp A cusp is the most pointed end of a curve. It often refers to cusp (anatomy), a pointed structure on a tooth. Cusp or CUSP may also refer to: Mathematics * Cusp (singularity), a singular point of a curve * Cusp catastrophe, a branch of bifurc ...

, and Business Innovation Factory conferences. King also edit
"The Imagination Age"
blog. The term ''Imagination Age'' was subsequently popularized in techno-cultural discourse by other writers,

futurists Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities abou ...

and technologists, who attributed the term to King, including Jason Silva and Tish Shute a technology entrepreneur and publisher of Augmented Reality and emerging technology blog
UgoTrade
. Earlier, one-time, references to the Imagination Age can be found attributed to Carl W. Olson in his 2001 boo
"The Boss is Dead...: Leadership Breakthroughs for the Imagination Age
Carl W. Olson "The Boss is Dead...: Leadership Breakthroughs for the Imagination Age" virtual worlds developer Howard Stearns in 2005, and Cathilea Robinett in 2007.

Previous ages

The ideas of the Imagination Age depend in large part upon an idea of ''progress'' through history because of ''technology'', notably outlined by

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

. That cultural progress has been categorized into a number of major stages of development. According to this idea civilization has progressed through the following ages, or

epoch In chronology and periodization, an epoch or reference epoch is an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular calendar era. The "epoch" serves as a reference point from which time is measured. The moment of epoch is usually decided by ...

s: * Agricultural Age – economy dominated by physical work with wooden tools and animals in order to produce food * Industrial Age – economy dominated by factories to produce commodities *

– economy dominated by

knowledge workers Knowledge workers are workers whose main capital is knowledge. Examples include programmers, physicians, pharmacists, architects, engineers, scientists, design thinkers, public accountants, lawyers, editors, and academics, whose job is to "t ...

using computers and other electronic devices for the purposes of research, finance, consulting,

information technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of Data (computing), data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information te ...

, and other services Following this is a new paradigm created by virtual technology,

high speed internet Internet access is the ability of individuals and organizations to connect to the Internet using computer terminals, computers, and other devices; and to access services such as email and the World Wide Web. Internet access is sold by Internet ...

, massive data storage, and other technologies. This new paradigm, the argument goes, will create a new kind of global culture and economy called the ''Imagination Age''.

Economic rise of imagination

The Imagination Age includes a society and culture dominated by the ''imagination economy''. The idea relies on a key Marxist concept that culture is a superstructure fully conditioned by the economic substructure. According to Marxist thinking certain kinds of culture and art were made possible by the adoption of farming technology. Then with the rise of industry new forms of political organization (democracy, militarism, fascism, communism) were made possible along with new forms of culture (mass media, news papers, films). These resulted in people changing. In the case of industrialization people were trained to become more literate, to follow time routines, to live in urban communities. The concept of the Imagination Age extends this to a new order emerging presently. An imagination economy is defined by some thinkers as an economy where

intuitive Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without recourse to conscious reasoning. Different fields use the word "intuition" in very different ways, including but not limited to: direct access to unconscious knowledge; unconscious cognition; ...

and creative

thinking In their most common sense, the terms thought and thinking refer to conscious cognitive processes that can happen independently of sensory stimulation. Their most paradigmatic forms are judging, reasoning, concept formation, problem solving, an ...

create economic value, after logical and rational thinking has been outsourced to other economies. Michael Cox Chief Economist at

Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas covers the Eleventh Federal Reserve District, which includes Texas, northern Louisiana and southern New Mexico, a district sometimes referred to as the Oil Patch. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas is one of 12 ...

argues that

economic trend *all the economic indicators that are the subject of economic forecasting **see also: econometrics *general trends in the economy, see: economic history Economic history is the academic learning of economies or economic events of the past. R ...

s show a shift away from information sector employment and job growth towards creative jobs. Jobs in publishing, he has pointed out are declining while jobs for designers, architects, actors & directors, software engineers and photographers are all growing. This shift in job creation is a sign of the beginning of the Imagination Age. The 21st century has seen a growth in games and interactive

media Media may refer to: Communication * Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass e ...

job Work or labor (or labour in British English) is intentional activity people perform to support the needs and wants of themselves, others, or a wider community. In the context of economics, work can be viewed as the human activity that contr ...

s. Cox argues that the skills can be viewed as a "hierarchy of human talents", with raw physical effort as the lowest form of value creation, above this skilled labor and information entry to creative reasoning and

emotion Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiology, neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or suffering, displeasure. There is currently no scientific ...

al intelligence. Each layer provides more value creation than the skills below it, and the outcome of

globalization Globalization, or globalisation (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), see spelling differences), is the process of foreign relation ...

and

automation Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, namely by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machines ...

is that labor is made available for higher level skills that create more value. Presently these skills tend to be around imagination, social and emotional intelligence.

Technology

Key to the

idea In common usage and in philosophy, ideas are the results of thought. Also in philosophy, ideas can also be mental representational images of some object. Many philosophers have considered ideas to be a fundamental ontological category of bei ...

that imagination is becoming the key commodity of our time is a confidence that

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and Reproducibility, reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in me ...

Oculus Rift Oculus Rift is a discontinued line of virtual reality headsets developed and manufactured by Oculus VR, a division of Meta Platforms, released on March 28, 2016. In 2012 Oculus initiated a Kickstarter campaign to fund the Rift's development, af ...

and

HoloLens Microsoft HoloLens is an augmented reality (AR)/ mixed reality (MR) headset developed and manufactured by Microsoft. HoloLens runs the Windows Mixed Reality platform under the Windows 10 operating system. Some of the positional tracking tech ...

will emerge to take much of the place of the current text-and-graphic dominated internet. This will provide a 3D internet where imagination and

(over information and search) will be key to creating user experience and

value Value or values may refer to: Ethics and social * Value (ethics) wherein said concept may be construed as treating actions themselves as abstract objects, associating value to them ** Values (Western philosophy) expands the notion of value beyo ...

. The

concept Concepts are defined as abstract ideas. They are understood to be the fundamental building blocks of the concept behind principles, thoughts and beliefs. They play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied by ...

is not limited to just virtual reality. Charlie Magee states that the technology that will develop during the Imagination Age would include:

The best bet is on a hybrid breakthrough created by the meshing of nanotechnology,
computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includi ...
(including
artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...
),
biotechnology Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used ...
(including
biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...
, biopsychology, etc.), and virtual reality.

In '' The Singularity is Near'',

Raymond Kurzweil Raymond Kurzweil ( ; born February 12, 1948) is an American computer scientist, author, inventor, and futurist. He is involved in fields such as optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and e ...

states that future combination of AI, nano-technology, and biotechnology will create a world where anything that can be imagined will be possible, raising the importance of imagination as the key mode of human thinking.

Global implications

Rita J. King has been the single major advocate of the Imagination Age concept and its implications on cultural relations, identity and the transformation of the global economy and culture. King has expounded on the concept through speeches at the O'Reilly Media and

conferences and has argued that

virtual world A virtual world (also called a virtual space) is a computer-simulated environment which may be populated by many users who can create a personal avatar, and simultaneously and independently explore the virtual world, participate in its activities ...

technology and changes in people's ability to imagine other lives could promote world understanding and reduce

cultural conflict Cultural conflict is a type of conflict that occurs when different cultural values and beliefs clash. Broad and narrow definitions exist for the concept, both of which have been used to explain violence (including war) and crime, on either a mi ...

. Some

public policy Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to solve or address relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs. Public p ...

experts have argued the emergence of the Imagination Age out of the Information Age will have a major impact on overall public policy. All are concepts discussed in The Purpose Economy by Aaron Hurst, and in the creation of The Purpose Revolution discussed in the Golden Age Companion Textbook.

References

{{reflist 20th century 21st century Historical eras Information Age Contemporary history Science fiction themes University of Southern California faculty Virtual reality Virtual economy

Age Age or AGE may refer to: Time and its effects * Age, the amount of time someone or something has been alive or has existed ** East Asian age reckoning, an Asian system of marking age starting at 1 * Ageing or aging, the process of becoming older ...