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In November of 2002, I had the great privilege of meeting Arthur C. Clarke at his home in Sri Lanka. It was an incredible experience and a signal event in my life. We talked about the latest in technology and science, had some laughs (he was not above a ribald joke or two), and marveled on the state of humans in the universe. Clarke had been my chancellor at International Space University, giving the commencement speech to my class in 1988. Most importantly, he was a luminary in my early adult life, stimulating my mind with his visionary stories, essays, movies, mysteries, and inventions.
That inspiration continues to this day. Millions of others have partaken of his ideas, and generations have grown directly or indirectly under his influence. A scientific innovator (inventing the idea of geostationary satellites, for example), a science fiction pioneer, a role model for those with disabilities (post-polio syndrome led him to require a wheelchair later in life), an early environmentalist, and a queer person coming of age in restrictive early 20th century England yet imagining more inclusive futures—Clarke continues to inspire in countless ways.
Because of this, it is a great privilege for me to become the Director of the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination at the University of California San Diego and to help build new visions in the spirit of Clarke’s legacy. We will be continuing the work started here in 2012 to better understand humanity’s greatest gift: imagination.
We do this in collaboration with colleagues from a range of fields—from neuroscience to speculative futures studies and from engineering to astrophysics—thought leaders who address the big questions of culture, consciousness, and cosmos, and who prototype tomorrow’s tools of the imagination.
Our programs bring brilliant minds and ideas to life for a broad public—last year alone we hosted mathematician Sir Roger Penrose, physicist Freeman Dyson, and Cixin Liu, the Clarke of contemporary Chinese science fiction, among others. We cultivate conversations about the future, as in our yearlong San Diego 2049 project.
Our Imagination Lab investigates the neurological basis of visual imagination. Our space science collaborations with the Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences support international development of telescopes that, from the highest elevation plains in Chile, will extend our view further into space, and into the past, than ever before. And our research has extended this year from our labs at UC San Diego to the International Space Station with the BOARDS (Brain Organoid Advanced Research Developed in Space) Mission—sending stem-cell “mini-brains” into micro-gravity for study—with implications for humankind’s ability to live elsewhere in the solar system (and beyond). It’s an exciting time at the Clarke Center, with more to come.
Every great discovery, each great invention, begins with someone imagining a new possibility. As a hub for imaginative, interdisciplinary collaboration, the Clarke Center continues to be the place where, in the spirit of Clarke’s third law, we discover the limits of the possible by venturing a little way past them into the impossible. I invite you to join us on this thrilling journey of discovery, play, and exploration, in the service of imagining a better future for humanity.
Yours,
Erik Viirre, M.D./Ph.D.
Director, Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination and Professor, Department of Neurosciences
Practitioners of the emergent field of Speculative Futures Studies use speculative forms – including, but not limited to, art, literature, and theory- to confront the legacies of imperialism, colonialism, and racism in order to imagine and enact more sustainable and just futures.
Science explains it, but
art may be the key to finding it.
The Speculative Futures Collective seeks to cultivate research with faculty, graduate students, and community members using speculative cultural forms and theories to collaborate on the future of education, ecology, gender, sexuality, and race.
Practitioners of the emergent field of Speculative Futures Studies use speculative forms – including, but not limited to, art, literature, and theory- to confront the legacies of imperialism, colonialism, and racism in order to imagine and enact more sustainable and just futures.
Science explains it, but
art may be the key to finding it.
The Speculative Futures Collective seeks to cultivate research with faculty, graduate students, and community members using speculative cultural forms and theories to collaborate on the future of education, ecology, gender, sexuality, and race.
Unlike intelligence, memory, and creativity, there is an alarming lack of coherent theory and a thin empirical literature on imagination. Why alarming? Imagination may be one of the most important keys to human flourishing and human progress, with spiritual and evolutionary adaptive benefit.
The science of imagination needs a guide for the future.
The Atlas of Imagination is the guide, focusing coherent theoretical models of imagination to drive further investigation and the tools needed for the empirical study of the neurodiversity of imagination.
Unlike intelligence, memory, and creativity, there is an alarming lack of coherent theory and a thin empirical literature on imagination. Why alarming? Imagination may be one of the most important keys to human flourishing and human progress, with spiritual and evolutionary adaptive benefit.
The science of imagination needs
a guide for the future.
The Atlas of Imagination is the guide, focusing coherent theoretical models of imagination to drive further investigation and the tools needed for the empirical study of the neurodiversity of imagination.
The Clarke Center is a research-and-practice hub, where the best insights from the neuroscience of imagination are connected with the latest in technology and put to use to unlock the transformative power of imagination across age groups, and communities to tackle the most pressing issues facing the planet.
Imagination discovers
new possibilities within the impossible.
Imagination is at the root of empathy and compassion. Imagination gives rise to hope. We aim to unleash the power of imagination to tackle the most pressing issues facing life on Earth – to envision and build a more equitable an sustainable world.
