*I hope for good things from this initiative. It sounds like it would be particularly centered on activities that I would blog with glee.
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/jun/11/ucsd-creates-center-human-imagination/
"Imagination – one of the least understood but most cherished products of the mind and brain – will become the focus of wide-ranging study at a new center jointly founded by UC San Diego and the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation.
"The two institutions have created the UCSD-based Center for Human Imagination, which will involve thinkers from fields as different as technology, sociology, politics, medicine and literature, especially science fiction.
"We are changing the world so fast right now and the level of transformation is profound," said Sheldon Brown, the UCSD media arts professor who was named director of the center. "This is the outcome of imagination. We need a more thoughtful, deliberative approach to understanding how it works."
"The perils and positives of imagination were a defining theme for Clarke, the British futurist and science fiction author who wrote such acclaimed books as "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Rendezvous with Rama."
"Clarke, who died in 2008, literally helped imagine the future. In 1945, he published a paper that laid out the basic concept for the geostationary satellites that exist today. Those satellites helped make the Internet and other wireless devices possible, shaping how people communicate and interact.
"Tedson Meyers, chairman of the Clarke Foundation, said in a statement, “A number of excellent universities responded to our request for proposals to become the home of the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination, but the University of California, San Diego made the most compelling case.
"Its top flight research resources, facilities and academic excellence in multi-disciplinary collaborations within the UC system and beyond are ideally suited to approach the potential of human imagination from a wide range of perspectives." (...)
