Grade: A

Through addressing human nature and the relationship among machines, animals, and humans, Bronowski raises many fascinating and note-worthy points in his lectures entitled, "The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination." He structures his comments in such a way that they stimulate deep thoughts about each of our own tendencies, why we as humans function the way we do, and how we came to function in this way. Questions are elicited as to the validity of some of Bronowski’s opinions, but that may have been one of his goals in presenting them. He opens the minds of those listening to a world that is already our reality; he simply forces it to be a conscious reality. He prompts us to evaluate some of the most simple aspects of life, such as the role of our five senses. One of the most interesting points that Bronowski proposes is connected with vision and images. He states that both our internal selves and the external world around us our centered around the eye. The beauty of the ideas that Bronowski offers is that every listener or reader can relate to them in some way and can also pose further questions that remain to be answered in relation to them.

In Bronowski’s first lecture of his series of six, he focuses largely on sight and our interpretation of the outside world. He states that vision is the main way that we gather information about our surroundings and store that information in our minds for later use. Vision has become a very highly developed sense in humans because of the great importance that we place on it. We are almost totally reliant on our sense of sight to provide us with information, stimulate the largest lobe of our brains, give us a sense of comfort in evaluating new situations, and to perform countless other tasks that our eyes complete. The eyes contribute so much input about the happenings surrounding us that when we carry on an interior monologue with ourselves about the world, it is nearly entirely in pictures. We create visual images when we think as a way to relive prior events or to conceive future proceedings. Rarely do we imagine what the olfactory, gustatory, or auditory sensations of the episode are; if we do imagine these sensations, it is almost undoubtedly accompanied by visualization (Bronowski, 3-18).

Bronowski’s theories about vision are highly applicable to my life as a new student at Vanderbilt University. As I try to learn all the new faces that I see around campus or the numerous buildings that hold important offices and classes, I use mainly my eyes and the processes that my brain performs on the visual messages it receives to comprehend and encode the new surroundings for later retrieval. I try to remember what a new friend’s face looks like rather than what she smells like or what her voice sounds like. When recognizing someone, our brain alerts us that it has previously encoded and stored that image. Though it does alert us that it has earlier encountered that particular odor or sound, these situations are not quite as frequent. Before arriving at Vanderbilt, I frequently imagined what going to school here would be like. When imagining life here, I would visualize the buildings or where I might go on weekends or what the people would look like. Visualization was the main part of my imagination process. Therefore, I strongly agree with Bronowski’s ideas about humans relying on their eyes to provide a large amount of information about the outside world. I also support his suggestion that the imagination is largely constituted by visual images.

Any theory or study is inevitably going to leave questions unanswered, whether it is addressing the chemical interactions of certain elements, the formation of DNA, or the role of sight in humans. One of the main issues that remain unanswered in this situation is the predicament of a blind person. Does this person not have an imagination quite as interesting and vivid as that of a seeing man? How does a blind person imagine? Are his/her thoughts full of stimuli received from other senses? What senses best trigger his/her memory? All of the answers to these questions could very well create contradictions and exceptions to Bronowski’s theories proposed in his first lecture. However, as his ideas are presented, they seem to have a thorough and well-grounded basis showing that humans are rooted in their occipital capabilities and the presence of prominent visions in the imagination. This knowledge could lead to further studies about how people best learn (whether information presented visually rather than orally is better encoded and stored, etc.). It could open up areas of study about whether other animals seem to "imagine" and if they do, what their mode of imagination is. There are countless other areas that could be researched regarding this topic, all of which would only lead to further questions and further research.

Bronowski’s lecture about the connection between vision and imagination prompts several thoughts about the nature of humans and the role of our five senses in everyday life. Almost anyone can relate to the theories that we strongly rely on our eyes to provide us with enormous amounts of continuous information from the outside world. The large majority of people can also identify with the idea that we think in images. The only people that may not be able to associate with this is the blind population. However, further research may inform us about how they use their imaginations. Bronowski’s strong and enlightening narration, in the end, renders active that very imagination of which he speaks.

Bronowski, Jacob. The Origins of Knowledge. New Haven; Yale University Press,

1978.