Inventing Imaginary Worlds: From Childhood Play to Adult Creativity Across the Arts and Sciences

by Michelle Root-Bernstein

world·play

world·play 1. the invention of an imaginary world, sometimes called a paracosm; 2. in childhood and youth, an outcome of the normally developing imagination, often associated with play in secret, found, and constructed places; 3. self-generated make-believe, tending to the sustained mental modeling of a hypothetical place or system; 4. in the arts, a plausible pretense; in the sciences and social sciences, a possible world; 5. a touchstone experience, a creative strategy

self-generated make-believe, tending to the sustained mental modeling of a hypothetical place or system;

play lies at the heart of creative culture;

the idea that child’s play holds the key to the future course of

Clearly, Chamberlain was not the last to advance the idea that play lies at the heart of creative culture; nor was he the first. Yet we may credit him with articulating the idea that child’s play holds the key to the future course of civilization. ,,