Do all of the rules and laws governing the world really only exist in our minds? Did we really create the world through our imagination?

According to Richard Feynman “observation, reason, and experiment make up what we call the scientific method.” It is not possible that the rules and laws governing the world exist only in our minds because it has to go through the process of observation, reason, and experimenting before presenting it to the public. Back to the example of gravity, Isaac Newton first observed the apple fall out of the tree, he then tried to find a reason to why the apple fell to the ground. Finally, by experimenting he came up with the law of gravity that has existed for over three hundred years.

However, the laws do not exist exclusively outside of our minds; imagination is what helps create these rules of the world. During the medieval times, people believed that the universe revolved around the earth and that the earth was the center of the universe. This part was from imagination. Then Nicolai Copernicus through observation, reasoning, and experimentation proposed that the Sun was the center of the Solar System. This theory or law became known as the heliocentric system. In order to arrive at this theory there had to be some imagination in order to encourage Copernicus to avoid at what during his time seemed to be the obvious and challenge that thought. Returning to Richard Feynman, he stated, “Experiment itself helps us to produce these laws, in the sense that it gives us hints. But also needed is imagination to create from these hints the great generalizations.” Copernicus came to his theory by using his imagination and finding an alternative way in which the “heavenly bodies” could rotate around the earth. Then through observation of the moon and the planets, he realized that there were no “heavenly bodies” and that the planets and the moon revolved around the sun, not earth. Therefore, imagination has a role in creating the reality that we live in.