Abstract
For humanity to positively shape its own future, we must recognize the value of play as an essential activity for learning and creative expression. Cognitive Science researchers, Neuroscientists, and Educators, have told us this for a while, but lectures by top researchers in Physics stress that playful exploration is also crucial to progress in both experimental and theoretical Physics. Play allows us to learn and innovate. The value of play to research is greatly under-valued – compared to its benefits – by modern society. Given opportunities to playfully explore; anyone including students and scientific researchers will learn more, faster. Thus; encouraging play fuels innovation and progress – the engines of economic prosperity. Experts from all the fields above echo that observation, both in published works and in personal conversations or correspondence. To retain our sense of humanity and survive to shape the future, human beings must realize that play is every bit as essential as hard work is, to our growth as individuals and as a culture. For humans to positively shape our own future, we must exalt that which makes us human, and to do that we must recognize the value of play.
Jonathan J. Dickau