By Charles Mueller

Sunday was an emotional day. It was the 15th anniversary of one of the most traumatic days in US history, the anniversary of 9/11. That day is burned into the memories of the American people because its events defied what we believed was possible. We will never forget because we will always remember the day the unthinkable became reality.

The official story that came out of the investigations of 9/11 to explain how it was able to occur highlighted a failure to imagine the kinds of horrors terrorists could unleash upon our nation. In some ways this finding was ironic because it was our imagination that helped us land on the moon, invent the Internet, and harness the atom, all accomplishments in our climb to become the world’s only remaining superpower at the time. On 9/11 though it somehow became our weakness. By failing to take serious what might seem impossible, by failing to imagine the extremes people might go to hurt us, we created an opportunity that could be exploited. The sad reality of that day is that many people saw the signs of what was coming, but we still chose to ignore it; we chose to refrain from imagining it could ever take place.

That day showed the real the power of imagination. If you can imagine it, you can often make it real. The terrorists imagined all that took place on 9/11 and because they believed, were able to inflict a wound on this country that may never fully heal. As we move forward, continuing to recover from that day, we must never forget this lesson; we must never forget the power of imagination.

Today we live at a time where what was once the imagination of science fiction writers is now becoming reality. We are on the cusp of being able to engineer all types of life, including ourselves, to have the traits and properties we desire. We are on the verge of potentially creating sentient life fundamentally different than our own. We have tools today that are enabling our imagination to translate into reality. As amazing as the future can be, days like 9/11 remind us that there exist those that will ultimately try to use these new technologies and their imaginations to make the future worse. We have to remember this as we start thinking about how to manage this brave new world.

In order to ensure the future is better than tomorrow, we have to use our imagination to consider all the different ways it can go right and wrong. We have to imagine the future we want and then work together to figure out the right path to get there. We cannot afford another failure of imagination moving forward because S&T has simply made the stakes too high. Let’s use the power of imagination to create a better world and ensure 9/11 is a day we remember, not relive.