I call it a lack of curiosity instead of a lack of imagination. Both are useful, but to me imagination is more about coming up with new solutions than understanding how something that already exists can be bent to your will.

I think they go hand-in-hand. You have to have some imagination about how something must work (however off-base) to be curious enough to find out how it really works. It often seems to me that people who aren't curious lack it because they can't even imagine something different than what is in front of them.

They don't wonder how a car works because they can't even begin to deduce how it might work, from the observable outside in, because they lack the imagination to make those deductions. Someone who's curious might see a car and think, "How does this work? I can see the wheels spin and propel it forward, but something must be making those wheels turn. How do they all spin at the same time? What turns the push of the pedal into making the wheels turn?" etc.

I see curiosity and imagination as two sides of the same personality trait expressed in different ways.

> I see curiosity and imagination as two sides of the same personality trait expressed in different ways.

That's because the world of today is both complex and complicated. Imagination is needed to decipher things and curiosity to get you the urge to find out more. I would argue that it's two different traits both selected by evolution. Let's imagine a tribe on savannah where some are smart enough to imagine lions hiding behind a hill and not sufficiently curious to find out by just going there, it's great to imagine throwing rocks to scare potential predators away. So you need both, they're complementary and might not even have to be expressed in the same individual but beneficial if they do.

I don't think it's just that. I think a lot of it is just a desire for successful results. Once you learn how to do something and it works you don't bother with asking if it's the most efficient way or not. You know it works so you just keep going back to the well. You then spend your energy on figuring out the next thing you don't know.