Working definition. Attention is selective presence: the act by which one possibility, person, or pattern is allowed to become more than background.
Inherited meaning
Across contemplative, artistic, and scientific traditions, attention is more than concentration. It is a mode of relation. What we attend to becomes articulate; what we repeatedly ignore becomes unavailable to thought. The attention economy later treated this capacity as a commodity to capture.
Meaning in the imagination economy
The imagination economy begins by refusing that reduction. When machines can produce endless candidates, attention is no longer merely what platforms compete for—it is the scarce medium through which possibility becomes meaning. Generation multiplies what could be seen; attention determines what is actually encountered.
What changes in practice
Protect intervals in which nothing is competing to be selected. Reduce the field before judging it. Attend not only to what is impressive, but to what remains alive after the surprise has passed.