Another insightful entry from the book Everyday Psychology, by Dr Steve Edwards.
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” — Albert Einstein.
Dr Edwards comments: Shakespeare said, “The lunatic, the lover and the poet are of imagination are all compact.”
Imagination is an intuitive artistic quality that enables us to see into the life of things. It is a prerequisite for scientific progressive accumulation of knowledge. Imagination is the first step in creative problem-solving.
One sometimes has to use imagination to find a problem to solve. Computers can store knowledge and perform mathematical and logical calculations provided by imaginative human programming. Too much knowledge may hinder imagination. Imagination based on too little knowledge on the other hand, has little worth. Einstein’s theories were conceived through his imagination, or thought experiments.