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Is imagination/creativity more valuable than knowledge?
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” - Albert Einstein
It's very easy to compare creativity and knowledge in an abstract, metaphorical sense - but we know that our imagination is developed from the knowledge we gain in the experiences of our daily lives. So when it comes to a debate on whether we need to emphasize creativity or knowledge in education, society, etc. how can we say that one is more valuable than the other?
Are there any quantitative means to measure the value of creativity/knowledge? (e.g. statistics about creativity in the workplace)
Devon Gisbert
bart hsi
Linda Taylor 50+
Devon Gisbert
Dan F 50+
A valuable question to contemplate. Here are some thoughts.
There is discipline in knowledge that is not necessarily found in creativity (imagination). Follow this reasoning. Most fields of knowledge involves learning the basics and with a progression into more challenging subject matter. A student takes basic biology before they take genetics and genetics is fundamental to appreciating natural history, embryology, biological evolution, etc.
As a student expands his/her knowledge to what is accepted to be factual, and sound theory that process limits one's creativity. The reason is that established facts influence thought. It precludes the more intelligent among us from doing things and saying things that can cost us our credibility and ethical standing. It is not that someone can not challenge established facts or theories, but we are not entitled to our own "facts" or redefinition of words, to be legitimately creative. The burden is on the creative individual to cause a reconsideration of what has been established as a reflection of what is understood to be true.
Is there any time for creativity when spending considerable money trying to learn and comprehend basic knowledge? I understand there are exceptionally bright students whom can justify and influence experts (teachers, etc) with their creative thought, but most student must struggle just to ace a class - meaning to fully understand just the basics.
Artistic studies and the social science are less confining areas of knowledge, but even here the discipline involved in learning the subject matter has considerable value.
This is why global warming is so hard to sell to the general public by experts. It demands a certain amount of knowledge to appreciate why it deserve serious consideration. There are a number of glib creative promoters expounding with considerable influence why it is a hoax to the less informed public.
History is made and changed by the truly creative thinkers.
bart hsi
Pavel Petr
natasha nikulina 50+
I think, by 'imagination' he meant imaginative consciousness,which is a 'higher frequency ' state of consciousness.
The mind has to become receptive to the depth of the imaginal field in order to access insight, it has to' tune in' to the right 'wavelength'.
Almost all the great advances in science have come about not from logic or reason but from 'Eureka' moments - moments/flashes of insight.
I believe that scientific and artistic insights both stem from imaginative consciousness.
So, yes, imagination is more important or to be more precise, it is prior to knowledge, it is where knowledge came from.
Don Wesley 50+
Don Wesley 50+
“Knowledge is the word and it is born on the mountain.”
donwesley1933.
Feyisayo Anjorin 50+
I would say both knowledge and imagination have their own peculiarities.
Imagination creates a world of possibilities; but we access our world first by knowledge.
Even the awareness of the power of the imagination comes by knowledge (as you have rightly pointed out).
Sometimes the mind is enlightened when one gains access to the works and knowledge of dedicated scholars. The fusion of such discoveries then produces a fresh perspective.
Both knowledge and creativity/imagination should be treasured. They are equally important.
Don Wesley 50+
A wonderful invitation to create another quote.
“Knowledge is the word and it is born on the mountain.”
donwesley1933.
Rosa Park 500+
However, compared to one another, creativity is stronger.
Knowledge serves as a slight basis for creativity.
So, knowledge can be seen as a stepping stone, for a person to reach their level of creativity.
MR T
Knowledge is static and creativity is changing, change is needed for new things to happen but to have change there must first be something to change (knowledge).
Creativity could be seen as a description of the quality in a person that drives the process of combining existing knowledge in a novel way.
As both are essential for progressive change then perhaps both can be said to have equal value.
Sara Louise
Without imagination, or creativity, this website probably wouldn't even exist.
Bernard Seremonia
Imagination can lead us to axioms, and if these axioms are useful for our life, then it could be considered as another way to seek for knowledge, but in essence, better imagining is not merely just imagining without thinking. It's imagining within the structure of logical thinking (thought experiment).
We need empirical experience to construct logical structure while imagining, just the same as finding knowledge through information related to a specific data.
The different is, when we build scenarios within imagination, by transferring any of logical structures on real life to the world of imagination and maintain those logical structures as long as possible, then it's similar to creating miniature of reality. This could help us getting knowledge and increase its accuracy better, since we can move 3 dimensional image within imagination.
But, when we couldn't have clear imagination and we couldn't create clear scenarios by imagining, then seek for the knowledge through another way outside imagining is preferable.
Knowledge that came out from imagination could be considered equal to knowledge that came out outside imagination, as long as it's an axiom.
Less or more ...
Alexa Bahar
edward long 100+
Fritzie Reisner 100+
One of the problems with the cultural disposition always to try to rank things is that it imposes a structure in which we simply assume everything can be ranked meaningfully in this way. Economics has a very different way of judging the value of things, which starts from the proposition that we should ask questions of value "at the margin." Specifically, if you have an environment in which the focus is entirely on knowledge to the exclusion of imagination, it is valuable to build more exercise of imagination into the mix. If you have an environment that is only about imagination without bringing any knowledge into the exercise other than what people happen to know already, increasing the amount of knowledge-material probably makes sense.
Using a more mundane example, if you have five pairs of blue jeans and are deciding whether to get another pair of blue or to add a black pair, you might decide to add black. If you have five pairs of black, you might decide to add blue. Neither black not blue is necessarily better, or rather even if in buying your first pair you might prefer blue to black, once you have lots of blue, it might make sense to add black.
The principle of asking such questions 'at the margin," or in relation to what the status quo looks like, is one of the great contributions of economic thinking to analytical thought.