If imagination is more important than knowledge...

[Boojatta]

then is fiction more important than non-fiction?

Perhaps it is more important to write fiction than it is to read factual books about ancient history?

[baby_mouse]

1. Um.

Imagination isn't more important than knowledge.

[Boojatta]

3. Can you explain why you say that? "Sez you sez Einstein" isn't interestin

[uppityperson]

2. Disagree with your starting premise.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

4. Imagination and knowledge

go hand in hand. One without the other is lunacy or terribly, terribly dry. Either one.

I spend my days trying to impart knowledge and faciliate imagination as an art/art history teacher.

[KittyWampus]

36. what art periods/cultures do you cover?

[TallahasseeGrannie]

39. Last year I taught the Celts and African American art

This year I'm in the lab with digital photography. Next year I'll be teaching pre-Colombian pottery, among other things. Haven't decided. I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts and also a second degree in Art History.

T-Grannie

[Mythsaje]

40. I know a lot of people,

including my wife, that would be fascinated by the Celtic art stuff. Course, I hang out with a lot of pagans--kinda goes with the territory.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

41. Celtic art is so very intricate

my kids could not really make their own. I had to come up with ideas for modifying and transferring, making boxes our of celtic prints, etc.

The Celts rocked!

[Mythsaje]

42. Most people are pretty unaware of how advanced

their civilization became. The Romans, the early Catholic Church, and the British sure managed to rip it apart pretty handily.

[Spider Jerusalem]

5. Not only is imagination NOT more important than knowledge...

imagination is IMPOSSIBLE without knowledge. It's impossible to create a work of fiction that stands up without some level of knowledge of the world, of human interaction, even (for novels set against a historical backdrop or in a specific real-world location) of things like history and geography (or, for hard science fiction novels, of things like mathematics and physics).

[Boojatta]

7. Well, can't we take for granted at least a bit of knowledge?

How did people survive before academic credentials existed?

[Spider Jerusalem]

11. Before widespread public education...

most people were ignorant, superstitious and illiterate. If you want to think that's a state preferable to a world in which people are actually expected to have some level of education and knowledge of things like history and science, you're welcome to, but you're in an extreme minority.

[Boojatta]

22. Now most people are knowledgeable and non-superstitious?

"Before widespread public education most people were ignorant, superstitious and illiterate."

It could be argued that only one out of three has improved. With audio technology it might be the least important of the three, unless "literate" is used in a figurative sense as in "computer literate." Do most people know their way around books and libraries the way a skilled computer operator knows his or her way around a computer?

[Mythsaje]

26. Most people don't GIVE a rat's ass...

I practically grew up in libraries, reading fiction, non-fiction, encyclopedias, cereal boxes, anything I could get my hands on.

One of the reasons fiction is so important is that, for one, it motivates people to read for pleasure. Another reason is that by including FACT in fiction, people learn things. How many people outside of Academia have the faintest idea what a Visigoth was?

Not too many, actually.

[Boojatta]

29. You capitalized "academia." Are you referring to the suburb where

Plato located his institution? If you are, then I suspect that more people outside of Academia than in Academia know what a Visigoth is.

:evilgrin:

[Mythsaje]

35. I occasionally capitalize oddly...

Academia, capitalized, indicates a world rather separate from the rest of us.

[Spider Jerusalem]

27. Most people can read a newspaper...

and write a letter. Which is what's meant by 'literate'.

And people are still ignorant, but not necessarily AS ignorant, and as to superstition, if you were to conduct a poll I rather doubt that you'd find that the majority of people believe that illness is caused by evil spirits, or that thunderstorms are a sign of the gods' displeasure.

[Boojatta]

31. Re cause of thunderstorms --> Do public schools get credit for the

trust that meteorologists have earned?

[Spider Jerusalem]

32. Education, knowledge and three centuries of the scientific method...

get the credit. (Which ties in with my larger point.)

[Mythsaje]

33. I've long had a weird theory about "evil spirits" and disease...

Suppose a person from an advanced civilization was trying to explain germs to a much less advanced person. "Evil spirits" or, in fact, things that were invisible to them, might be an explanation that would come to mind. It's interesting that SOME primitive cultures actually considered physical cleanliness as a way to ward of said "evil spirits."

I said it was a weird theory.

[Spider Jerusalem]

37. Yeah...

superstition to a large extent is merely representative of a less advanced understanding, and some taboos are based on an established correlation that people knew existed without understanding WHY.

For instance, the food prohibitions in the Old Testament...no pork, no shellfish, etc...make perfect sense when one considers that in a hot, desert environment, and in a society lacking advanced food storage techniques, eating such things was likely to result in serious illness (pork, especially, when undercooked, carries many human pathogens thanks to the close similarity of the porcine and human digestive tracts and diet, and also can cause trichinosis...and eating undercooked or raw shellfish can also cause illness, but eating undercooked beef or goat is much less likely to have adverse health effects).

[Sapere aude]

6. Imagination is very important, it's were ideas begin.

Those ideas turn into reality and reality is what we have knowledge of.
Imagine a world without imagination, it can't be done.

[Boojatta]

9. I can imagine a musician who plays the music exactly the way it is written

and doesn't ad lib or compose anything.

[Mythsaje]

14. And usually those musicians are considered

sub-par. Mechanical. You might as well throw in a CD.

[Boojatta]

18. Many people continue to want live performances for weddings and other

special occasions.

Who is preferred by those who do the hiring?

1. A musician who accidentally makes a natural note sharp or flat 2% of the time, but adds pleasant creative touches 10% of the time;

OR

2. a musician who plays 99.9% of notes accurately, but only plays the notes that are written in the sheet music?

[Mythsaje]

20. Depends not only on taste, but knowledge about music...

There are a lot of people who wouldn't know the difference either way.

[Mythsaje]

8. Good fiction is fact and imagination interwoven...

Neither is more important than the other.

[Boojatta]

10. Expert knowledge in an academic subject provides academics with a job.

How many people get paid primarily for their imagination and who hires them?

[Mythsaje]

13. Do you know how many unemployed "academics" there are?

What does this have to do with the question at hand? Art is as important to civilization as anything else...

Without imagination, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. Computers and the internet probably wouldn't even exist, much less cell phones that bear a remarkable resemblance to Star Trek communicators.

[Boojatta]

15. Not enough are unemployed to stop guidance counsellors from advising

that more formal education is basically always a good thing.

[Mythsaje]

17. It isn't a bad thing...

But this argument is a bit like asking...which is more important, protein or vitamin D? Food or water? Oxygen or hydrogen?

Bare knowledge without benefit of context, or the ability to put it into practical use, is of no benefit to anyone. Without intuitive leaps, the human race might well be stuck in the bronze age. 'What if' can be as vital as 'what is.'

[EVDebs]

12. I've always found truth to be stranger than fiction

Who would've believed that Bush would have us reliving the '70s as Nixon re-incarnated ?

[Mythsaje]

16. Well, I have to say

that somee of the "controversies" that surround us now--human cloning and the like--are old hat to me. I've been seeing these things coming for quite some time.

I still get a chuckle out of seeing what passed for computers on the original Star Trek. We've so far outstripped that imagined technology it's almost scary.

[EVDebs]

19. Check out Spychips by Katherine Albrecht, re RFIDs...

and Plan B 2.0 by Lester Brown for sheer terror at the implications of where the world is headed (or being led...) unless idiots committed to oil (read BushCo ) can get through to themselves that by 2031 any systems committed to oil alone are doomed to failure.

[Mythsaje]

21. Unfortunately there are a lot of people who mistake

fiction for fact and fact for fiction.

[EVDebs]

23. Iraq's WMDs for example ?

Actually, Valerie Plame's work was on Iranian WMDs/nukes, but the Chalabi/OSP spiking of that operation, on behalf of the Iranian's intelligence network, speaks volumes as to whom OUR intelligence agencies seek to protect. What IS truth ?

[Mythsaje]

25. Good question...

For a lot of people spin is at least as important as truth.

[Quantess]

24. Both are important.

Knowledge nurtures imagination, and imagination inspires curiosity to gain more knowlegde...

Otherwise, how would you be able to criticize Americans who imagine that * is a good president?

[Coexist]

28. Mr. Colbert, is that you?!

I love your show.

[CrispyQ]

30. New ideas spring from imagination, which then leads us to

search for knowledge to make that idea happen.

You imagine a better way to get the water up a hill & next thing you know you are researching, investigating, experimenting & gaining the knowledge to make your idea happen. The payoff is, your new found knowledge triggers your imagination with more new ideas. It can be an enriching & thrilling cycle.

Kurt Vonnegut expresses concern that we no longer cultivate imagination in our society. We set in front of a TV, a computer or a video game & are mindlessly entertained. Our 'imagination circuit' gets no stimulation.


Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
--Albert Einstein

[Boojatta]

43. Thank you, CrispyQGirl. I imagined it was just an isolated sentence.

Now we can all see more than just the first sentence.

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
--Albert Einstein

[RaleighNCDUer]

34. Hey, this is Bushworld!

Fact IS fiction, and fiction IS fact.

[bain_sidhe]

38. Both are necessary

My view: Imagination is software. Knowledge is hardware.

Hardware without software is useless. It just sits there, like a lump. Software without hardware is also useless. It has nothing to go on.