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) Do you agree?

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Joshua Garfield TOK Essay First Draft

Josh TOK essay

“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) Do you agree?

        Imagination and Knowledge are two unusual concepts to compare, as they both define and represent not just different things, but contrasting ideals. Knowledge, as the name suggests, is the definitive act of knowing something through familiarisation with facts, information, descriptions or skills acquired through experience or education. Knowledge is universally regarded as truth as it has been tried and tested, anything recognised as knowledge has rigored through a variety of scientific, intellectual and practical tests to ensure its title as something generally known, is in fact a truth.

Imagination, somewhat like knowledge is an abstract concept to define, it is personal and subjective. Imagination by technical definition is the mind's ability to create images, sounds, feelings or sensations without the use of any of the five conscious senses, hearing, seeing, feeling, smelling or tasting. The mind may use aspects of sensual memory but ultimately creates these experiences alone, hence imagines them as they are unreal. However, by what definition makes them unreal? Surely if we see something it is true, because we know we've seen it and 'seeing is believing,' how do we separate imagination from knowledge if both is gained through sensual experience?

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Imagination could be considered a complex combination of free associations, which are abrupt feelings or emotions which require no previous knowledge. The separation of knowledge and imagination lies in the necessity for something be believe we know to be tested and tried. Knowledge is never static, something we discover and perceive as knowledge is never indefinite, it changes over time and must be tested accordingly on a repeated basis.

Until the 18th century it was considered true knowledge that the earth was a flat surface, this knowledge was questioned by scientists with conflicting theories and proved to be wrong, we ...

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