In most professions and academic fields, imagination is more important 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. However, I recognize knowledge and imagination equally important in their pivotal role in the human civilization. Neither of them bears any true value without the other.

First, we need to define each one separately. Knowledge is a set of facts in terms of words, number, or graphs with which people can have a better understanding of a phenomenon. Without the knowledge, without being quipped with the facts, we can barely differentiate between illusion and the reality. Hence knowledge is a touchstone by which the imagination can be legitimated.

To illustrate, consider that how by lack of knowledge a student can go stray by a raw imagination. The terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda and now the Islamic Government, seek the naive minds to brainwash and their best target is the students who does not have enough knowledge to differentiate things. By portraying images of a false promised paradise, the terrorist systems use the illusions and the imagination of a naive person in order to sweeten the killing of others. Unfortunately, there are records of students attaching explosives to themselves and kill as many as people they can, without any compassion because their imagination were abused. Therefore, we see that knowledge is a necessary element without which the imagination can take anyone astray.

Now, turning into the definition of imagination, it is the ability to imagine the new things before they exist, to link the phenomena, to digest a complex content, and so on. All people, whether in academic fields or professions who have knowledge, need to have imagination either, since without it, they would be no more than a machine that carries information. Clearly, the knowledge needs to be used by imagination otherwise it would not have any practical value, there would not be any innovation, any creation, and the knowledge remains as an insipid form of information.

Finally, knowledge and imagination are equally important. As only it is with their combination that the most effective education and profession takes place. No need to look any further than our surroundings, we can see that everything in our surrounding were once only a raw imagination of a person and then it became substantiated. With the help of knowledge, imagination of human beings flourished and made us able to create improved and better things. We should not forget that without the combination of these two elements, instead of being ladies and gentlemen, we were troglodytes living in the caves.

In short, as discussed, neither the knowledge, nor the imagination of humans can go a step farther solely. Hence, both imagination and knowledge mutually legitimate each other and both are necessary in order for individuals in their academic field or their professions.