My Albert Einstein Action Figure
It’s true, as of the coming of today’s mail, I am the proud owner of an Albert Einstein Action Figure,
a catapult-style Bug Gun with five plastic bugs to fling, a Finger Kite, a formidable black corkscrew with all metal gears, and a batch of other goodies pursuant to holiday festivities :->.
(Of course the box had my name on it and not the kids’ - do you think I’d rip off their toys? Besides, who would send a kid a corkscrew that could be utilized with deadly force in case of a terrorist attack in the kitchen?)
Now the charms of the bug gun and the kite are readily apparent to any eight year old, but the very best thing about Albert, especially given his bad hair and lamentably plastic brain, is the quote on his box:
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Comments (2) to “My Albert Einstein Action Figure”
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R J Keefe wrote:
Hmm, not sure about that pithy statement. I don’t believe that the one can exist without the other, and some (younger) minds are likely to be tempted to regard the acquisiting of knowledge, which is hard, as less important than flights of fancy.
Of course I don’t believe that anyone under thirty-five knows what imagination really is.
Posted on 21-Dec-05 at 8:47 pm | Permalink
mindspin wrote:
Most pithy statements need unfolding. I don’t think Einstein was implying that one could or should have one without the other. I wasn’t really thinking of imagination as “flights of fancy” here, and I have a hunch Einstein meant something beyond that as well. There is another definition of imagination I think more useful in this context: “The ability to confront and deal with reality by using the creative power of the mind.” In that sense, imagination refers to our ability to make meaning and purpose of knowledge. Any scientist who expands our understanding of our world does so by means of imagination. It is imagination that asks the questions that generate knowledge. Our answers are never better than our questions. Right now, as I watch the way the world wends, I’m thinking we need to be asking some better questions.
Posted on 21-Dec-05 at 9:07 pm | Permalink