How often people speak of art and science as though they were two entirely different things, with no interconnection. An artist is emotional, they think, and uses only his intuition; he sees all at once and has no need of reason. A scientist is cold, they think, and uses only his reason; he argues carefully step by step, and needs no imagination. That is all wrong. The true artist is quite rational as well as imaginative and knows what he is doing; if he does not, his art suffers. The true scientist is quite imaginative as well as rational, and sometimes leaps to solutions where reason can follow only slowly; if he does not, his science suffers.
-- Isaac Asimov
"Prometheus," The Roving Mind (1983)
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Imagination allows us to escape our current time, place, or perspective in favor of an alternative context, whether that may be fanciful or mundane.
Simon Baron Cohen writes in entelechy on theories of imagination (scroll down):
... Collectively. By visiting the new Scienceblogs.com blog "Collective Imagination."