> I am of the opinion that imagination and creativity comes from emotion

How do you see emotion as being necessary for creativity?

It sure seems that things like surprise (prediction failure) driven "curiosity" and exploration (I can't predict what will happen if I do X, so let me try) are behind creativity, pushing the boundaries of knowledge and discovering something new.

Perhaps you mean artistic creativity rather than scientific, in which case we're talking about different things, but I'd agree with you since the goal of much art is to elicit an emotional response in those engaging with it.

I don't think there is anything stopping us from implementing emotions, every bit as real as our own, in some form of artificial life if we want to though. At the end of the day emotion comes down to our primitive brain releasing chemicals like adrenaline, dopamine, etc as a result of certain stimuli, the functioning of our brain/body being affected by those chemicals, and the feedback loop of us then recognizing how our brain/body is operating differently ("I feel sad/exited/afraid" etc). It's all very mechanical.

FWIW I think consciousness is also very mechanical, but it seems somewhat irrelevant to the discussion of intelligence/AGI.