Slashdot Mirror
Einstein Letter Goes on Sale
ErkDemon writes "For any Slashdotters who want a piece of frameable Einstein memorabilia, a letter from A.E. to Eric Gutkind goes on sale at Bloomsbury Auctions today (May 15th). The content of the letter mostly deals with Einstein's views on religion. (Einstein pronounces himself rather unimpressed by the whole idea and rejects it as "childish.") The Guardian has printed a translated excerpt from the letter."
Reading it, you'd think this would stop the theists from repeatedly dragging the man unwillingly into their camp; but since this well-known remark...
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
There's a good lesson here: Poetic/metaphoric language can get you in trouble when people take you too literally. The dice comment is regularly trotted out as "proof" of his religious convictions, but the later statements in which he unequivocally denies that he believes in God somehow get missed.
In any event, this is all a rather sad reverse ad hominem; whether or not Einstein believed in God has no bearing on whether or not God exists. But both theists and atheists try to "claim" Einstein, because having a genius on your side *seems* to add weight to your argument. It doesn't, but there you go.
-- Note to Mods: There is a good reason there's no "-1 Disagree" option. --
When person A comes to visit his neighbour and sees him lying in a pool of blood and shrieks "Oh my God!", does that mean that person A is religious, too?
The word is pretty deeply rooted in the language, so even if you completely dismiss the concept of God, you may find yourself using the word more or less frequently.
He was using a metaphor. When Einstein said "God does not play dice with the universe" he was saying that he did not think a quantum theory based on probability alone was correct. He was saying that there must be some good reason for the seemingly random quantum effects that we use statistics to predict. Science doesn't have a perfect explanation for what happens in the most extreme circumstances in the universe, and he was merely trying to express that.
It may come as a shock, but people use metaphors or analogies or funny quotes all the time, without actually believing in the thing used as a metaphor.
E.g., we may spew or quote stuff like "Mother Nature always sides with the hidden flaw" or "Mother Nature is a bitch", without actually believing that there is such a sentient entity. Or when Stalin said that "artillery is the god of war", chances are he didn't mean it literally.
E.g., you may have noticed quotes from Futurama's characters before on Slashdot. I'll take a wild guess that most of those people don't actually believe that Bender or Dr Zoidberg are real.
More importantly, look at the context in which he said that. There was _nothing_ theistic about it. Einstein's view of the world was based on the evidenced-based large-scale physics, where stuff is very deterministic. More importantly, there seemed to be no obvious way to reconcile relativity with quantum physics, so one or the other had to be false. Einstein obviously favoured his own relativity, and had plenty of experimental confirmation (at macro level) that it's correct.
If anything, it just shows that even really really smart people can be occasionally wrong, when talking about stuff outside their expertise domain.
But the crucial thing is that it was based on falsifiable evidence, not on some belief in a deity whose will is absolute and whose habits can be guessed. There was nothing inherently theistic about that belief.
Yes, he used the word "god". It was just a metaphor/anthropomorphisation of the universe. He could have just as well used "mother nature" or just personified the universe itself. It was just supposed to get the point across, not be some declaration of faith in a god.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Can an atheist use the expression "The devil is in the details?"
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
It's as simple as this. The universe is completely in our collective minds. When I say our, I do not mean humans, I mean the collective self awareness of the universe.
That collective self awareness of the universe perceived the universe into existence. The big bang was the beginning of the universe(self awareness), becoming aware of itself.
Existence is self awareness. That which is self aware is all that is real in the universe. Everything else is just junk information, noise. If all self awareness in the universe dies, the universe itself will cease to exist.
Basically the universe only exists because there are self aware beings capable of perceiving it. The only thing real in the universe are the self aware beings. And God is the collective self awareness of the universe, the universal awareness, or universal soul, or universal mind, however you want to think about it.
This probably goes a fair way to explaining why he turned down the offer to be the second president of Israel. To do that job I would suggest that a belief in a god who does concern himself with the fate and the doings of mankind is something of a prerequisite.
simon
What do emails fail to achieve ?
We already have a few historical emails about the creation of internet, spam, linux, and so on...
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
"Einstein, though a brilliant physicist, was not trained in the philosophy of religion."
;)
And yet 50+ yrs after his death, religious philosophers, fellow scientists, and popular writers are all trying to understand what he meant by the phrase "The mind of God". So I hardly think "http://www.einstein-website.de/z_biography/credo.html">the personal philosophy of one of the great thinkers of the 20th century can be dismissed as inappropriate.
However I do agree with the rest of your post it's more entertaining to watch all sides trying to prove "Einstien is on their side".
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Explain this: if the universe cannot exist without self-awareness, and there was a time when the universe did not exist, then how did the universe came to be? One cannot be aware of oneself if one does not yet exist. Your philosophy sounds an aweful lot like that new-age crap, but let's assume you came up with this yourself. How did you come to this philosophy of yours?
Sorry, is that what they teach you at school ? To start with bland empty made up statements ?
(not impressed)
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
He never said self-aware, nor did he suggest anything about how it was created. That's more Hawking's department, anyway. His theory proves the universe is self aware. Mass is simply energy like everything else, and energy is never created or destroyed. It's his theory that allows people today to say that the universe is self aware.
So while there might not be a personal God, we do know that time is relative. If you travel at a faster speed time slows down, because distance shrinks. Now we have discovered non-locality and we see that distance itself is the illusion and that when an object is on the quantum level, distance ceases to exist. And you know pretty much nothing about atheists. Athiests have faith in the idea that a God doesn't, and shouldn't exist. How they rationalize it is their business, but these beliefs are the core of athiesm. No, in fact, he said just the opposite. He ignored quantum mechanics because of that. If there is no randomness in the universe, then everything in the universe is deliberate, and this is the entire basis for intelligent design. The only way to logically dispute intelligent design is by proving that randomness exists somewhere in the universe.
You can't say the Big bang was random if nothing in the universe was an accident. If all events are caused, then even the big bang had to have a cause. However, the fact that he recognized a symmetry in the Universe in no way suggests that he believed in a creator, or that the "God" he believed in was even sentient. He claimed to believe in Spinoza's God. [wikipedia.org] Quoting that Wikipedia article: I'm a philosopher myself. Nature is self aware. So if he believed in Spinoza's God, then his God is self aware and "alive" just as nature is self aware and alive. Whether or not that self awareness has a personal relationship with humans is another question. Sounds to me like Spinoza's God created nothing, but is everything. You could almost say that Spinoza was very much an atheist -- he believed in nothing more than matter, the physical world that we see. But he believed that this was what the Jewish God really is -- kind of like the world being created in six days has to be a metaphor, because we know it wasn't. No, thats panthiesm not athiesm. Nature is not nothing because life is nature. Space is nothing, the void is nothing. The universe however is self aware, and I say Einstein believed this based on everything you just said.
If the universe is nature, and nature is just self awareness, then the universe is self aware. Nature is not "nothing" or "space".
1. God is self awareness.
What is the basis for your core assumption ?
This means, life is real if it's aware of itself. Humans and most mammals are real.
Most mammals ? Which ones are unlucky enough not to make the cut ? Who decides ?
Where do reptiles and fish fit into your scheme ? Or, aren't they cute enough to have feelings ? Do the poor old insects get a raw deal as well ?
I propose a simple experiment. You say the universe exists only inside one's awareness.
In other words, you believe in magic. But we can easily experimentally verify this state of affairs.
I put you inside a dark room, completely and utterly dark, so that most of your perception is disabled. What you don't know is that there is a hole in the floor of the room : but no worries, nobody is aware of the hole, and it isn't aware of itself : so you won't fall through it.
Obviously if you do fall through : your "philosophy" is worthless and untrue : it failed a prediction.
Your philosophy is different in nothing from any ancient belief that you would call utterly stupid. They believed something that could be trivially disproven and "the world is only what you think about it".
Obviously it's not. The world exists independantly of you.
In your response please do keep in mind that unicorns are pretty and they can do anything they want.
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The natural condition of all humans at birth and prior to indoctrination in or self-invention of Theism.
Honestly, it seems there's a silent majority of agnostics out there who would rather be left alone regarding religious matters. I also suspect a lot of people who claim to be atheist are agnostic, because it's only natural to play with ideas over time and not be quite as resolute as most attempt to appear when posting on internet forums.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
No? Einstein discovered some of the most important principles upon which the Universe is built; he revealed the strange nature of space and time and how the two are related, the equivalence of solid material things and abstract energy, the connection between the propagation of light and the principle of causality itself.
If there exists a creator, then Einstein's study of the creation has told us more about that creator than any prophet ever has.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Which means that if you don't accept the heuristic that "gee, I can seem to find rules governing my perceptions (e.g., apples seem to fall when unsupported), and I perceive things (e.g., people) that seem to discover rules as good as I do, even better sometimes--why, this means there's some sort of universe that follows rules and that I and others like me actually perceive", then you don't have any justification to believe "only my perceptions exist, and I am God".
(If you don't understand why, try to prove that the two statements mean _different_ things. In your proof, don't forget to state _when_ two statements about the world are different.)
"I think I am a fallen star. I should wish on myself."
So the atheists are trying to beat on the theists by proving that a really smart guy was one of them?
Frankly, considering the off-kilter nature of genius as we know it, I wouldn't want to lay too much value on having some of the same ideals of other geniuses, or many other people for that matter.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
In almost all Asian countries Buddhism is merged with local superstitious beliefs.
Dyslexics have more fnu.
The easy answer is that most athiests aren't cultural vandals, who seek to exterminate or raze artifacts created with religious motivation. They can appreciate the beauty of a cathedral without believing in God, or the Parthenon without being a member of the Cult of Palas Athena. The same applies to cultural idioms and figures of speech.
On the other hand, it's a standard strategy of religion to remove all evidence of cultural heritage that contradicts or challenges their dogma - a modern example being the Taliban's use of artillery to decimate statues of Buddha throughout Afghanistan.
"smart people believe, and therefore God exists" Nobody claims that, you are deliberately misrepresenting the common spread idiotic notion among believers that somehow if some scientists believes it helps their cause. They do, unfortunately, have this notion, but they do NOT think that alleged "belief" of Einstein _proves_ anything.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
You might note that Einstein was wrong on a lot of stuff too.