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.
Here's a question: Has he ever said anything about faith? Or about how God loves... anything? Or how God will do anything? That would be a clear mark of a man with religious convictions: "God will protect me," or even "In God we trust."
Instead, we get the equivalent of, really, "God bless you" when someone sneezes.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
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
Einstein's letter raises another issue - do scientists, the great, good and so forth still write letters? My feelings are that people nowadays just type out emails or long journal articles. The letter writing industry seems to have disappeared - which would be a terrible shame. Letters written by big historical figures like Einstein provide important insights into their thinking that other forms of communication seem to lack.
He never said self-aware, nor did he suggest anything about how it was created. That's more Hawking's department, anyway. Athiests believe the universe is a complete accident and that everything in the universe is random. And you know pretty much nothing about atheists. Nothing Einstein has ever said in any of his writings support that he believes that the universe is random. No, in fact, he said just the opposite. He ignored quantum mechanics because of that.
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. Quoting that Wikipedia article: Spinoza viewed God and Nature as two names for the same reality, namely the single substance (meaning "to stand beneath" rather than "matter") that is the basis of the universe and of which all lesser "entities" are actually modes or modifications, that all things are determined by Nature to exist and cause effects, and that the complex chain of cause and effect is only understood in part. 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.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Actually, that "reverse ad hominem" has a name: appeal to false authority. You know, X is accepted as a smart and authoritative guy on his domain, X said Y, therefore Y must be true. It's used all the time, sadly. Franklin sad this, Churchill said that, Einstein said that other thing, etc. Often raising somethig that's little more than a wisecrack or thinly veiled jab at one's opponents (Churchill for one was quite the wisecracker) to the rank of absolute truth, beyond all questioning. Just because the great man said it, and obviously someone that great can't be wrong about something outside the domain of his expertise. And very few people seem to be aware that it's a fallacy. In reality, even _within_ one's domain of expertise, one can be wrong all right. Einstein was against quantum mechanics. Tesla didn't believe in relativity. (And in quite the fighting words: "[a] magnificent mathematical garb which fascinates, dazzles and makes people blind to the underlying errors. The theory is like a beggar clothed in purple whom ignorant people take for a king") Lorentz was _rabidly_ against Einstein's relativity, and even denounced it as bolshevism, although it was based on his own equations. Go figure. There's a reason why the scientific method assumes that anything is falsifiable, and nothing is above questioning, no matter how big a genius said it. (Although, you're still supposed to present your evidence if you want to challenge it. Just personal disbelief or contradicting one's pet dogma aren't enough.) Move outside what one really knows, and the association with some authority figure becomes fully irrelevant.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
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
Physicists don't usually think about why things are, they only think about how things work.
So a physicist can explain the math behind quantum entanglement but a physicist cannot explain why math is capable of solving all the mysteries of the universe.
I'm getting a degree in philosophy so I can explain.
And if you think you can challenge my philosophy go ahead.
1. God is self awareness.
2. When an entity, individual or species becomes more self aware, they become closer to God. As a result, their science gets better, their math gets better, and their self awareness allows them to organize all the information of the universe, thus they become the programmers of the universe.
3. The universe only exists in the minds of the self aware. Self awareness perceived the universe into existence, and this was the cause of the big bang.
4. The universe cannot exist independently of self awareness. Self awareness is existence, and when the universe becomes more self aware it becomes more real. When you become more self aware you become more real.
5. All which is not self aware, is not real, it's junk information, it's noise, it's fake, it's illusion.
This means, life is real if it's aware of itself. Humans and most mammals are real. Rocks, dirt, sand, dust, mud, minerals and all which is not self aware, is the junk/noise of the universe. It's simply information which wouldn't exist at all without our perception to perceive it into existence and classify it.
This means the observer is the universe. This means that due to non-locality, distance and space are illusions. This means time/change is energy. And energy is conciousness/self awareness.
The eye/ears/brain simply organizes that energy so that it can become aware of itself. But there is no universe outside of that energy of awareness.
"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.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
What a disgraceful slander.
"Intelligent design" is a sly relabeling of creationism. Einstein was above all a scientist. He would certainly not want to be associated with such intentionally deceptive pseudoscience.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
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.
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. If the universe were not self aware, there would be no such thing as a hole. The example you give depends on some God like being creating a concept called a room, creating a hole, and putting us in that room. The simple fact is, if nothing ever perceives the hole then there simply is no such thing as a hole.
The same argument athiests use to try and explain how there isnt a God because we can't collectively perceive of a God, is the exact argument I'm using to prove that nothing exists without being perceived into existence.
If you believe a hole can exist without anything perceiving it, then you believe the universe exist independently of perception, and if you believe that then you are relying completely on faith. Obviously it's not. The world exists independantly of you. No the world does not exist independent of perception. I never claimed "I" was God. I said God was the self awareness of the universe, this means all of the collective perception and self awareness combined.
What I'm saying is, if there is nothing in the universe to perceive of a room, there will be no such thing as rooms, or holes. You just assume these ideas exist outide of the mind we think with on pure faith alone. You assume the physical universe can exist outside of the mind even when there has never been any evidence of anything existing outside of universal perception and thought.
What does it mean for a thought to be real?
You know what, screw this; I'm not staying in this semantic labyrinth. Make a better one. Give it some cushy pillows, a chumby, and an Apple TV. Make a chocolate cheesecake with a heath bar crust. Bring some playing cards. Maybe, just maybe, I'll stick around a little longer. Until then, you get to remain a lonely fuckin' minotaur.
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.
It does not state that matter and energy are the same thing.
It states that mass has energy, and inversely, energy has mass.
A body travelling at enormous speeds gains mass because of the mass of its kinetic energy, which is the quantity described by E=mc^2. The body does not gain any matter (it's particle count remains constant).
The constituents of a nuclear fission reaction neither lose or gain mass. No mass is converted to energy. The energy released is the spare binding energy that the larger nuclei required but the more stable products do not. Products like photons with no intrinsic mass of their own carry away the mass of the energy they embody. No mass is destroyed or "converted to energy".
Even in a matter-antimatter annihilation, the products carry energy equivalent to the combined rest mass of the reagents and thus mass and energy are conserved.
I openly asked them if they still find the logic persuasive, but intellectual integrity is just beyond some people. This type of practice is a clear, unambiguous clue that evangelicals don't believe what they believe because of the reasons they cite--they're just fishing around for whatever looks like good ammunition, and they don't really care to follow through the logic they're using.
Logic and accuracy do not matter to them, and they'll knowingly use illogical arguments based on bad data if doing so will convert a soul. This is also why you basically can't trust them when it comes to evolution, the age of the earth, etc. It isn't just that they're wrong on any given issue, but that intellectual integrity is of so little importance to them compared to their perceived role as a soldier for Christ against the forces of Satan.
If I should ever encounter an entity with god-like powers I'll treat them with a sensible amount of respect, either to gain their favour or avoid their wrath. But god-like powers aren't proof of being creator of the universe. Quite simply I can't conceive of any kind of proof that would make this evident to anyone within the universe. It's an impossibility.
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?
This is why I always yell "Oh my Buddha!" whenever I happen to be lying in a pool of blood (not necessarily my own). To confuse people into thinking that Buddha is just another god in some religion.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
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.
This ranks with his cosmological constant as his biggest mistake.
Actually, they may be related. There are theistic implications to there being a beginning. Maybe Einstein didn't like a beginning (hence the need for a cosmological constant) because he didn't like the implications that there was a Beginner.
More reflection would have also noted that if you have laws you need to assume a Law
-giver. If you have free-floating laws of physics not grounded in anything, you have no valid reason for assuming they won't change. This is the problem Hume raised and which atheistic materialism cannot account for.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
I can see why others don't want to give you serious replies. That's like saying "Electricity flows from positive to negative, therefore IT'S ALIVE!" Complete non-sequitur. 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. I see, so you really don't know anything about atheism. Go read.
You're not much of a philosopher if you assume that absence of belief == belief of absence. If there is no randomness in the universe, then everything in the universe is deliberate, and this is the entire basis for intelligent design. Again, WTF?
No, everything in the universe is deterministic. For all you know, God exists, but it was really a big accident. If all events are caused, then even the big bang had to have a cause. It proves no intelligence behind the Big Bang. It also doesn't prove that there was a "first cause" -- tried and failed. I'm a philosopher myself. An exceedingly poor one. Take a philosophy course. Learn how to form a logical argument. Then come back. If the universe is nature, and nature is just self awareness, then the universe is self aware. You're right, that does follow -- but you've got a false premise. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure it out.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
"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.
Atheism was popular, as it still is, in scientific circles in the early 20th century. Einstein was notable on this subject BECAUSE he subscribed to neither his native judaism nor atheism.
During his lifetime Atheists tried to claim this deterministic-jew as one of their own, and despite his rejection of their point of view they have continued non-stop ever since.