Posted on 09/28/2009 9:40:25 AM PDT by betty boop
sounds as if Einstein was a deist. Believed in a Higher Power or Creative Intelligence, but didn’t think it participated in worldly affairs.
I’ve found that astronomers and physicists are more open towards a deity than biologists. I have read that, in Einstein’s case, creative intelligence was the only possible way to explain how such cosmic marvels could exist.
I’ve always wondered why it seems so important for people to have labels attached to their beliefs.
Very interesting and worthy of future study. Thanks!!
FYI!!!
Me too, Retired Greyhound! Very curious....
Though we dislike "labeling" people, Einstein's views do have a deistic flavor....
I have read that, in Einstein’s case, creative intelligence was the only possible way to explain how such cosmic marvels could exist.
Indeed. Einstein may indeed have believed there is a creative intelligence behind the "pure marble of geometry" that lay at the root of "the base wood" of material phenomena. He calls him/it the "Old One," or the Lord....
Thank you so much for sharing your insight, Retired Greyhound!
It doesn’t seem to me that we dislike ‘labeling’ people, that’s all we hear nowadays...so-and-so is a____________, especially when it comes to religion.
Truly, I suspect Einstein's strong determinism was rooted in his vision of the "lofty structure" of "all that there is."
Clearly he was a geometer of the greatest insight. And I very strongly agree with his dream of transmuting the base wood of matter into the pure marble of geometry.
But he had an astonishing prejudice in favor of physical causation (as do most scientists) and I imagine that might have clouded his cosmology.
Or to put it another way, he accepted that God must be in order for "all that there is" to become - the initial cause or first cause.
But beyond that, perhaps because he had a greater appreciation for the magnitude of the universe, he could not envision God being bothered with the small things to cause anything else (non-physical causation.)
He certain saw God's hand in the "lofty structure" - as I often do in the "unreasonable effectiveness of math" (Wigner.)
Then again, Einstein didn't live to gain the insights of information theory (Shannon et al) or how it applies to biological life. Had he known these things, perhaps he would have expended his cosmology to include non-physical causation.
Under Shannon this would be called "successful communication."
But we Christians recognize the cause as God Himself, Jesus Christ, Logos,Creator not just Alpha but Omega as well.
God's Name is I AM.
If we didn’t ask Einstein what he believed in life, why try to squeeze it out of his dead bones now? Does it even matter? He can not know anymore than the garbage man. He too merely had his opinion.
He was a great physicist though. RIP.
Perhaps because the wrong label at the wrong time might get you burned at the stake, or worse.
Brilliance in one endeavor doesn't necessarily translate into every endeavor, especially one taken on in such a cursory and ad hoc fashion.
Or as Heinlein pointed out “expertise in one narrow area doesn't translate into other areas, and yet the narrower the area of expertise, the more likely the expert is to think that it does.”
But people did try to "squeeze it out of him" during life. That's the reason we have Einstein on record discussing such matters, illuminating his own view of things.
If you don't think Einstein's cosmological views are relevant to his practice of theoretical physics, then of course you're entitled to your opinion, HospiceNurse! And I'll respect it, too.
Devining what Einstein thought after his death is similar to “reading” chicken entrails or tea leaves. Like most mortals, I’m sure he believed different things at different times. Again, may God bless him, but what difference does it make what he believed? He was a scientist who rejected belief as a methodology for establishing truth.
I guess you’re right. Seems the best label, is the most common for where&whenever you’re living. I’ve never experienced anything like that, so I hadn’t looked at it that way, thanks.
I like your answer, thanks.
Actually, I thought I was very careful not to "label" either Einstein or Spinoza in this article. And this as a matter of principle: No person is reducible to a single descriptive term. Or so it seems to me.
These are two towering thinkers. To understand something about their respective views on ultimate reality I personally find helpful to my own thinking about the world. I tried to let these men speak for themselves, not through me.
And I do agree with you, stuartcr: All too often, "labeling" is counterproductive. Too often it serves as a distraction away from matters of substance.
Same reason we have money, instead of a barter economy: it makes for convenient shorthand.
Labels work fine for a lot of things ... so long as we don't hold on to them too tightly.
It can go too far, of course ... to the point where the labels supplant the ideas themselves. Just check into one of those Calvinist threads on premillenial dispensational whatsis-ism and you'll see the point.
Or a RINO when it comes to politics....
Indeed — physical causation of the Newtonian type. Whose theory Einstein himself realizes is not "the last word" in physics, any more than quantum mechanics (in his oft-stated view). Newton's mechanics, you'll recall, forbids the idea of final cause. Thus we are not entitled to inquire into what Einstein's "lofty structure" is for, or what the "pure marble of geometry" — the ultimate cause of all that there is — is there for....
I'd love to know what Einstein would have made of, not only Shannon's information theory, but also of Rosen's relational biology.
I dunno; maybe I'm reading too much of myself into the picture here; but it sure looks to me that Einstein's "pure marble of geometry" is closely related to the idea of Logos....
The Word, Alpha to Omega.
All glory be to God!
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