Tamara writes:
I think it may be questionable to put blame for Einstein's errors on his spiritual views while not giving credit as well for the hypotheses that panned out... how do you separate it out?
Very good point. I should also acknowledge that Einstein's metaphysical perspective was a significant contributing factor to his greatest achievements.
Einstein's landmark work on general relativity was driven in part by an appreciation of underlying elegance and consistency to the laws of the universe; and it was by assuming certain consistencies that he was able to work out relativity almost from first principles.
In one of the great ironies of twentieth century science, when Einstein received his Nobel prize it was not for relativity; but for work in quantum mechanics and the photoelectric effect. Yet it is in quantum mechanics where Einstein's beliefs led him astray.
Einstein is famous for the remark
"God does not play dice" . This statement was a metaphorical one, rejecting the indeterminacy inherent in quantum theory. Yet as it turns out, Einstein was wrong.
Not only does God definitely play dice, but He sometimes confuses us by throwing them where they can't be seen.
(Stephen Hawking, in his public lecture Does God Play Dice?)
Einstein said: "Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of nature -- a spirit vastly superior to that of man."
It seems to me that E. may have believed that the universe is permeated by intelligence. Whether he was strictly speaking a pantheist, I am not sure. Maybe our notion of pantheism is closest to what he believed... I never could decipher Spinoza.
I'm no philosopher, and I am content to admire Spinoza from a safe distance. I think Einstein used the word "intelligence" as he used the word "God"; as a metaphor. The trouble with such words is that they are anthropomorphic; they project onto the universe qualities which are associated with persons; will, design, intent. Though some scientists certainly have metaphysics in which such notions play a role, Einstein did not.
Here is an extract which shows how Einstein used the word:
You will hardly find one among the profounder sort of scientific minds without a peculiar religious feeling of his own. But it is different from the religion of the naive man. For the latter God is a being from whose care one hopes to benefit and whose punishment one fears; a sublimation of a feeling similar to that of a child for its father, a being to whom one stands to some extent in a personal relation, however deeply it may be tinged with awe. But the scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation. The future, to him, is every whit as necessary and determined as the past. There is nothing divine about morality, it is a purely human affair. His religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection. This feeling is the guiding principle of his life and work, in so far as he succeeds in keeping himself from the shackles of selfish desire. It is beyond question closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages.
(From The World as I see it, by Einstein, quoted in A. Lesikar's pages)
It is interesting to observe Einstein above apparently elevating classical determinism and universal causation to scientific necessities; yet this is precisely the point where he was most in conflict with the trends of twentieth century quantum physics.
I think it would be interesting to have in this forum some further consideration of the religious or metaphysical views of other scientists. I have some material on Paul Davies, which I may clean up and post sometime.
Cheers -- Sylas
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