"A human being is a part of the whole called by us Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts, and feelings, as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish the delusion but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind."
- Albert Einstein, in a letter to a man at the World Jewish Congress
(For the record, Einstein was also a vegetarian, who said,"Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival for life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.")
Also from Einstein: "I am a deeply religious nonbeliever-this is a somewhat new kind of religion."
ReplyDeleteVegetarianism is relatively common among scientists. I've known quite a few, and many more scientists who eat meat but not very often.
Aww geez.. I think I picked the wrong quote. As I interpreted it, Einstein believed in God, he just rejected conventional organized religion of his time. But it seems it's been colored by the atheist community to suggest he was an atheist. Many of his other writings indicate otherwise.
ReplyDeleteI know a lot of scientists who reject organized religion, or at least the idea that one should accept something (eg the Bible) as literally true without question; but that doesn't mean they do not believe in God. And so far, despite their efforts, the scientific atheists haven't managed to disprove God, but perhaps not all things can be measured.
Sorry if that sounded hostile...I'd delete it if I could, but can't figure out how.
It did not sound hostile.
ReplyDeleteA yogi might say that while religion is man-made, God just *is* - regardless of how one chooses (or chooses not to) view Him/Her/It.
(Some of the most vigorous atheists I know are also the biggest lovers of nature-- which some say is a manifestation of the Divine Mother).
Hmm...I am going to have to ponder the question of why so many scientists reject religion/God. I haven't a clue why.
ReplyDeleteIs it the long-standing feud between scientists and churches over evolution? A tendency to not accept anything without data or analysis? Not wanting to be told how to think by someone else? All/none of the above?
A Vedantist might say that the mind cannot comprehend the Atman; It can only be perceived using the sixth sense/
ReplyDeleteSomeone else might say the scientist is searching hither and yon for That which lives right there inside of them.
You may have a point there about scientists' search. I might add that there's a beauty, and a magic, in science and the natural laws that non-scientists don't get to see. It's there, for example, in the work that followed from combining Einstein's theory of relativity (E=mc2) with the work of other theoretical physicists of his time.
ReplyDeleteMaybe scientists are looking at God and won't acknowledge it. Oppenheimer, the head of the Manhattan project, which was a consequence of Einstein's work, was famed for quoting the Bhagavad Gita when he witnessed the first nuclear explosion in New Mexico (called Trinity) and called the Gita "the most beautiful philosophical song existing in any known tongue."
Oppenheimer also said, "Mr. President, I have blood on my hands." A lot of the nuclear scientists/theoretical physicists who worked on the bomb felt tremendous remorse afterwards.
The scientific atheists argue that there's a rational explanation for everything, and therefore no God. If that point of view were wholly satistfactory, I probably wouldn't be reading your Thursday quote, now would I?
I've been going back and forth as to whether I should join this science discussion. All along, the only quote I remember from Einstein is:
ReplyDelete"Everyone is a genuis. but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live it's whole life believing it is stupid." -A. Einstein
I think I'll treat this as a koan.
Ralph from DeKalb
I agree with Einstein on that one Ralph! Everyone can be great at something, they just have to find their talent and put in the work. It'd suck to ALWAYS have people calling you brilliant. I'm grateful not to be the smartest person I know and to find things I do badly. Gives me something to work on...
ReplyDeleteWhat's a koan?
ReplyDeleteKoan: a paradoxical teaching question (or story) with NO linear rational thought – designed to condition the mind for enlightenment (e.g., “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”)
ReplyDeleteG: Since we have been talking about Einstein, I think this is a good example. Remember when you had the Relativity course, and you laboriously worked through Albert’s derivations? There is a place where he had the choice of making time (t) OR speed of light (c) a constant. To me the RATIONAL pick was time (t) – I just knew that time was always a constant. Somehow, Einstein’s non-linear thinking realized that time was NOT constant – the speed of light is!!! Of course, that is why Einstein is famous and I’m not. Somehow his brain broke through the RATIONAL and he saw another possibility – outside our space and time. Maybe as we were walking around thinking of our dissertation problem this was our koan – I bet you can remember where suddenly the answer came in sort of a break through. At least that’s the way it happened to me.
Ralph from DeKalb
R: The wave (energy)/particle duality of matter and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle always tripped me up in quantum. I could "get" them mathematically but not otherwise.
ReplyDeleteThere was a LOT of intuition (and dumb luck) involved in my thesis research. I was a synthetic chemist who grew crytstals, and crystal growing is a black art! I ran one reaction, which was a real pain because Ni(CO)4 (a highly toxic substance) was involved, dozens of times and tried every solvent combination I could think of. Of course nothing worked. Then one day I was just so pissed off to be doing it again, I squirted a bunch of pentane in the flask with the filtrate and (WHAM!) there those crystals were. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, grows crystals that way. After that, it was easy and I had a chapter of my thesis.
Unfortunately, unlike with chemistry, I don't think I'm going to reach a point with yoga where I can write a book about what I've learned, "defend" it to a committee that might not read it, and let my friends take me out and get me really drunk to celebrate. It doesn't work that way, does it?
@G: Hahahahaha – dumb luck indeed. Love your story!!!!!! If only people really knew how frustrating research was.
ReplyDeleteMy last research area before I retired was High Temperature Superconductors (HTSC). In terms of the Quantum Mechanics, I just always said HTSC was ‘magic’! I also always found it humorous when non-scientist starting explaining spiritual things using QM. As I look back, I don’t think we really understand QM using our reality as a foundation. This is why I like one of my inspirations: Simone Weil in her mystical/philosophical/intellectual life as she lived it.
Ralph from DeKalb
Rule #1 of research: nothing ever works until you've halfway given up and don't care what happens.
ReplyDeleteRule #2: you have to keep showing up in the lab until you reach that point of frustration.
Wonder if that applies to yoga as well...
R - Sri Dharma often tells us to try to go beyond time and space. (It's no coincidence that yoga is called the science of self-realization).
ReplyDeleteG - Yes - that's it exactly!
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