Reading Einstein: Why Philosophy is Easier than (Some) Science

OK, I’ve read Einstein’s Relativity: The Special and General Theory now (or rather listened to it over at the wonderful site librivox.org), but I must say that I found other people’s summaries of Einstein’s thoughts more helpful than Einstein himself.

Could it be that others are more gifted in explaining Einstein than he was in explaining himself? Or is it simply that I am a bit obtuse when it comes to science – at least on the  microcosmical and macrocosmical level?

Maybe something of both. I certainly find philosophy much easier than the details of cosmology. Sure, there are rather difficult philosophers like Hegel and Kant, but for the most part philosophy isn’t hard to grasp at all. The reason, I think, is that philosophy is purely human. Everything in philosophy springs from the human mind – from reason and imagination. There is nothing in philosophy that is foreign to human nature. As a human of average intelligence and basic education, most philosophy should therefore pose no great problem.

With modern science, it’s another matter. Here we actually gather data that is foreign to our experience and intellectual capabilities – data about atoms and the speed of light and the relativity of time and the possible curvature of space. We then use a language that we do not employ in everyday life – namely mathematical, completely abstract language – to express this data and form theories about it.

No wonder it’s so difficult. It’s like a visitation of aliens who look completely unlike any terrestrial being, aliens whose sensory organs are not even all in the same dimensions as ours. We might be able to detect the existence of such beings and learn many things about them, but would we ever truly understand them? Probably not.

It’s the same with Einstein’s theories: I can intellectually assent to them; I can try to understand them. But I don’t think I have the capacity to ever truly grasp them. And I doubt any member of the human species does.

Wrapping My Mind Around Einstein

I’m currently trying to wrap my mind around Einstein’s Special and General Relativity. Not an easy task …

The Philosophy of Science

Five excellent videos discussing the philosophy of science. I’d love to have had Richard Dawkins sit in on the conversation and discuss his own philosophical presuppositions that lie behind his science. But the videos are great even without Richard there …

Angels & Demons: Science & Religion?

Has Science Knocked the Bottom Out of Miracles?

Some anti-theists say, “Is belief in God not a little antiquated? When people were still ignorant, they used to attribute all natural phenomena to the activity of a God. But surely this time is past? We now have the laws of nature to explain everything that is happening in the universe.”

This was one of C. S. Lewis’ pet peeves. He answered the objection on numerous occasions, even writing a fictional dialogue about it in which he talks to a friend.

“Miracles,” said his friend. “Oh, come. Science has knocked the bottom out of all that. We know now that Nature is governed by fixed laws.”

“Didn’t people always know that?” said Lewis.

“Good Lord, no,” said his friend. “For instance, take a story like the Virgin Birth. We know now that such a thing couldn’t happen. We know there must be a male spermatozoon.”

“But look here,” said Lewis. “St. Joseph—“

“Who’s he?” asked his friend.

“He was the husband of the Virgin Mary. If you’ll read the story in the Bible you’ll find that when he saw his fiancée was going to have a baby he decided to cry off the marriage. Why did he do that?”

“Wouldn’t most men?”

“Any man would,” said Lewis, “provided he knew the laws of nature—in other words, provided he knew that a girl doesn’t ordinarily have a baby unless she’s been sleeping with a man. But according to your theory people in the old days didn’t know that nature was governed by fixed laws. I’m pointing out that the story shows that St. Joseph knew that law just was well as you do.”

“But he came to believe in the Virgin Birth afterwards, didn’t he?”

“Quite. But he didn’t do so because he was under any illusion as to where babies came from in the ordinary course of nature. He believed in the Virgin Birth as something super-natural. He knew nature works in fixed, regular ways: but he believed that there existed something beyond nature which could interfere with her workings—from outside, so to speak.”

“But modern science has shown there’s no such thing.”

“Really,” said Lewis.

“Which of the sciences?”

“Oh, well, that’s a matter of detail,” said his friend. “I can’t give you chapter and verse from memory.”

“But, don’t you see,” said Lewis, “that science never could show anything of the sort?”

“Why on earth not?”

“Because science studies nature. And the question is whether anything besides nature exists—anything ‘outside.’ How could you find that out by studying simply nature?”

Ray Bradbury on Darwin and Religion

That’s the mistake we made when Darwin showed up. We embraced him and Huxley and Freud, all smiles. And then we discovered that Darwin and our religions didn’t mix. Or at least we didn’t think they did. We were fools. We tried to budge Darwin and Huxley and Freud. They wouldn’t move very well. So, like idots, we tried knocking down religion.

- From The Martian Chronicles

The Flying Spaghetti Monster: Humor With a Serious Point

The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, by Bobby Henderson

Behind this religious parody, there’s a serious point that can be stated quite briefly: “Science always looks for NATURAL explanations of phenomena; if you start calling SUPERNATURAL explanations ’science,’ you expand the definition of science and throw the door wide open to any and every explanation.” 

The invisible Flying Spaghetti Monster serves as an exaggerated example of just how you can twist facts to fit with a non-scientific explanation and sell it as scientifically proven. 

The parody works. I literally laughed out loud repeatedly while reading, and I was often amused by the parallels to “real” religions. 

However, since the basic idea of the book is not a complex one, the butter is spread a little thin at times. Henderson has to come up with many far-fetched ideas to turn what was originally an open letter into a whole book. On the other hand, the thinness of the material makes for faster reading. 

To me, this book is not so much an attack on religion as it is a protection of science against wrong applications of religion. But alas, the people who most need to hear this will probably be too offended by it to take its message to heart. To them, “The Flying Spaghetti Monster” might be simply a confirmation that all those who are pro-Darwin are out to abolish faith in God. 

For a more serious exposition of the same thought, I therefore recommend Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution (P.S.) by Ken Miller. He, too, tries to protect the definition of science, but at the same time he encourages religious faith. 

You won’t laugh nearly as much with Miller, though. For that, you have to stick to the noodly appendages of the FSM. I am not a convert (I still haven’t swapped my normal clothes for a pirate’s outfit), but I appreciate Prophet Henderson’s crusade for the future of science.