Einstein's Brains

Niels Bohr, a Nobel Prize winning physicist in atomic structure and quantum mechanics, once said of Einstein's theories of relativity, "I don't see how he thought of it!'

Now most of us would say something like that because Relativity is a hard nut to crack. But Dr. Bohr was one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century. And he certainly understood the relevant science that proceeded Einstein's discoveries and yet he still couldn't get from A to B, Relativity-wise.

How did Einstein think of it?

When asked years later Einstein himself couldn't answer that question. Certainly he had mastered the science of his day but his insights required a leap of logic. As early as his teen years he could recall using thought experiments to work through difficult problems. But the 'aha!' moments seemed to come out of nowhere.

While few alive today have the genius of a man like Einstein, we all have an advantage that he didn't have. We live in an age of unprecedented discovery regarding the subtlest aspects of human creativity -- and communication. I mention the latter because creativity and communication are, in fact, each necessary for the other. As we will establish, true communication is an intrinsically creative act and creativity only arises from a web of communication with those who preceded us and, if we are to have an impact, those that follow.

In a way we are all like Einstein, we all have resources for insight and inspiration that arise from the subtlest aspects of our humanity. Einstein developed those capacities in a way that changed the whole world. But we also have the opportunity to develop our talents and make a difference. That is where Purdy Consulting can help.

The Limits of Knowledge

I loved Carl Sagan: his joyous curiosity, his expansive faith in the power of reason. But when he said, “We make our world significant with the courage of our questions and the depths of our answers,” he was wrong. “We” do not make our world anything. The transcendent mysteries of this world—a world of soaring beauty and grinding horror, of purposeful life lost in often meaningless death, of consciousness and abstraction arising incongruously from simple need—these are not of our making. Yes, there is an inevitable subjectivity in life. While grasping for reality reason is colored by the filter of our senses. Our prejudices and imperfect mechanisms of discernment and reflection make perfect understanding unattainable. The fact that the filter limits an individual’s ability to know universal truth, however, doesn’t mean that such truth doesn’t exist. Only a pathological cynic doubts that an unheard tree falling in the woods makes no sound. Further a universal truth underlies our intrinsically subjective human experience: all of us desire to know and to be known. So in manifold ways, the world’s meaning is intrinsic to itself; it does not need us to create its meaning.

However, I’m still drawn to Mr. Sagan’s quote, “We make our world significant with the courage of our questions and the depths of our answers.” To me its beauty lies in both the recognition of the courage necessary to question aspects of our lives and the power that robust answers can have to enrich them. Asking questions has two aspects: one direct and simple, the other subtle and metaphysical. Seeking answers in our lives—through science, for example—can fill life with meaning … but only up to a point. What science does well is to explain the mechanics of things and—having gleaned underlying principles—providing the basis for helpful technologies. We ask, we get. Science has yielded many wonders that have helped us master much in our world. For many since the Enlightenment, science has all but conquered religion—having climbed the highest hills we find no burning bushes there; when our telescopes can see all the way to the beginning of time there’s not an angel in sight. So where can heaven find a home? However, since the emergence of the industrial age technological utopianism has been replaced by an understandable dread recognizing that through science and technology we have created the ability to destroy ourselves. So how do we find solace? In what do we believe? The answer to this conundrum arises from the metaphysical nature of all questions themselves. Just posing a question—even an unanswerable one—can have a profound impact on the questioner: it turns us out into the world and, thereby, offers us a connection to something greater than ourselves. As such, a question can defeat the limitations of science and draw upon the mysteries of incipient faith to conquer the existential angst arising from pure rationalism.

If the above is true, it is not that we lack answers to our questions but fail to see that the questions are the answer.