Einstein ‘trespassing’ into the domain of philosophy. God can be personal in the sense that if we get on the right path, then wander off or encounter difficulties, he can help us get back on track or ‘carry’ us through the difficult situations.
I can kind of see what you’re getting at, but as I said upthread, there are many deep issues of philosophy and physics here.
First — “God does not play dice” is Einstein’s shorthand for his rejection of quantum indeterminacy. Quantum mechanics holds that certain events — like when an electron jumps between energy levels, or what result a measurement will yield — are irreducibly probabilistic: not just unknown but in principle undetermined. Einstein found this deeply unsatisfying. He believed a complete physical theory should be fully deterministic, and suspected quantum mechanics was incomplete — that there were deeper “hidden variables” yet to be discovered that would restore exact predictability. The quote isn’t really about God or religion; it’s about Einstein’s conviction that nature at its foundations is lawful, not random.
The second puzzle Einstein wrestled with is that now disappears from physics. Special relativity shows that simultaneity is relative — two observers in different frames of reference won’t agree on which events are happening “at the same time.” This means there’s no absolute present moment written into the structure of the universe, something that Newton believed or rather took for granted; past, present and future are just entries described by equations. Physics gives no account of why time seems to flow from past towards the future. Einstein himself found this disturbing. When his old friend Michele Besso died shortly before him, he wrote to the family that the distinction between past, present and future is “only a stubbornly persistent illusion”.
This, by the way, is subject of a current popular science book, Jo Marchant, In Search of Now, which I’m currently part-way through.
I also recommend Walter Isaacson’s Einstein: His Life and Universe. Chapter 17 is called ‘Einstein’s God’ which explains that topic in depth and detail. It is well-known that, especially later in life, Einstein expressed many spiritual or quasi-mystical ideas, often in letters. But he clearly differentiated what he called ‘Spinoza’s God’, which he saw as representing the mathematical order of the Universe, from religion, which he thought belonged to an earlier age of humanity. However it might also be noted that Einstien had
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Since time isn’t an illusion in the philosophical sense and there’s nothing truly tangible in what we call the physical world, philosophy stands alongside physics as its own distinct realm—perhaps even a higher one. And notice now, as you focus more and walk a straighter path, how God has lifted you up and carried you through a conflict that challenged your senses. That is you’re clear, Time is no more real than is the concept of reality.
I understand and agree with most of what’s being said here, but it’s still the same as what I’m saying his conservatism kept him from accepting something he should have already been familiar with enough to accept. He is like a ‘Father Time’ figure in the world of physics and should not have let a philosophical stance, although understandable get in the way, with a pride factor playing a role too. I know this isn’t much of a reply to your ‘magnificent’ post, but I still think what I’m saying is valid.
That just strikes me as incoherent. Cheers.
I guess I ought to be jealous. I don’t understand what “illusory time” means. Oh well - can’t get them all.
I don’t know if Sabine Hossenfelder was getting it wrong in one of her many and informative (for most but not for dummies’ like me) Youtube vids, when she used the ‘time is what clocks measure’ platitude? as a demonstration of the concept of Time.
Backing out, the ‘cheers’ aspect, means straying off the path. But if God sees you as having worth in this debate he will put you back on track, and if my intuition serves me well we will be talking again at a ‘later Time’ or ‘date’.
Sure, she does great videos.
I’m not sure I’d agree here. So, time is what clocks measure, or is a clock in time, or both?
And if there are no clocks, what then?
You’ve stopped attempting to think philosophically, dropping back to your basic theistic defence mechanism.
Ok.
Academic types can see the horizon and look for what’s on it, non-academics such as myself can only see what is on the ground in front of them, a situation that has relevance because some of these obvious things are lost to oversight, that is they go under the radar of the intellectual. That Time is not ‘real’ can and has been demonstrated, but my lack of wordskills and limited comprehension of physics limits my abilities to present those understandings, as simple as they are. I can try but sense you are equaling wanting out and wanting to know so I’ll hopefully break that impasse by saying it’s up to you should I give it a try? Just, if it’s a yes don’t expect all too much coherency.
The thing is she is talking about ‘time’ or Time. Because clocks really measure the rotational motion of the earth, in degrees, hours minutes f& seconds, an anologue to digital conversion that registers with us as Time. It shows, and I have read it happens, that even physicists can get it wrong.
Special relativity doesn’t show that simultaneity is relative, it stipulates that. The problem was that it appeared impossible to determine with certainty whether two distant events were truly simultaneous, due to the fact that all things, including the earth itself, are moving. So Einstein figured that this doesn’t really matter as long as we have a way to work around this issue. Using the speed of light as a constant served that purpose, but it only works if simultaneity is relative. Therefore he stipulated that simultaneity is relative.
So it does not mean “there’s no absolute present moment written into the structure of the universe”. It means that special relativity theory requires that premise “there’s no absolute present moment written into the structure of the universe”. Whether or not this premise is true has never been tested, due to the problem mentioned above, it appears impossible to determine with certainty whether two distant events are truly simultaneous.
Simultaneity is a feature of instantaneity, a property by default inherent. This has been tested—how else could the ‘duality’ of a particle be explained? A particle can only exist in two places at once when time, in a sense, is absent.
But water and air are sensible. Can you not see water? Can you not inhale or smell the air? Time is not.
You have a problem in your reasoning here. Not sure if you cannot see water in the river or coming out of the tab. But you cannot survive without breathing air.
Anybody can get it wrong, they’re much less likely to be wrong about the stuff they work on, fundamental equations and the like.
But to claim that time is what a clock measures sounds a bit simplistic. It appears time is far broader than that.
Time is not sensible? It’s not green, either. Yet everything you do involves time. You can only reply to this post after having read it. Your very consideration of doing so shows that there is time.
It’s not my logic that is problematic.
If you are locked up in a windowless and doorless space, then you wouldn’t know what time it is in few hours. When you fall asleep, you won’t have any idea about time either.
It is.
You seem to think that time only passes if one knows what time it is. Obviously wrong.
Never said that. You misunderstood. Time is perception. Not existence.