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Einstein on Prayer, Purpose in Nature, and the Soul
The following excerpts are taken from Albert Einstein -
The Human Side, Selected and Edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh
Hoffman, Princeton University Press, 1979.
Einstein on Prayer (pp. 32 - 33)
A child in the sixth grade in a Sunday School in New York City, with
the encouragement of her teacher, wrote to Einstein in Princeton on 19
January I936 asking him whether scientists pray, and if so what they pray
for. Einstein replied as follows on 24 January 1936:
I have tried to respond to your question as simply as I could. Here
is my answer. Scientific research is based on the idea that
everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and
therefore this holds for the actions of people. For this reason, a
research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events
could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a
supernatural Being.
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However, it must be admitted that our actual knowledge of these laws
is only imperfect and fragmentary, so that, actually, the belief in the
existence of basic all-embracing laws in Nature also rests on a sort of
faith. All the same this faith has been largely justified so far by the
success of scientific research. But, on the other hand, every one who is
seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a
spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe - a spirit vastly superior
to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers
must feel humble. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a
religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different
from the religiosity of someone more naive.
It is worth mentioning that this letter was written a decade after the
advent of Heisenberg's principle of indeterminacy and the probabilistic
interpretation of quantum mechanics with its denial of strict determinism.
Next Segment of Article
Editorial comments in this section on Einstein are by
Prof. Arnold V. Lesikar, Physics Dept., St. Cloud State University, St.
Cloud, MN 56301-4498. He would appreciate any feedback or comments.
lesikar@stcloudstate.edu
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