Bill Wilson, that self-professed “worshipper of science”, ‘thanks but no thanks’ MIT applicant, tossed his hat into the post-Newtonian realm of extra-dimensional physics with the following:
“We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 25 — “There Is A Solution”, April 1939)
Albert Einstein, a non-alcoholic, non-humble, profuse denier of a personal god, took a different approach. To wit:
“Ruv – (1/2) guv R = (8 Pi G/c4) Tuv”
(Really only one of a set of equations describing the warping of the 4th dimension of ‘space/time’ published in Einstein’s 1915 paper on “General Relativity” [describing the experimentally verified bending of light by the force of gravity, pulsars, & at the time still theoretical ‘blackholes’] – itself an expansion on Einstein’s establishment of ‘space/time’ as a 4th dimension in his 1905 paper on “Special Relativity”.)
Einstein’s theories of a 4th dimension of space/time have been experimentally verified repeatedly, beginning in 1918. The next time you use your car’s GPS to get you to that out-of-town AA meeting, you’re using technology that’s grounded in Einstein’s 4th dimensional, space/time theory.
Bill’s rockets to celestial realms of existence that sound really cool on paper … not so much.
So, I’m left wondering: was Wilson (great man of science & philosophy he no doubt was) just plain ignorant to use the ‘4th dimension’ metaphor 20 years after that fact that the physical nature of that 4th dimension had been theorized, tested, & verified … or was he just yanking the chains of people he thought were too booze-addled to call him on his pie-in-the-sky bullshit?
Hmmm … I wonder … ?
(Next up: Bill Wilson Vs. Quantum Probability)
Stinkin' Thinkin' 
May 12, 2009 at 5:38 am
[quote=Speedy]or was he just yanking the chains of people he thought were too booze-addled to call him on his pie-in-the-sky bullshit?
Hmmm … I wonder … ?[/quote]
Do you really wonder, Speedy? Do you spend as much time in that Big Book as we do? If so, why?
Are you really that interested? Bill talks about longshoremen and lunar flight, right there in about 1938. What did Einstein have to say about lunar flight?
Well, what about the hipness of Bill W? How did he know that 2nd, 3rd, and 4th editions of the Big Book would discuss sex right on page 69? Did he get that revelation from one of his acid trips or could that just be a God thing.
Oh, your mom called me and asked me to take you to the zoo so she can have her basement fumigated. Evidently the mold from your pillow slober has become a biohazard and she’s too embarassed to tell you. We’ll go see the penguins and the aardvarks. It’ll be fun.
May 12, 2009 at 6:00 am
you’re boring mcgowdog.
zzz
May 12, 2009 at 7:32 am
mcgowdog,
more will be revealed, my son.
and your joke-book is getting a little predictable. that said, if you’ll publicly post your full name, home address, & telephone number i may just take you up on that trip to the zoo.
that would be fun. get to know the real mcgowdog — up close & personal. not the juvenile, semi-retarded pissant who’s just trying to get under everyone’s skin here but really just making an ass of himself & the ‘loving, tolerant’ program he represents.
btw, i’ll have to check out bill’s reference (if any) about lunar flight in the BB. even if he did (& i’m a little hazy on that) jules verne beat him to the punch by 70 years. does that mean you’ll be reading “from earth to the moon” at your next big book meeting?
don’t quit before the miracle,
speedy
May 12, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Here are a few of the things Einstein has to say about “God”…. Where do you get your information?
I could care less about AA or your agenda…but I fell across your page and can’t help to mention you might want to do some better fact checking if you are going to be a journalist. I read into AA’s message of “God” and do not see any conflict at all with Einstein’s view. (btw – I hold a Doctorate in Physics and thought this blog was actually about psychics)
Albert Einstein:
I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details.
Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.
My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.
May 12, 2009 at 8:12 pm
I’m a Christian, not an Atheist, so I have no atheist bias. I am interested in the truth, and if you are going to lecture on looking for the truth, you should read some biographical information about Einstein before start lecturing others. You are really off on this. Einstein himself didn’t care much for people quoting his views on God out of context, and he spoke out about it a number of times. If you know anything about Einstein the person, then you would know he was an atheist. I wish people would read him instead of just quoting him.
May 13, 2009 at 2:44 am
albert,
perhaps you could tell me what university granted you your PhD & what exactly was the topic of your dissertation? your area of research? who did you do your assistant work for? send along a pdf of that dissertation if you’d like. i’d love to read it.
of course i believe you ‘just happened’ upon this page through some utterly improbable google search & really have no investment in the agenda or the topic (12X12 critique) of this blog. i mean, after all, in a universe that abides by the standard model & the probabilities inherent in quantum mechanics anything’s possible, right?
sure … .
well, perhaps you could find time to actually read some of Einstein’s personal papers & publications. in the meantime, i’ll provide you with a few quotes (along with sources — something i would think an academic type like yourself would do almost reflexively) from the great man himself:
**********
“The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.”
Letter to philosopher Eric Gutkind, January 3, 1954
**********
“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. ”
– Albert Einstein, letter to an atheist (1954), quoted in Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas & Banesh Hoffman
**********
“It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere…. Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.”
– Albert Einstein, “Religion and Science,” New York Times Magazine, November 9, 1930
**********
“Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the action 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.”
– Albert Einstein, 1936, responding to a child who wrote and asked if scientists pray; quoted in: Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas & Banesh Hoffmann
let me know if you need any more reading material, sparky. and i won’t hold my breath waiting for that dissertation paper (maybe you could just tell me which term in the cited equation describes a riemann tensor).
scientifically yours,
speedy
May 12, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Good stuff Albert. But I merely took a couple of Physics classes myself and just had a physics about 30 minutes ago and I knew darn well this blog wasn’t about Physics.
But thx 4 your input. I thought I was alone here as cyber fodder for the authors who rule this domain.
Well I like Louie Giglio’s description of How Great is our God ; parts 1 through 5 here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1EAmfOu9lE)… sorry, can’t hyperlink it. But, only a few people I’ve mentioned it to would see any value in this science + religion approach.
Different strokes, I guess.
May 12, 2009 at 8:04 pm
Hey guys, Discover Magazine just put out an issue dedicated to Einstein. Very nice. I bought it for my son, but haven’t given it to him yet. Here’s something I was just reading in there, from an essay Einstein wrote called “The World As I See It”:
The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery–even if mixed with fear–that engendered religion. A knoweldge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds — it is this knoweldge and this emotion that constitute true religiousity, and in this sense, and this sense alone, I am a deeply religious man.
I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature.
May 12, 2009 at 8:22 pm
So in other words, he said, “The thought of Hell scares the shit out of me.”
May 12, 2009 at 8:25 pm
McGow, would you be interested in posting to our blog? If so, send us an email.
May 12, 2009 at 9:40 pm
I sort of have been, haven’t I?
Go over to 6th Step: Why it doesn’t work and see if that’s any good.
I hope you like some of it.
You’re getting some of my best stuff, you know?
May 13, 2009 at 2:59 am
m-puppy,
that we are getting ‘some of your best stuff’ is really the sad, sorry fact of it all.
that you’re dragging slightly more educated friends here to try (and fail … miserably) to do your dirty-work is even sadder.
i’m guessing they had bad coffee at tonight’s meeting & you left early — had a little too much free time on your hands. you could have better spent that time praying for us still sick & suffering types. but you thought it would be cooler to compound your already monumental volumes of stupidity posted here with yet more idiocy & bad jokes.
oh, well. i told these guys you’d be back … & twice as tedious.
always ready for that trip to the zoo, though, junior! like i said, just post your name, full address & telephone number & we’re off. love to watch the monkeys throw big loads of their shit at you.
(oops … i’m really, really sorry about that last remark. okay, 9th step done!)
you can go back to your star wars lego blocks, now. the big people are going to talk about big people stuff.
nighty-might m-puppy!
speedy
May 14, 2009 at 5:30 pm
“always ready for that trip to the zoo, though, junior! like i said, just post your name, full address & telephone number & we’re off. love to watch the monkeys throw big loads of their shit at you.”
I hear ya yappin’ Speedy.
You post your name, full address & telephone number and I’ll come visit you.
Any day, any time.
Just keep exercising those keyboard muscles.
May 14, 2009 at 5:34 pm
mcdog, you making threats, internet tough guy?
Delete this dead dog.
May 14, 2009 at 5:41 pm
No, H. Speedy threatened my twice.
I already told you in the other thread you were barking on, “Shut your hole, bitch!”
Speedy, it’s not me you owe the amend to. It’s ftg and M.A. for being the stupid, sink-to-any-level angry and insecure author on this already spiteful, insecure, and manipulative Hitler-loving website.
May 14, 2009 at 11:23 pm
No one here has ever asked for your advice.
May 19, 2009 at 6:19 pm
Speedy,
Though I appreciate the invitation to share my name and address (if I posted what you ask ~ it would not be that difficult for one to gather), I will have to pass. I hope you will be able to settle for some general information about my education and background in the physical sciences.
I recieved a PhD from Illinois Institute of Technology in 1977. Generally, my dissertation could be grouped into ‘Thermal Expansion’ It was based on work I completed at Argonne National Labratories from June 1975 – January 1977. I received a bachelors degree in Chemistry/Mathmatics from Georgia Institute of technology in 1970, I was awarded a MS in Chemical Engineering from North Carolina State University in 1973. The names of the faculty who sponsored my MS and PhD will not be provided, nor the precise name of my dissertation as it was published and is publicly available somewhere I am sure.
I was honest in my response to the “claims” you have made about Albert Einstein and his views on religion/spirituality. If I was selective in the qoutations I provided, responding with even more selective qoutations isn’t going to get us anywhere. I have read and studied more of that man than I care to admit. My comment was: I do not see any conflict between his views and those of AA. I came across the article above, exactly how I said I did. Your belief or lack thereof is irrelevant to the discussion. I have no other agenda than to protect the image of my personal hero ~ Albert Einstein. Based on the content of this site, it is understandable that you would be suspicious and incapable of taking someone’s word as true. So be it.
— I am no longer an “academic”, those things were done over 30 years ago and I have since retired from a long and rewarding career in the private sector. No longer having to site source and back up my claims in anything more than a general way is one of the great things I have found in retirment.
All the best to you. I hope you find what you are seeking.
May 28, 2009 at 1:05 am
a,
my ‘claims’ are not based at all on ‘selective’ quotes & if you did any reading of einstein’s personal works or biographies of the man (i’d suggest starting with isaacson’s recent & very comprehensive biography), you would be well aware of eintstein’s antipathy toward the notion of religion, the supernatural & a ‘personal god’.
the closest einstein ever came to expressing identification with a notion of ‘god’ was when he spoke with affinity for “spinoza’s god” — the sum total of all the physical elements in the universe, knowable & (more importantly) verfifable via continued philosophical & scientific inquiry. no “himself” to reveal.
but, of course, you know all that having “read and studied more of that man than [you] care to admit”. you just sort of … chose to forget it because … well, you believe in a ‘personal god’ — “My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.”
(the above, by the way, being from your “original comment” verbatim; nowhere in your original comment does it explicity say [or implicitly suggest], “I do not see any conflict between his views (einstein) and those of AA.” go back & read it over yourself.)
there is a lifetime’s worth of documented commentary & writings that neither your “personal hero” or his position as regards religion, faith, the supernatural, or [a personal] god need protection from me. it’s you who’s doing the cherrypicking. and i suspect that it’s not einstein who you’re trying defend at all, but the crackpot assertions of bill wilson & your own all-too flexible ideas about god & spirituality.
further, i am not “incapable of taking someone’s word as true” when i know & can prove that that person’s word & position is false. i am capable, however, of recognizing a lame attempt at personal insult masquerading as ‘humility’.
btw, i didn’t ask for any of your personal information — that was your friend, mcgowdog. i asked about your academic credentials, your dissertation, & other informtation that would confirm your assertion of holding a PhD in physics). on that count you’ve equivocated, as well.
your ‘personal hero’ was a patent clerk when he published his landmark paper in 1905 & went to no length to hide his humble station in life. an MS in chemical engineering does not a PhD in physics make.
unless, of course, you want to pass along the title of that dissertation, i’m going to remain dubious of your claim to that achievement.
i’ll cut you some slack, though. if you did do a dissertation some 20 odd years ago, you’ve probably lost touch with the rigor that goes into developing & writing it as well as the rigor that goes into reviewing it. judging from the incongruencies between your two responses, intellectual rigor (never mind honesty) is a faculty you let go of a long time ago.
your assumption that i am ‘seeking’ something — & i think it’s fair to infer that ‘something’ is of the ineffable, ‘spiritual’ origin — clearly puts the lie to your “best to you” wish. okay … whatever.
live long & prosper. eat your wheaties. don’t take any wooden nickels.
and you’ve still failed to point out where the ‘reimann tensor’ is described in the equation printed in the blog post.
thanks for the fish doc,
speedy