Concepts and Realities

Einstein's Theories of Relativity and Gravitation by Albert Einstein, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Concepts and Realities

Concepts and Realities

[From the inquiry and criticism which have gone on for centuries has emerged the following present-day attitude of mind toward the sum total of our knowledge. The conceptual universe in our minds in some mysterious way parallels the real universe, but is totally unlike it. Our conceptions (ideas) of matter, molecules, atoms, corpuscles, electrons, the ether, motion, force, energy, space, and time stand in the same or similar relation to reality as the x’s and y’s [30]of the mathematician do to the entities of his problem. Matter, molecules, atoms, corpuscles, electrons, the ether, motion, force, energy, space, and time do not exist actually and really as we conceive them, nor do they have actually and really the qualities and characteristics with which we endow them. The concepts are simply representations of things outside ourselves; things which, while real, have an essential nature not known to us. Matter, molecules, atoms, corpuscles, electrons, the ether, motion, force, energy, space and time are merely devices, symbols, which enable us to reason about reality. They are parts of a conceptual mechanism in our minds which operates, or enables our minds to operate, in the same sequence of events as the sequence of phenomena in the external universe, so that when we perceive by our senses a group of phenomena in the external universe, we can reason out what result will flow from the interaction of the realities involved, and thus predict what the situation will be at a given stage in the sequence.

But while our conceptual universe has thus a mechanical aspect, we do not regard the real universe as mechanical in its nature.]283 [This may be illustrated by a little story. Entering his friend’s house, a gentleman is seized unawares from behind. He turns his head but sees nothing. His hat and coat are removed and deposited in their proper places by some invisible agent, seats and tables and refreshments appear in due time where they are required, all without any apparent cause. The visitor shivers with horror and asks his host for an explanation. He is then told that the ideas “order” and “regularity” [31]are at work, and that it is they who acquit themselves so well of their tasks. These ideas cannot be seen nor felt nor seized nor weighed; they reveal their existence only by their thoughtful care for the welfare of mankind. I think the guest, coming home, will relate that his friend’s house is haunted. The ghosts may be kind, benevolent, even useful; yet ghosts they are. Now in Newtonian mechanics, absolute space and absolute time and force and inertia and all the other apparatus, altogether imperceptible, appearing only at the proper time to make possible a proper building up of the theory, play the same mysterious part as the ideas “order” and “regularity” in my story. Classical mechanics is haunted.]116

[As a matter of fact, we realize this and do not allow ourselves to be imposed upon with regard to the true nature of these agencies.]* [We use a mechanistic terminology and a mechanistic mode of reasoning only because we have found by experience that they facilitate our reasoning. They are the tools which we find produce results. They are adapted to our minds, but perhaps it would be better to say that our minds are so constructed as to render our conceptual universe necessarily mechanical in its aspect in order that our minds may reason at all. Two things antithetic are involved—subject (our perceiving mind which builds up concepts) and object (the external reality); and having neither complete nor absolute knowledge of either, we cannot affirm which is more truly to be said to be mechanistic in its nature, though we may suspect that really neither is. We no longer think of cause and [32]effect as dictated by inherent necessity, we simply regard them as sequences in the routine of our sense-impressions of phenomena. In a word, we have at length grasped the idea that our notions of reality, at present at least, whatever they may become ultimately, are not absolute, but simply relative. We see, too, that we do not explain the universe, but only describe our perceptions of its contents.

The so-called laws of nature are simply statements of formulæ which resume or sum up the relationships and sequences of phenomena. Our effort is constantly to find formulæ which will describe the widest possible range of phenomena. As our knowledge increases, that is, as we perceive new phenomena, our laws or formulæ break down, that is, they fail to afford a description in brief terms of all of our perceptions. It is not that the old laws are untrue, but simply that they are not comprehensive enough to include all of our perceptions. The old laws are often particular or limiting instances of the new laws.]283

[From what we have said of the reality of observations it follows that we must support that school of psychology, and the parallel school of philosophy, which hold that concepts originate in perceptions. But this does not impose so strong a restriction upon conceptions as might appear. The elements of all our concepts do come to us from outside; we manufacture nothing out of whole cloth. But when perception has supplied a sufficient volume of raw material, we may group its elements in ways foreign to actual occurrence in the perceptual world, and in so doing get [33]conceptual results so entirely different from what we have consciously perceived that we are strongly tempted to look upon them as having certainly been manufactured in our minds without reference to the externals. Of even more significance is our ability to abstract from concrete objects and concrete incidents the essential features which make them alike and different. But unlike the Greeks, we see that our concept of coldness is not something with which we were endowed from the beginning, but merely an abstraction from concrete experiences with concrete objects that have been cold.

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This book is part of the public domain. Albert Einstein (2020). Einstein's Theories of Relativity and Gravitation. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022.

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