How Should Humanity Steer the Future? An Interview With Einstein in Heaven by Vladimir F. Tamari

Israel Perez

Dear Vladimir

I enjoy reading your essay, very creative and witty! I'm not historian but I have studied Einstein's life and achievements considerably. I'd like to make some comments.

You say: If left unsolved, these problems, added to economic inequality, terrorism, and religious conflicts, could escalate out of hand into global war.

Well, in my view the source of most of the problems we have now come from decades or even centuries. They have never been completely solved and what is worst, as time goes by they aggravate. This means that there are more powerful forces that hamper any positive progress aimed at solving the problems. We should undermine, not the problems, but the forces that allow these problems to grow.

You also touch several delicate and controversial topics, for instance you say: the Israel/Palestine conflict that has now spawned many wars and poisoned relations between East and West.

And: ... outspoken critic of racism a...

As far as I know, Einstein supported the Zionist movement whose purpose was the creation of a state in Palestine to gather all jews from other countries. But one can naturally ask: why Palestine and not any other place in the world? Why did jews feel they are the owners of that land? why do they think they are the chosen people? And why do they think they should recover it after several millenia? Recall also resolution 3379 which said "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination". According to the resolution, "any doctrine of racial differentiation of superiority is scientifically false, morally condemnable, socially unjust, and dangerous." Latter, when the URSS collapsed, Israel revoked the resolution.

Indeed, a controversial topic that ultimately led to conflicts that haven't been resolved yet.

You also said: what was the alternative? But war is still terrible, and it is in human nature to fight.

I think nations are still competing and this may lead to a new world war. Einstein once said: I do not know with what kinds of weapons the Third World War will be fought, but the Fourth World War will be fought with sticks and stones.

You: I never said "everything is relative!".

George Berkeley said everything is relative, Mach was a follower of Berkeley and in turn Einstein was Mach's follower. In this sense, Einstein is Berkeley's grandson.:)

Finally you say: Jesus: Tell people to love and forgive one another, even their enemies.

Mohammed: Yes, and tell people not to wage wars in our names!

If I understood well, your final message is "love each other". I wish this were true in real life but nations do not follow this philosophy.

I'd be glad if you could find some time to read and comment about my work that deals with some of the problems we have. I hope you enjoy it.

Best Regards

Israel

Vladimir Tamari

Thank you, Israel

The statement above is not a summary of my political ideas haha. As in your first name, also the word Zion (another name for Jerusalem) found in the Koran and many hymns, Palestinians have problems disassociating these spiritual religious terms found in their Christianity and Islam, from the political realities in the Middle East today.

The Jews (whether recent converts or not) "return" to Palestine after thousands of years. Should we Palestinians forget our usurped homeland after 66 years of occupation or exile?

Anyway I thank you for your comments about my essay. I have lived in Japan for decades and it has always been very peaceful, so my experience of war and political conflict is in the past, at second hand, or through reading the media. This may have coloured the tone of my essay, but I think looking at the question from a distant vantage point allowed me to venture some of the generalisations that you have mentioned.

There is room for many viewpoints, and in a democracy that is necessary. But when one group uses religious or racial criteria to suppress and evict other human beings it is wrong. I hate to sound one of the conspiracy theorists, but there is a global 1% that has the power and the will to influence or manipulate economic and political events to their advantage. The US-Israel partnership to redraw the maps in the Middle East, whether to buttress fortress Israel, or to keep cheap oil flowing, (as in Iraq) regardless of how much suffering is inflicted on the locals in the process, shows this power in action.

I shall look at your essay, and wish you all the best.

Vladimir

Israel Perez

Dear Vladimir

Thanks for your reply.

You: Should we Palestinians forget our usurped homeland after 66 years of occupation or exile?

I understand what you mean.

You: But when one group.... ... shows this power in action.

I agree, but I think conflict is part of human nature and we have to deal with this. Americans are influenced by Jews because Jews are economically very powerful, that's quite evident.

good luck in the contest!

Best Regards

Israel

Vladimir Tamari

Exactly human nature is that amazing thing that can create beautiful music, build fabulous cities, and also lead to selfishness greed and wars. As human beings we have to work with this nature of ours, learn to avoid its shortcomings ...how????

Vladimir Tamari

Thank you Petio Hristov

I read the summary provided by Amazon of your book. I am not interested to pursue this approach to either religion or science or the combination of the two you suggest. In my view religion and science are totally different in their approach to truth, and it is best to keep them separate, to each its own.

I wish you the best

Vladimir

Don Limuti

Hi Vladimir,

Good to see you in another contest. Excellent essay, I wish I wrote it.

It was entertaining, gave a history of science, and highlighted the important problems of war and peace. Your work in praise of Einstein is very welcome. It is no contest.. you win.. exalted personage!

It struck me that Shakespeare had a philosophy of now that is not dissimilar from yours.

"And therefore as a stranger give it welcome. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Don Limuti

Vladimir Tamari

Thanks Don for your kind words. As I mentioned I did have an anonymous co-author who wrote some of the best parts.

Yes the essay reflects my affection and admiration for Einstein the humanist and wise commentator on the affairs of this world. Alas in physics I agree with many who have concluded that Einstein's contribution. great as it is, needs to be replaced by new concepts. Basic things about the speed of light, the ether, about space and time being flexible, and especially about the point photon.

Thanks for the great Shakespeare quote - I really should make an effort to read his plays anew, or at least see them performed on video - it is a privilege all English speakers have and should make use of!

Best wishes from Vladimir

Christian Corda

Dear Vladimir,

It is my pleasure meeting you again in 2014 FQXi Contest. I just finished to read your intriguing and peculiar Essay. Here are my comments:

1) Einstein is my myth. Thus, I can only appreciate an Essay having him as main character.

2) I agree with your statement that "Einstein was not just a great physicist but a pacifist and a social activist who criticised the capitalist system of his time for concentrating wealth in the hands of a privileged few", although sometimes such idea is abused. Einstein was not a communist, but a Social Democratic instead.

3) The issue of the FQXi website as a wormhole to Heaven, together with Einstein's definition of FQXi as "open to a mixed bunch of excellent academics and inspired amateurs and plain cranks and bumblers" and with Einstein playing dice with God, is very funny.

4) Historically, the issue that Poincaré wrote E=mc^2 before Einstein is misleading. Poincaré claimed that the energy of an electromagnetic wave should work as a fictitious fluid having mass E/c^2. But this idea resulted in contrast with the relativity principle. The solution of this paradox was due to Einstein interpretation. In the following, Poincaré rejected the idea of the mass-energy equivalence.

5) Actually, Einstein never claimed that "everything is relative!" also from the physical point of view. He originally called his theory invariance, meaning that laws of nature are invariant and, in turn, space and time must be relative.

Summarizing, your Essay has been a very nice reading for me. Thus, I am going to give you an high rate.

I hope you will have time to read and rate my Essay.

Best luck in the Contest.

Cheers,

Ch.

Vladimir Tamari

Thank you Christian , I appreciate the close reading you gave my essay and am glad you enjoyed it. You are an expert in Relativity and can see its beauty and how it works on so many levels. After many years of thinking about this I find that Einstein as a physicist was too brilliant and imaginative for the good of physics! Instead of following in the footsteps of Lorentz and others, and working out the implications of the transformations in an absolute Universe, he started out with c as a constant and the rest of the Universe has to expand and contract accordingly. The theory works, but at a great cost - in General Relativity Einstein himself realised that light has to slow down as it decelerates in a curve in a gravitational field. Another big issue I have with Einstein is his decreeing, god-like, that the photon is a particle. Recent experiments by Eric Reiter have shown it is not..and the whole particle- wave duality is an artificial obfuscation that has descended on physics to this day.

It is easy for me to say all these things in a general and in an unproven way, and with only a qualitative outline Beautiful Universe theory to back up these ideas. Nevertheless as you can see in my essay I admire Einstein both as a physicist, because he was always willing to revise his own ideas, and to trust his physical intuition, and as a man of peace.

Best wishes for your success

Vladimir

Christian Corda

Dear Vladimir,

Thanks for your kind reply to my comments.

I agree with your judgement on Einstein. I did not know experiments by Eric Reiter on photons, I am going to inform about them. Thanks for signalling your qualitative outline Beautiful Universe theory. I will read it too.

Cheers,

Ch.

Jonathan Dickau

Excellent,

A thoughtful and fun essay Vladimir, and I greatly enjoyed the illustrations. I have a different view of entropy, and I believe that equating it with disorder can lead to social problems - but Einstein's comment about entropy was quite peripheral to your thesis. I liked this one a lot, and I'll have more to say when there is time.

All the Best,

Jonathan

Vladimir Tamari

A belated thanks Jonathan - I will have to re-read the essay to see what I said about entropy (this show that indeed the concept is also peripheral to my own theorising!) . Sometimes concepts in physics are ignorantly applied to other fields - for example using Relativity to argue for moral relativity.

From reading your always well-reasoned writings this cannot be the case when you say that equating entropy with disorder can cause social problems. Please amplify.

Best wishes

Vladimir

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