"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction." --Albert Einstein
I have the feeling that this is a faded trope that felt like wisdom during his time. Technology and evolution, if they exist in replacement for religion, demand ever more complex dimensions and manifestations. Einstein was evidently not a believer in the genuine fourth or fifth dimensions, or saw fit to be an opportunist in regards to them.
That's about the nearest to harshness that I can get on the subject, since it is a thought of a genius and something of a truism.
I find myself, however, in completely the opposite model of behaviorism. Not that I believe that I somehow achieve relativity first, and embarrass myself when I become God. Einstein would predict that I say that in response, and in small ways I predicted it, too. What I mean is that where Einstein's great mission appeared to be to locate himself in space and time in every direction, my own mission always involves a linear progression. And maybe this is what Einstein is referring to by 'intelligent fools' (normally if one fails to interpret him properly, then that is the overbearing assumption), but intelligent fools are precisely those who make things bigger, more complex, and more violent according to Einstein. Whereas evolution seems close to doing just those same things.
Apparently, Einstein opposed linear progress (the progress of intelligent fools), or he would believe that violence was a good thing, which doesn't appear to be what he is saying. So Einstein must have had doubts about evolution or higher-dimensional reality, or some combination.
If evolution is the more generic choice for what not to believe in, then the answer may simply be that he did not feel dimensionally evolved. Which became a standard answer around that time, perhaps due to his influence.
If dimensionality is seen as the generic answer in the mode of intelligent fools, then evolution might seem relatively complex. But, unfortunately, this leaves no option for dimensional evolution. Conveniently, it paints Einstein as a hero for fitting the precise formula of the-thing-that-isn't-an-intelligent-fool: in other words, 'an evolution that might seem relatively complex'. I can see Einstein shivering at this argument. Psychologically, the role being played at this point is not omniscient god of the cosmos, but rather it has been reduced to the complexities of a math professor. At this point, the arrogance of Einstein's statement seems almost like a complex. Perhaps that's what he thought he needed to tell God.
More and more, it seems like Einstein was influenced by history after all, and had a body of beliefs which stood apart from his mathematics. If that is the case, then an important belated corollary is that Einstein may have had some false assumptions which in the purest philosophical sense still deserve to be questioned.
It is then understandable if students of mathematics and physics continue in an attitude of critical analysis, rather than just accepting older theories as if they are writ from God. Just because Einstein contradicts his critics does not mean that they cannot be right. Contradicting Einstein may take violence, but that is not to say that a new theory would not be brilliant.
Einstein took for granted that a new theory would mean a bigger bomb. But I think that is not the case. I think in the spirit of paradoxical violence we would find a theory that is not so insidious as the atom bomb. And, if a larger bomb is what new theories produce, then ironically, there can't be much wrong with intelligent fools who favor theory over manifestation.
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