“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge in the field of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods.”
–Albert Einstein
“Do you remember how electrical currents and ‘unseen waves’ were laughed at? The knowledge about man is still in its infancy.”
–Albert Einstein
The general, historical dialogue between religion and science goes back a long way–at least to Plato, Aristotle, and Leibniz. Before the 17th century, the goals of science were wisdom, understanding the natural order, and living in harmony with it.
Ever since the “quantum revolution” of about 70 years ago, various scientists have been finding the intriguing parallels between their results and certain mystical-transcendental religions.
Heisenberg, Bohr, Schroedinger, Eddington, Einstein–all held a mystical, spiritual view of the world. Einstein wrote in a letter to a child who asked if scientists pray: “Everyone 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 a man....” [1]
A New Description of Reality
About three centuries ago Gottfried Leibniz, the discoverer of integral and differential calculus, noted that a metaphysical reality underlies and generates the material universe. He postulated a universe of monads–units that incorporate the information of the whole. In his “Monadology,” Leibniz writes:
