Einstein, Relativity and Relative Ethics 

Does God play dice with the universe?

This full article is also available on my podcast The Existentialist. https://bit.ly/3fQDsNE

And now  the presentation.

Let's first talk about Einstein – The Person

Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879 in Ulm, Germany and he died 1955. He was a brilliant Scientist, who thought outside the box. The phrase “All things are relative” is often attributed to him, but Einstein never said that, nor meant that. Einstein originated the concepts which led to the Atomic bomb. He was a German, a Jew and an atheist. He was a man uncertain with his scientific findings, and self-aware of his fallibility. Einstein was a mere mortal, a husband, a divorcee, a father and grandfather (Thomas). He was a funny looking guy with messy hair, who almost never wore socks.

When Einstein quit school at the age of 15, his teacher claimed there was nothing left to teach him. At 17, he applied for early admission for the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. He passed the math and science sections of the entrance exam, but failed the rest (history, languages, geography, etc.) His scope of knowledge was relatively intense in math and physics, but very restricted otherwise. As Einstein said, Knowledge is limited, but imagination circles the world.

Einstein had to go to a trade school in 1896 before he retook the exam and was finally admitted to ETH a year later. During that time, he often missed classes and preferred reading about physics and playing his violin. 

To the public, Einstein presented himself as being a humble man, and said of himself, “I have no special gift - I am only passionately curious.” Although he may have been sincere when he said this, Einstein was not known for his humility or his understanding of his fellow humans.

At the turn of the 19th century, the world was changing rapidly, with many scientific achievements.

In 1901 Guglielmo Marconi developed a radio system and could transmit Morse code over the Atlantic ocean.

In 1903 Henry Ford produced the model A car, and the Wright Brothers make their first flight.

Around this time, Einstein took a job as an examiner at the patent office in Bern, which provided him with financial security while in grad school, and an opportunity to hone his analytic skills

Some three centuries earlier (1564 – 1642), Galileo's principle of relativity had stated that all uniform motion was relative, and that there was no absolute and well-defined state of rest. We are all familiar watching a person on the deck of a ship which is passing us by. To the person on the deck, he may be at rest, but from the view of someone observing him from the shore, he appears to be moving. His movement is relative to the observer.

In his Special Theory of Relativity STR, Einstein in 1905 expanded the understanding of relative motion of Galileo into a more general principle of relativity which includes many laws of nature. Einstein called his theory “Special” because it did not discuss Gravity, which he addressed later in the General Theory of Relativity. As Einstein said, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” 

Special relativity makes some quantities relative, such as time, that we would have imagined to be absolute based on our everyday experience. It also makes absolute some others, like the speed of light, that we would have thought were relative. Is this true for ethics too?

The speed of light, 186,000 miles per second, is a universal constant, a property of the physical universe, absolute, immutable, but whose very property is counter-intuitive. The STR does not prohibit faster than light motion, and just within the last few years we have detected evidence of particles that travel faster than light. As it is, light traveling 2.5 years could reach the nearest star, and 179 thousand years to the nearest galaxy. Of course, at the time of the STR, scientists knew of only one galaxy in the universe - our Milky Way.

Einstein joked, “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity.” 

 Einstein reasoned that small amounts of mass may be converted into a very large amount of energy and visa versa. This is because Einstein saw Mass and Energy as different manifestations of the same thing, as pointed out in his famous equation E=MC2. Commenting on the pairing of mass and energy, Einstein said, “This thought is amusing and infectious, but I cannot possibly know whether the good Lord does not laugh at it and has led me up the garden path."

 In 1915, Einstein revealed his Theory of General Relativity GTR, which predicted that: Gravity is a property of curved space and time, and this curvature of space-time is produced by the mass itself.  Raising further questions, I am postulated that irregularities in space time may favor collection of matter

Until recently, Einstein’s theories had not been proven or validated in the scientific sense. And so, in an address to the French Philosophical Society at the Sorbonne (6 April 1922), Einstein quipped, “If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.”

1919-22 the German, Russian and Turk Ottoman empires collapsed. That year, Einstein’s Mother died, he divorced his wife Mileva Maric Einstein, and remarried five months later to the widow Elsa Einstein (a relative). 

In 1921 Einstein was awarded Nobel Prize in Physics, for his work on the photoelectric effect, not for relativity. Although Jews represent only 0.1% of the world’s people, they have earned 22-36% of Nobel Laureates

1925, Edwin Hubbel discovered that galaxies other than our Milky Way galaxy exist within our universe. We now think that there are 250+ billion galaxies. Out own galaxy is thought to contain 100 billion stars. Seven years later, in 1932, Cockcroft and Walton demonstrated experimentally that mass and energy are equivalent, the first experimental validation of Einstein’s theories.

Einstein felt that he had made a number of Great Mistakes in his life. He disliked uncertainty, but was plagued by it his entire professional life. Much in science is unknowable, and his most important equations did not work unless he added fudge factors called constants to “fix” things. Einstein developed the idea of a cosmological constant, which he thought shortly thereafter to have been a terrible mistake but which turns out may not have been a mistake at all. How many times have we made what we think is a wrong decision, but which turns out to be the right one? How many times have we tried to fix things by adding something to the mix? Candy for a tearful child, the keys to the car to a pestering adolescent, ignoring signs of dependency in a loved one? The right way may not be absolutely knowable, but I often think we can sense it.

During the dark days of the second world War,  Einstein signed a letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs should be made. Years later, he lamented this move, but at the time, it was certainly the best decision possible, relative to the evil that would have persisted otherwise. To agonize over past decisions and their consequences is a common malady. Einstein said, "The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."

Einstein didn't fully develop his interpersonal side. In fact, Einstein said, “My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a 'lone traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude.” Although I never met Einstein, who died while I was a child, I did go to medical school with his grandson Thomas, who confirmed to me that, as a person, his grandfather Albert was difficult to get close to or relate to.

I find it so hard to understand how one could be passionate for social justice and still remain a lone traveler. I don’t think that Einstein even knew himself. Certainly, his ethical lamentations smack of both insincerity and regret. People used Einstein for his capabilities as a theoretical physicist, not because of his ability to transform his ideas into practice. He was valued as a spokesperson for causes, and often quoted, but his influence outside of physics was probably relatively small. People like Einstein with remarkable talents are often boxed into their specific areas by society and by themselves.

As a philosophical point, Einstein did not think that all things were relative. Einstein did believe that all things are knowable, not mysterious or left to chance like the roll of the dice. I for one am not at all convinced that all things that really count can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts. Heisenberg, another great physicist and a contemporary of Einstein, developed what is commonly referred to as the Uncertainty Principle. Heisenberg proposed that one cannot simultaneously know the mass and the position of a particle. I think that this is more a technical issue than a basic law of nature. But as a concept, that degree of uncertainty was absolutely unacceptable to Einstein. 

Einstein was an absolutist in many things. He said, “It is hard to sneak a look at God's cards. But that there should be statistical laws with indefinite solutions, laws that compel God to throw dice in each individual case, I find highly disagreeable.” I too strongly disagree with the uncertainty principle, but for different reasons, both in physics and as applied to interpersonal relations.

How does all this relate to us as individuals and to our own interpersonal affairs? Perhaps the Uncertainty Principle means that sometimes the correct Moral and Ethical choices really are relative and uncertain. Uncertainty in ethical decisions can lead directly to Situational Ethics, commonly known as, “whatever.”

Does God Play Dice With The Universe?

I think not. Not all can be known, but important things can be known.

Einstein accepted a teaching position at Princeton in the 1930s. Carved into the mantelpiece in the old Fine Hall is the German saying -

"Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott, aber boshaft ist er nicht." Translated, this reads: “Shrewd is the Lord, but malicious he is not.” Perhaps it is true that very little said has not been said before, for Psalm 18 reads: 

    “To the faithful you show yourself faithful,

    to the blameless you show yourself blameless,

    to the pure you show yourself pure,

    but to the crooked you show yourself shrewd.”

There is little doubt that Einstein had seen this German phrase, and that he had read Psalm 18. What does this Psalm mean?

First, that we were made in God’s image, however we see God. As a creator, as a universal force of love, or in a more classic sense. To me, Psalm 18 means that we should see ourselves as part of nature in God, and God in ourselves. When viewed in the sense of universality of life, and of God as a life force, this is entirely consistent with modern ethical principles.

 Second, God reflects ourselves, and we can see our reflection in God.

 Third, no one can fool God. But we can certainly fool ourselves and those we care about most, at least for some relative amount of time. God, our universal spirit, knows our hearts, and is revealed to us as required. As Gandhi noted, to the hungry, God will appear as a loaf of bread. Great peace can come from harmonizing our lives and our ethics with the rhythm and flow of the universal spirit.

There are many things which Einstein was not aware of. Although he told us that his knowledge was limited, his hubris seems insincere and for public consumption. I don’t think that he seriously considered how reliance on scientific principles truly limited his knowledge of the universe.

Einstein did not know of the existence of many things which he could not see, touch or measure and yet which exerted huge powers in his life. 

•    dark matter and dark energy which may constitute 90% of the universe and hold it together,

•    galaxies in addition to our Milky Way,

•    String theory, cell phones, computers, transistors, transplantation, DNA, the internet and social networking media.

Physics defines four forces in nature: strong, weak, electromagnetic and gravitational. Einstein never knew that Love, forgiveness, pride and the spirit of life are also very strong and very important forces

But what does all this have to do with us as individuals?

Moral Relativism holds that moral decisions are relative to the social, cultural, historical or personal circumstances surrounding each situation, and don’t represent universal truths. Moral Relativism claims that no universal standard exists by which to assess an ethical proposition's truth. Moral values are applicable only within certain cultural boundaries or in the context of individual preferences. An extreme relativist position might even suggest that judging the moral or ethical decisions or acts of another person or group has no absolute meaning at all. But as I will show, there are absolute moral rights and wrongs, without which society will simply collapse, as did France during the revolution, Soviet Russia, China during the cultural revolution, and Cambodia during Pol Pot.

Some moral relativists hold that a personal and subjective moral core lies at the foundation of an individuals' moral acts. In this view, public morality reflects social convention. In this mindset, whatever everyone thinks is right must be.

Moral relativism differs from moral pluralism, a more contemporary and universal version of relativism. Moral pluralism acknowledges the co-existence of opposing ideas and practices, but accepts limits to differences, such as when vital human needs get violated. It is very progressive to acknowledge the co-existence of opposing ideas and practices, and very progressive to accept limits to differences. Compromise is a form of relativism, as opposed to an absolute approach to life. In fact, acceptance of other people's values and agreeing that there is no one "right" way of doing some things really has little to do with the philosophical idea of relativism. It’s more to do with survival in a society, making a family work as a unit, thriving inside a relationship. Further, relativism does not necessarily imply tolerance, just as moral objectivism does not imply intolerance. We need to reject these simplistic labels, with their implied pre-fab meanings. Remember, if everybody’s right, than no one is wrong. Otherwise. we could say that all beliefs (ideas, truths) are equally valid, or just as well say all beliefs are equally worthless. Whatever !!!

For me, Moral Relativism and its consequence Uncertainty can undermine our confidence in how we see morality, resulting in a breakdown of norms and values. Complete Social Darwinism follows – the survival of the fittest. You can see this within a society, but also within a family, a marriage, a friendship, a job. The principles of social justice are ignored, violating some of the basic concepts of pluralism and social justice. We have seen for the last 50 years the call to Social Darwinism in American politics, ironically supported by the very poor, the less educated, the disenfranchised, the religious fundamentalists, those most likely to be harmed by those very precepts of Social Darwinism.

In the extreme, relativism denies that harming others is wrong in any absolute sense. In general, progressives consider it immoral to harm others, but relativist theory allows for the opposite belief. If I can believe it wrong for me to harm others, I can also believe it to be relatively right – no matter what the circumstances. Very few of us are willing to turn the other cheek when we or our most loved ones are being physically attacked, and neither should we. More than simple survival instincts, all life forms will react to protect themselves. Einstein witnessed the logical consequences of moral relativism in the form of the widespread popular support by German citizens for the Nazi movement and of communism under Stalin and Mao.

Theoretical arguments on moral relativism ignore or overlook Reality. As Einstein said, “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” He also said, “We should take care not to make the intellect our God; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.” In this way, Einstein was cautioning us against following dispassionate logic and adopting absolutist principles in our own lives. Yet, Einstein adopted his intellect as his personal God.

But What if God did play dice with the Universe? There are several predictable results.

•    Of course, not everything would be knowable.

•    Mystery could be acceptable, as it should be.

•    Unfortunately, situational ethics could be acceptable

 How does all this relate to us?

As moral citizens, we see in general that truth (ethical, moral, theological) are relative and situational, not absolute. Truth, as distinguished from scientific facts, is found in all religions, not just Bible-based Christianity. And truth, not being fact, by its very subjective nature is quite relative. We can therefore embrace a range of truths and an open set of beliefs. True, we can hold a few absolute principles and ideals that guide us, as a movement and as a tradition. We have overwhelmingly tended to see life, morality and truth as finely nuanced, complex and relative things that generally do not respond well to absolute laws, rules that don’t change or inflexible statements. Who is least able to function in society, in the workplace, in a relationship, than the absolutist?

My own worldview is that our creations (and everything both natural and human within it) are very complex matters. They are marked not so much by simplicity and clarity, but by complexity and subtlety. It would be nice and reassuring if life and truth and morality came to us in straightforward and absolute clarity. It usually does not, because of the incredible intricacy, complexity, and changeability of life and of being a thinking caring person and member of society.

Centuries ago Sir Isaac Newton and other early scientists first postulated the basic laws of physics and the other natural sciences. Then, the scientific community thought it had identified forces and mechanisms (like gravity, and the velocity of things like light and sound) that were absolutes. Science became for some the new religion. In the following centuries, science has evolved and matured, with the findings of Darwin, Einstein, Heisenberg, Hubble, Watson and Crick. Scientists have realized that the once apparently clear and immutable truths and laws that had been identified are, in fact, often imprecise and mysterious, not fully understood, subject to change, vulnerable to cultural bias, and dependent upon each context in which they operate. Most scientists today hesitate to make absolutist statements about the laws of the natural world. Scientists see the world in increasingly relativistic terms, depending on their context. And so should we.

How then is the dice analogy important?

 If we now understand a great deal of scientific truth to be relative and contextual, then how much easier it is to see how truth is also relative in the human and moral realms we live in! In my professional world of HEALTH CARE, simple answers often don’t exist, absolute statements don’t always work, and eternal truths are hard to come by. Life itself often seems to be a collection of factors which change based upon floating circumstances. We can not know and control everything, and perhaps we should accept that and just be at peace. What is the best way to live ethically and morally with one another? I know many people try to. Some manage to persuade themselves and others that they alone have all the answers. I have found in my own life that most moral and human issues defy absolute answers.

What makes something just?...how will it work? who will decide?...and how will we know when we truly, once-and-for-all achieve real or pure or absolute justice? Only an absolutist can answer these questions.

Let’s look at another human characteristic everybody believes in and wants to understand... love. Everybody says love is good...but does anyone know precisely -- in all human contexts, situations and relationships -- what absolute love looks like? We may think we know something about what love often feels like or looks like in our lives, and there is lots of poetry that attempts to describe it. Take for example, “Love Is Not All”, by Edna St. Vincent Milay. But do we really know with absolute certainty what love is? Sometimes love needs to wear a face that is almost totally counter-intuitive. Many parents have had to love their out-of-control children by sending them off to "tough-love" boot camps or even not interfering with their going to prison as a way of loving and protecting and best serving all parties. Sometimes, also, love means withholding gentleness and affirmation, or fiercely restraining individuals from doing what they want, so that they don’t hurt themselves or others. What is real and pure love? Who amongst us can be sure we are in any given complex human situation or relationship expressing love? Many of us have the gift to feel love. I pity to those who can not.

There are many moral absolutists in this country who declare themselves to be pro-life, which to them means that they by their actions are staunch and righteous defenders of human life. Pro life with respect to abortion, and pro death as it applies to the death penalty. Their opposites are labeled pro-choice, in effect the pro-choice have been unwillingly transformed to being anti-life. But I think that those who are pro-life have done so out of their own choice, and therefore they are pro-choice, not anti-life. The pro life are therefore pro choice. Similarly, those who are pro-choice do so because they feel deeply that this is how they can most honor their inner most beliefs to save and protect life, so are not the pro-choice simultaneously pro-life? I detest the terms Pro-Life and Pro-choice, which misrepresent their opponents positions. Space and time become space-time. Matter changes into energy, becomes anti matter, and then back again. We love, become indifferent, are consumed by hate, turn cold, and then die. We can see how Pro-Life and Pro-Choice are relative labels, but their consequences absolutely do matter.

Most morally absolutist positions are not reasonable. This is because the reality of life and existence comes to us in a context that is mostly relative, with lots of uncertainty. The relativity in most human relationships is something that the absolutist's truth cannot handle! We must struggle in our lives and in this complex world of ours to seek truth and goodness and moral responsibility. In our lives, we must almost always recognize the situational and not absolute. We cannot know simultaneously the position of our heart and the energy of our beliefs, but we can live with the uncertainty because we must.

Yet, I think that we can all agree on moral ethical situations for which an absolute yes or no can arise. Let us consider the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Forced sexual assault by a mob of men on two visiting men, or a father offering his daughters to that very mob of men as an appeasement to their bizarre violent sexual lust, and the complete destruction of a city because of the moral failure of some of its citizens are all examples where one can easily say No, I do not agree, none of this is acceptable. Neither are honor killing, spousal abuse, and thousands of other examples. We do have moral absolutes.

And so I arrive at the core of my arguments. If we are to be fully human and humane, we must regularly use our reason and our conscience and our freedom in every unique situation we face. Conservative, legalistic and absolutist thinkers suggest that to take a relative approach to truth in each situation is somehow equated with having no moral standards or principles at all. Nothing could be further from the truth! BOTH a relativist and an absolutist finally can arrive at a firm moral decision making point...and both act on principle and with purpose ...the difference is simply how they get there: what moral methods they use to get to what is right, how many aspects of each problem they are willing to consider, and whether they are afraid of human freedom and reason or embrace them.

Absolutist thinking only requires that you: 1) know what the law is, and then 2) precisely follow its dictates. Situational or relative thinking (on the other hand) requires that you: 1) articulate first principles for your living, and then 2) struggle to serve those first principles as best you can in the messy mix of real, situational life.

If I am right that truth in this complex world of ours is almost always relative and subject to the situation then you and I as responsible citizens have a lot of work to do as we strive in our daily lives to live the path of love and right. The fact that truth and morality are relative means that we are obliged in our ethical and interactive lives to:

•    struggle with life's shifting complexities, contradictions and uncertainties,

•    do the hard work of trying to discern what is right and good in each particular life situation,

•    weigh in our hearts and minds the values and principles which demand our allegiance yet often come into conflict with one another. 

 We must then act almost always without complete certainty, if we are honest with ourselves, but yet with clarity of purpose and principle as we are given to see them.

Is doing the hard work of considering life's relativities scary? Absolutely! Is there room for error? Yes! Everyday and all the time. But in a world like ours, in the end, we have no other choice. Legalistic absolutes almost never work in the real world. Principled relativism and moral pleuralism alone can best serve us as we stumble toward that which is good and loving and right. We are human beings, obliged by a messy and uncertain world to use our freedom, our reason and our first principles situationally, relativistically every day. I do not believe this world gives us any other choice. We simply must use reason and freedom, and be as fully and bravely human as we can.

So, the answer is that God, however we know God to be, does not play dice with the universe. All this is not a game. We are not pawns on some meaningless chess board. God is not indifferent to our lives and our choices. What we do and how we relate are relatively important to ourselves, to our loved ones, and to our community. Of this there is no uncertainty.

With love 

Donald Harvey Marks