Robbert Dijkgraaf's take on Albert Einstein's Imagination...

Robbert Dijkgraaf is a theoretical physicist and Leon Levy Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He is also the co-author of " The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge".

Dijkgraaf explains how Albert Einstein saw the world in a different way from how most scientists see it. Following is a transcript of the video.

Einstein was a true genius and it’s the example that we all aspire to be as a scientist. But already as a child he had a very original way of thinking.

So from the very beginning, for Einstein, his imagination was crucial. He was not such a good student because he was a very original thinker.

And I think that was, kind of, the magic touch that he had. He always had a completely original point of view. He somehow didn’t conform to the existing theories, and he was always thinking in his own particular way.

His favorite way to operate as a scientist was the thought experiment. And he describes for instance, the crucial moment, where he essentially discovered the theory of general relativity.

He was watching workers on the roof of a building and suddenly thought whoa what would happen if they fell down. And then he realized, if you fall down, you no longer experience gravity.

And that, in some sense, that’s the natural motion and that actual led him to derive the theory of general relativity and described that moment as the happiest moment in his life.

And later he said something that I actually find personally very comforting: Is that imagination is much more important than knowledge because knowledge describes what we know. Imagination is describing everything that we can potentially know in the future. ~ RD

It seems that Dijkgraaf does not know that all children have such an imagination. Are all as 'original' as Einstein? Maybe and maybe not. We know that we live in a social imagination. There is no other place. Charles H. Cooley pointed that years ago. I like to think that the social imagination is a kind of quantum computer with a programmed in default mode operation that sometimes get overridden by corrupted imaginations - corrupted 'data' information. Why? Well, this is a world where entropy exists and that might be the reason. Information just decays and though the speed of a quantum computer is incredibly fast, entropy has its effect.

So, what happens to most children is that there 'original' imagination gets overridden by a decaying or overriding program - lets call them parents and teachers. Einstein was not a good student and had a kind of dysfunction family life. So, maybe simply because those two social 'programs' information interactors were loosely associated with him Einstein was freer to go beyond his 'social imagination'. 

But, since we are all social actors/interactors living in a social imagination, how could being loosely associated be a benefit? Or even possible? In a state of entropy, information decays. Like in the game of telephone, the real information is often transformed. Not always for good and not always for bad and what is bad and good anyway in terms of information. That is determined by the users. And, we are all users.

As users of information, we all want to do well with it. So, we conform to the current usage in order to stay in the circle of information and social imagination we have to come know through usage. It is what is comfortable. Some may or may not be more comfortable outside of that circle and some may have a better means to circumnavigate it or find solutions to pitfalls in the usage. So, making the most of useless knowledge is right. 

There is also the risk of accepting corrupted information. Quantum computer programmers are aware of that. As I understand it, it is best to go or act on the premise that all information is useful and adjustments can be made. Like God who can make all things good because God is good all the time and all the time God is good. 

In the chain of information exchange in the social imagination, we can imagine that this is the same process. Entropy impacts the 'original' information imparted to the social imagination or let us say that it either gets distorted more and more as it moves on down the line and yet picks up the slack by filling the blanks. Now, the next one who receives can either continue that or inject even more utilizing a 'freer' aspect of the social imagination which is what I called the concept creative... which I wrote about in my doctoral dissertation. 

One might think that what really happens is that aspect of the social imagination gets contaminated by corrupted information circulated in the social imagination. But is it? As with the quantum computer, performance at a high level is only possible when all information is accepted as useful. 

One might consider this the act of free will in order to perform at a high level, being that all information is of the social imagination and was/is socially created by social creatures and programmed by social creatures, then somehow its all useful... right? Yes and No. Again, it simply returns to what is useful and what is not depending on the users. it too has that aspect. The real problem for this entire process is if the users themselves fall into doubt. If corruption creeps in that being doubt, it will no longer perform at the high level that it was originally able to. 

Yes, doubt by the user is in fact that which produces 'error'. It was introduced to mankind in the garden and we as users are no under its authority - we doubt the source. We continue to doubt and largely stems from being social creatures in as much as it does from being a created entity as an individual thinker who would or should know that one can make use of all information as all information is socially generated and all is usable in the social imagination. This should and it would make us better performers or more original performers so to speak as we would no longer doubt being able to make good on all information exchanged. But, that also means that in order to be such an individual in the social imagination, one would have to recognize the truer nature of the one in the many and never doubt that... = all information is usable. 

Facts in Social Imagination ... An Information Reality

Charles H. Cooley, was not an informationist in his times but could have been in ours. His work is key to understanding social reality and its source. For Cooley, as we read his work, all that social reality is ... is exchanged information. And, that exchange takes place in the human mind. For Cooley, the human mind was/is the locus of society. Why? Because, you can never know society or anything about it for that matter outside of creative social imagination - social collective thought which is constantly in the comparative elaborate process of mental organization or synthesis which for Cooley was rendered necessary by complexity in the elements of our thought.

In its social aspect for all, or nearly all, social reality is a series of information bits, selected, as in  choices made that relate in one way or another others in the social environment... it is an organization of comparatively complex social relations. It does not matter if we are talking about rich people, poor people, local people or those at the top of society in government i.e. The process is the same. Human beings as conduits of information exchange know only what they can agree upon 'arrive at/conclude' through social interaction; as I have written before social reality is agreement reality. We agree that this is this and that is that not because it, as in anything even people, exist in some absolute form known to all immediately, no...certainly not. It is what it is because we agree it is something. Its the same experience regarding science or any other man made subject of discussion in the social reality.

One should be asking more questions regarding the kind of information shared/exchanged. If it is productive for mankind's general welfare or not. Given that this world is in a state of entropy which can be experienced just by observing the environment around us and in our information exchanges we can recognize when information has weakened or been misunderstood. And, even in our social imagination there are mis-understandings. There is a either agreement about that or not which complicates and confuses the whole social reality.

Let it be said, when anything is agreed upon it is through the operation of social dynamics of subordination and domination. They are the underlying mechanism or modus operande for the comparative process. The decision to act 'choose' one bit over another when it comes to information is not made merely by the individual; no he/she will and cannot act alone. In the end, the choice is made by the group and all else follows.

Individuals in that group being parts of it feel as if they have made a choice. In this, group event 'process' of which individuals are part, they find the meaning of the group and their part in the group and this seemingly provides an advantage for them personally but only because it has become what is personal among us. If there were no agreement among the many about something there would be no meaning either and it would not 'feel' personal for the one if it had no meaning for the group.

You can say to me that the sun is a star and I will agree and then you will say... you see that is a fact. I will say its only a 'fact' because we agreed and we agreed with many who agreed before us. There was a time when the earth was the center of the universe and people agreed that was a fact until Copernicus came along. Now that begs the question how could one man be the catalyst for the dissemination of 'new' information? The source of all information appoints times and places and that source is the creator of all information.  Just read Kepler.

Facts are information bits. Those closer to the source have a better idea of what is real, what is true in the social imagination. All information is subject to that even in science. Facts are only that which we agree on as they are as received in a certain order; who agrees and why they agree is what makes them into a social fact. You cannot know facts outside of social agreement - social reality. Why? Because, only the creator could know 'facts' as absolutes in any measure.

For man, absolute facts cannot be known outside of the social imagination - the social reality of information exchange. You can never know a 'fact' about anything; evolution, the cosmos, math, language, history... etc. outside of social reality. ... as you can never be outside of the framework of social imagination; what Cooley called = an organization of comparatively complex social relations.

Man is not just any 'animal' exchanging information.  As a created being, he recognizes that there is a source of all information and in that source is contained the truth of everything.  That source is man's only reason for living, only means of being alive, and reason to be able to exchange information.  "In Him, we live, move and have our being" ~ Acts 17:28. Given that, in the social quantum of social reality, there is always potential for agreement among men...

Ezekiel saw the Wheel Continued...

In a willingness to continue the discussion on what Ezekiel...

It was posited in the previous blog post that Ezekiel possibly saw the atomic structure of life. It could also be he saw the solar system as described by Johannes Kepler whose work concerning planetary motion is renown.

As anyone can read online, Kepler's most incredible work is surely his 'Mysterium Cosmographicum' (lit. The Cosmographic Mystery, alternately translated Cosmic Mystery, The Secret of the World or some variation) is an astronomy book by the German astronomer Johannes Kepler, published at Tubingen in 1596 and in a second edition in 1621. The full title being Forerunner of the Cosmological Essays, Which Contains the Secret of the Universe; on the Marvelous Proportion of the Celestial Spheres, and on the True and Particular Causes of the Number, Magnitude, and Periodic Motions of the Heavens; Established by Means of the Five Regular Geometric Solids.

Kepler proposed that the distance relationships between the six planets known at that time could be understood in terms of the five Platonic solids, enclosed within a sphere that represented the orbit of Saturn. Kepler also found a formula relating the size of each planet's orb to the length of its orbital period: from inner to outer planets, the ratio of increase in orbital period is twice the difference in orb radius. However, Kepler later rejected this formula, because it was not precise enough.  

However, Kepler remained positive that his notion of most planetary orbits being nearly circular was accurate and true. Because, of careful observation and calculation that was required in order to establish that they are not perfectly circular. 

Calculations of the orbit of  Mars, whose published values are somewhat suspect, indicated an elliptical orbit. From this, Johannes Kepler inferred that other bodies in the Solar System, including those farther away from the Sun, also have elliptical orbits.

1. His view of planetary motion, The orbit of a planet is an ellipse with the Sun at one of the two foci.
2. A line segment joining a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas during equal intervals of time.
3. The square of the orbital period of a planet is proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its orbit.

What most people don't know is that Kepler thought he had truly revealed God's geometrical plan for the universe. Much of Kepler's enthusiasm for the Copernican system stemmed from his theological convictions about the connection between the physical and the spiritual; the universe itself was an image of God, with the Sun corresponding to the Father, the stellar sphere to the Son, and the intervening space between to the Holy Spirit. Let us remind ourselves of what Ezekiel saw according to scripture.  

 

"And each went straight forward; wherever the spirit was about to go, they would go, without turning as they went. In the midst of the living beings there was something that looked like burning coals of fire, like torches darting back and forth among the living beings. The fire was bright, and lightning was flashing from the fire. And the living beings ran to and fro like bolts of lightning. Now as I looked at the living beings, behold, there was one wheel on the earth beside the living beings, for each of the four of them." ~ Ezekiel 1:12-15. Out of pure conjecture... there was one wheel on the earth - orbit! 

What is most fascinating, and confirming of Creation is that we can see and know that there are orbiting planets and orbiting 'trons' in the atomic structure... What else could be darting in and out... electrons -living beings ran to and fro like bolts of lightning?

Kepler's model of planetary motion... not so unlike the the structure of an ato

*Wiki-pedia online sources applied in this post