In a world so utterly lacking proper models and personalities in general who inspire value and the very presence of whom shatters any doubts about dubious morality and principles, people nowadays take a particular liking to Albert Einstein. Regardless of the level of education or intelligence exhibited by any one individual, Einstein is quoted, often with misattributed wisdom, in a reverential, pious manner, as if God Almighty Himself had uttered the words. Almost everybody has heard of the phrase "God does not play dice", but few are those who can name the context in which the words came to the German theoretical physicist who has come to symbolize the nonconformist genius, standing as a sort of promise that "anyone" might become a genius.
As evidenced by my earlier essays, I strongly oppose this idea. I shall, however take a moment to recall an anecdotal moment from the 1920's. During his many travels and guest lectures done around that time in a great number of scientific havens throughout the world, Albert Einstein also visited the Netherlands and delivered lectures at the University of Leiden. In a small village near Leiden, Rijnsburg, between the years 1661 and 1663 lived one of the greatest minds that this world had ever and will ever witness, the philosopher Baruch Spinoza or Benedictus de Spinoza, to cite his preferred name. The house, now a museum, was visited by Einstein and the latter was so inspired by the former's works and manner of thinking that he thenceforth declared to believe in "Spinoza's God". Einstein had already declared on numerous occasions when questioned on this matter that he finds the idea of an anthropomorphic God with thoughts and feelings, catering to our every need as humans, hilarious and impossible to take seriously.
This was precisely what a very rebellious Spinoza had told his fellow men in the 17th century, establishing himself as one of the more prominent minds of the Enlightenment and ensuring at the same time perpetual hate and even retribution or harassment from the many religious groups who were ever-present and all-powerful at the time and which could ensure the public ostracization of any and all individuals, if it was to their liking. Spinoza believed in a God whence all of nature stems, viewed as a dynamic entity devoid of human characteristics, such as wants, desires, feelings and the like. Thus absolute determinism was put in place, as any and all circumstances in the Universe stem from God, who is the Universe, both before but especially after change.
And if this was not complicated enough, let us turn to the dialectic of Hegel, a great admirer of Spinoza and the most important of all modern philosophers, and also perhaps the most difficult to read. He employs in his works a very seductive manner of approaching discourse, employing together with every proposed "thesis" an "antithesis", the very opposite of the former followed by a coupling of these two together through a process called by him "aufhebung" and for which no just translation exists that can preserve the fundamental underlying meaning. Through this process, then, a synthesis would be formed. For instance, Socrates's existence has to be coupled with his unfair and untimely death and together they form the synthesis which is the formidably enduring legacy that Socrates has to this very day. Now as you can see, in Hegel's view, God is again out there, absolutely determining various paths, invariably shaping destinies in an ever-morphing and impossible to dissect conundrum. Indeed, ideas seem to "come alive" in this respect and float around the human beings like stars in the night on a clear sky, ever setting their unkown course, morphing with one another or giving birth to one another.
This whole concept is then heartily and heavily contradicted by Marx, a very intelligent individual who did not claim, as I so often hear him be misquoted and misrepresented, that the material aspects of this world are the only things that matter. Rather, he refuses to give the ideas to power to morph into living entities and proposes that our ideas, which do exist, do not lead into a determinate solipsism wherefrom no escape is possible, but rather that our ideas have a direct consequence in the material world, determine the material world and that this, and this alone, should serve as their primary function and Raison d'être.
To sum up, a frequently quoted and much talked about book pertaining to Umberto Eco is called "Opera Aperta", or open text, wherein he postulates that the more chances a text gives the reader with regard to its possible interpretations, the better perceived, better liked and more valuable a text becomes. I think it has more to do with the open-mindedness with which you approach any given text. Maybe my previous articles had been purposefully leading in a clear direction or maybe, as I have written in a certain comment I simply choose the omniscient narrator perspective and offer everybody the chance to rationally critique and to rationally determine what they have read. Likewise, I urge you to simply think.
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