Dear Ken
I've taken a little snip from your Einstein piece (see below) to ground
my reflections.
The clear, and muscular image I have, in relation to this discussion,
is a large L-shaped glass fish tank that has in it half a dozen brightly
plumed giant gold fish (each about the size of a bed pillow).
I'm working on these images today to see how I might combine them into
maybe a new law of sanity if not gravity.
Also, there is a very large jumble sale collection of old computer
disks, 3.5 and 5.25 and Zip. Their paper tags are slug eaten so you
can't read what is on them.
cheers
keith
>>>>SNIP from Ken>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Hadamard*s (1996) book on the psychology of mathematical invention
contains the second Einstein quote on your post, but your quote is
slightly inaccurate and you*ve left out an issue that is decisive
for
Einstein. The passage you presented addresses the logic of discovery:
*(A) The words or the language, as they are written or spoken, do
not seem to perform any role in my mechanism of thoughts. The
psychical
entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs
and more or less clear images which can be *voluntarily*
reproduced
and combined.*
[NB: This passage describes *psychical* entities here, not
*physical* entities. But Einstein continues:]
*There is, of course, a certain connection between those elements
and
relevant logical concepts. It is also clear that the desire to arrive
finally at logically connected concepts is the emotional basis of the
rather vague play with the above mentioned elements. But taken from a
psychological viewpoint, this combinatory play seems to be the
essential
feature in productive thought * before there is any connection with
logical construction in words or other kinds of signs which can be
communicated to others.
[Next, Einstein writes a passage that points to the logic of
justification:]
*(B) The above mentioned elements are, in my case, of visual and
some
of muscular type. Conventional words or other signs have to be sought
for laboriously only in a secondary stage, when the mentioned
associative play is sufficiently and can be reproduced at will*
(Einstein in Hadamard 1996: 142-143).
For Albert Einstein, generating physical, scientific, or mathematical
propositions was a matter of free play and imagination. Then, Einstein
used rigorous deductive logic and empirical proof to justify the free
and playful inventions of the mind.
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