Lecture XIIa (Nr. 0124)
Facs
Transcript
[121] calculations to everything living, and to a certain extent (l come more to this later) even to the psychology of man. There is a level in which mechanical calculation is justified. But what is not justified is the universalization of this mechanical experimentation, which is very important for a limited level. Now everything is all right and theologians rejoice. They rejoice especially if Mr. a tells them that there is in physics a principle of indeterminacy, and if even the great b writes a little book on human c. "Now science has justified us," many theologians say--you can read that in a lot of books--"and we don’t have to fear any more these bad people from Lamarck to Darwin to these present day materialists." The situation is not as nice as this, thank Heaven!, because if it were as nice as this, then the NEXT great scientist, AFTER Planck and Heisenberg, would perhaps discover what d --and I had a day's talk with him in the year 1932--once told me, that he knows that we are now under the theories of Planck and [the] principle of indeterminacy to have a universally valid and calculable universe; but he added--and he insisted on this--that it is his belief that once upon a time e will rediscover that worldview which he, Einstein, brought with him out of the 19th century. Now this prophecy has not been fulfilled, up to today, but it MIGHT be fulfilled one day--then all the poor theologians who rejoiced about the rediscovery of f! Now I am very much afraid that the favorable climate in natural g, which we certainly have today, can be used in order to derive TOO QUICKLY, from science, a h statement! You cannot derive a statement in the dimension of ultimate concern from a statement