Log24

THE PHILOSOPHY OF RUDOLF CARNAP 

EDITED BY PAUL ARTHUR SCHILPP
Open Court Publishing Co.
Copyright © 1963 by The Library of Living Philosophers, Inc. 

. . . .
In Princeton I had some interesting talks with Einstein….
. . . .
Once Einstein said that the problem of the Now
worried him seriously. He explained that the
experience of the Now means something special
for man, something essentially different from
the past and the future, but that this important
difference does not and cannot occur within physics.
That this experience cannot be grasped by science
seemed to him a matter of painful but inevitable
resignation. I remarked that all that occurs objectively
can be described in science; on the one hand the
temporal sequence of events is described in physics;
and, on the other hand, the peculiarities of man's
experiences with respect to time, including his different
attitude towards past, present, and future, can be
described and (in principle) explained in psychology.
But Einstein thought that these
scientific descriptions cannot possibly
satisfy our human needs; that there is
something essential about the Now
which is just outside of the realm of science.
We both agreed that this was not a question of a defect
for which science could be blamed, as Bergson thought.
I did not wish to press the point, because I wanted
primarily to understand his personal attitude to the
problem rather than to clarify the theoretical situation.
But I definitely had the impression that Einstein's
thinking on this point involved a lack of distinction
between experience and knowledge. Since science
in principle can say all that can be said, there is no
unanswerable question left. But though there is no
theoretical question left, there is still the common human
emotional experience, which is sometimes disturbing
for special psychological reasons.