Einstein's empirical axiom verification model

• Einstein in a letter to a friend, May 7, 1952

Axiom is generated from experience, but there is no logical path; it is intuition. It is constantly being modified.

• there is no logical route leading from the E’s to the A’s, but only an intuitive connection

• (1) The E’s (immediate experiences) are our data.

• (2) The axioms from which we draw our conclusions are indicated by A.

  • Psychologically the A’s depend on the E’s. But there is no logical route leading from the E’s to the A’s, but only an intuitive connection (psychological), which is always “re-turning.”

• (3) Logically, specific statements S, S′, S″ are deduced from A; these statements can lay claim to exactness.

• (4) The A’s are connected to the E’s (verification through experience).

  • Closer examination shows that this procedure also belongs to the extralogical (intuitive) sphere, for the relation between the notions show up in S and the immediate experiences are not logical in nature.
  • But the relation between S’s and E’s is (pragmatically) much less certain than the relation between the A’s and the E’s. (Take the notion “dog” and the corresponding immediate experiences.)
  • If such a relationship could not be set up with a high degree of certainty (though it may be beyond the reach of logic), logical machinery would have no value in the “comprehension of reality” (example: theology).

• What this all boils down to is the eternally problematical connection between the world of ideas and that which can be experienced (immediate experiences of the senses).

• The work for the de Broglie anniversary volume will be translated into French by scholars there. But its contents will be a heresy of the worst order for the people. I can not send it to you until it is printed.

• Is the de Broglie anniversary volume referring to Savants et découvertes (Scientists and discoveries), Paris, Albin Michel, 1951.

original

Einstein diagram. Wrote in Intellectual Production of Engineers: Einstein's way of thinking.

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