There is a very popular saying on the Internet: the end of science is metaphysics. Many people have also discussed the correctness of this sentence from various angles, and even moved out of Einstein.
In fact, this sentence is very absurd, Einstein never said it.
Albert Einstein's exact words go something like this:
When the scientist climbed a high mountain, he found that the theologian was already sitting there.
If there is one religion in the world that not only does not contradict science, but also verifies her views with every new scientific discovery, it is Buddhism.
It is these two sentences that have been tampered with by people with ulterior motives to "the end of science is metaphysics"!
In fact, anyone with a little bit of historical knowledge knows that metaphysics is not equal to theology, and theology is not equal to Buddhism, and metaphysics is very different from theology, as well as Buddhism.
Let's talk about metaphysics first.
Metaphysics originated in the Wei and Jin dynasties and is a philosophical thought, which is essentially a discussion of whether society should be subjective or objective, and to put it bluntly, it is a debate between materialism and idealism.
Because metaphysics mainly focuses on the study and interpretation of the three books of "Laozi", "Zhuangzi" and "Zhou Yi", later generations will take a sentence in "Laozi", "Xuanzhi and Xuan, the door of all wonders", and named this kind of thought metaphysics, and the name of metaphysics was born after metaphysical thought.
Let's talk about theology.
Almost every culture, every people, has a theology, and all theologies have the same basic point: the world was created by God, and God has a concrete image and a distinct character, and is the master of mankind.
Theology was born seven or eight thousand years ago, and to a certain extent, it is a true record of human life in ancient times.
People living in ancient times saw all kinds of natural phenomena, and they could not understand them from a scientific point of view, and could only use naïve language to describe and compare them, so they formed the illusion that gods could fly around in the air, single-handedly create floods, and control everyone's destiny, and be omnipotent.
In addition, the earth's environment in ancient times is quite different from the present, and we can only rely on some fragments of information to restore the tip of the iceberg at that time, so to deduce the truth of the ancient earth from theology, as well as the true meaning of the world, is tantamount to seeking fish from the wood. So, theology has limitations, and at best it can represent a period of human history.
Let's talk about Buddhism, Buddhism is a religion, it came after theology, and it is only a category of theology.
However, Einstein was indeed a great admirer of Buddhism, and his two words were by no means groundless.
It all started in 1951.
In 1951, Albert Einstein and the famous psychologist Sigmund Freud met in Berlin and the two men talked together about physics and psychology for two hours.
At that time, there was a famous psychic master near Warsaw, named Wolfmeison, who was said to be able to instruct others with his mind.
Einstein, as a scientist, of course didn't believe it, but given that Wolfmeison was too famous, Einstein couldn't suppress his curiosity, so he took the opportunity to invite Freud to take a look.
The two men arrived at Wolfmason's studio, and Wolfmason was very polite, and he first took Floyd alone to an empty room and made him think of something in his mind.
This must have been something too much for Wolfmeison to do to Einstein, but Einstein would not resist the whole time.
Freud obediently thought to himself: Mason will pluck Einstein's three beards!
Then, the time to witness the miracle arrived!
Wolfmeison really took the tweezers and plucked out three of Einstein's beards! And poor Einstein, as if by magic, did not resist the whole process.
Wolfmeison's divine operation made the two god-level characters stunned on the spot!
After his return, Einstein wrote in his diary:
"I know a lot of people will not be able to accept it because there is so little access to information about this. If you get in touch with it more, you will find that human beings know very little about the universe, the earth, and their own bodies, and the human body is still a mystery to scientists!"
Later, Einstein systematically studied Buddhism and the Chinese Book of Changes, which led to a conclusion that he wrote in his anthology:
The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion, and Buddhism includes the characteristics expected of a future cosmic religion: it goes beyond the personified God, avoids dogma and theology, encompasses both the natural and spiritual aspects, and it is based on the religious consciousness that arises from the experience of all things in the natural and spiritual world as a meaningful whole, and Buddhism fits this description. If there is one religion in the world that not only does not contradict science, but also verifies her views with every new scientific discovery, it is Buddhism.
This passage shows that Einstein simply thought that the Buddhist worldview was more in line with his understanding of the cosmic religion, and that he was by no means thinking that the cosmic religious feeling = Buddhism.
Therefore, the phrase "the end of science is metaphysics" does not exist from beginning to end, let alone how to understand it.
Although the world's top scientists, such as Newton, Galileo, and Einstein, all studied theology in their later years, Newton even racked his brains to prove the real existence of God, and tried to find the reason for the rotation of the earth from theology; Galileo also calculated that Lucifer's height was 1800 meters and drew a complete map of the structure of hell; even Darwin, who adhered to the theory of evolution, firmly believed in the existence of God and tried to find the greatest common divisor between the two.
However, even if these most famous scientists were all immersed in theology in the end, it does not mean that theology is the ultimate of science! If we admit that the end of science is theology, it is equivalent to admitting that after thousands of years of development, science has finally come to theological conclusions, is this not a retrogression of mankind?
In fact, science has no end, it has been constantly developing and evolving, trying to pursue those natural laws that have not been recognized by human beings, no scientist will think that he has reached the end of science, and theology, at most, represents a historical period of mankind, it will always be only a part of science.
Real science never ends!