Translate

Powered By Blogger

1.7.16

Physics and Jewish people

 I saw in high school the drive to succeed in the hard sciences for Jewish people was absent. The recognition that the natural sciences is good thing had disappeared.
It is no wonder the absence of Jewish names in the authentic sciences. With no will or desire to succeed, failure is guaranteed..
 The attitude towards the hard sciences that I saw was a surprise to me. With my Dad and his friends working on SDI Star Wars and the U-2, and the kind of success the USA had had in WWII, I thought it was clear  that the authentic sciences were understood to be good things.
Little did I know. Among Jewish people it was the phony sciences of psychology and other delusions that had all the prestige. Whatever recognition of the importance of the real sciences the immigrants from Eastern Europe had brought with them, had disappeared.

People had lost their direction. It took me some time until I discovered the opinion of the Rambam in the Guide about Physics. I had seen hints to this in the works of Musar but I never really got the idea until one day I opened the Obligations of the Heart by Ibn Pakuda.

Why did people lose their bearings?
 The best idea I can come up with is ignorance of Maimonides. The Middle Ages had a kind of balance between Reason and Faith. When that balance was rejected people lost their bearings. But that is my off hand answer right now. This is an interesting question that requires more thought.