G*d, Einstein and dice

[I. Oppenheim <i.oppenheim...>]

On Sat, 8 Mar 2003, Sylvia Schildt wrote:

> He will never realize that this may not be what God
> had in Mind.

This discussion reminds me of a funny Einstein
anecdote.

As is well known, Einstein strongly opposed the Quantum
Mechanics theory on account of it's probabilistic
nature. To lend force to his arguments, he said:

"God does not play dice; God is not malicious."

On which Niels Bohr replied:

"Einstein, stop telling God what to do!"


Niels Bohr was proven to be correct,
and to date Quantum Mechanics forms a
central part of physical theory...

So maybe we should listen to Reb Bohr and
stop telling God what to do. Whether
God is malicious is not something we can
judge.


To return to the original discussion: "discriminate" is
an English verb (derived from Latin "discriminare"),
whose primary meaning is "make a distinction between."
Oxford cites to secondary meanings: (a) "discriminate
against" --- treat unfairly; (b) "discriminating"  ---
having good judgement.

Webster has more or less the same definition which you
can check online:
http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=discriminate

So Sylvia, I think it's justified to draw two
conclusions: (a) there is no huge gulf in meaning
between "discriminate" and "make a distinction."
(b) there is a difference in meaning between
"discriminate" per se and "discriminate against."


 Groeten,
 Irwin Oppenheim
 i(dot)oppenheim (at) xs4all(dot)nl
 ~~~*

 Chazzanut Online:
 http://www.joods.nl/~chazzanut/

---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+