Bases teórico-científicas

When most people think of Einstein, they think of compli- cated mathematical formulas - incoherent scribbles under- stood only by a few esoteric physicists; something completely out of the grasp of the average person. Yet, according to Einstein himself, his actual creative thinking process didn't seem to involve mathematics at all.

'Wo really productive man thinks in such a paper fashion. The way the two triple sets of axioms are contrasted in the Einstein-Infeld hook [on relativity - RDJ is not at all the way things happened in the process of actual thinking. This was merely a later formulation of the subject matter, just a question of

how things could afterwards best be written. The axioms express essentials in a condensed form. Once one has found such things one enjoys formulating them in that way; but in this process [the development of the theory of relativity - RD] they did not grow out of any manipulation of axioms."2

Rather than glorify his own mental accomplishments or shroud them behind the complexities of mathematical formu- las, Einstein claimed that, "The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking."3

Like N L P , Einstein related the basic process of everyday thinking to the stimulation and reactivation of sensory experience.

"Our psychological experience contains, in colorful succession, sense experiences, memory pictures of them, images, and feelings. In contrast to psychology, physics treats directly only of sense experiences and of the 'understanding' of their connection. But even the concept of the 'real external world'of everyday thinking rests exclusively on sense impressions."4

"The words or the language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The psychical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images which can be 'voluntarily' reproduced and combined.

"There is, of course, a certain connection between those elements and relevant logical concepts. It is also clear that the desire to arrive finally at logically connected concepts is the emotional basis of this rather vague play with the above mentioned elements. But taken from a psychological viewpoint, this combinatory play seems to be the essential feature in productive thought - before there is any connection with logical construction in words or other kinds of signs which can be communicated to others.

"The above mentioned elements are, in my case, of visual and some of muscular type. Conventional words or other signs have to be sought for laboriously only in a secondary stage, when the mentioned associative play is sufficiently established and can be reproduced at will...[My typical thinking style is] visual and motoric. In a stage when words intervene at all, they are, in my case, purely auditive, but they interfere only in a secondary stage as already mentioned." 6

What Einstein is saying is that the verbal or mathematical representation of his thoughts came only after the important creative thinking was done. His actual creative thinking took place through internal visual images (notated V* in N L P - for Visual internal) and "motor" or "muscular" kinesthetic sensations (notated K i n N L P for Kinesthetic).

It was only after the imagery was sufficiently well devel- oped, that it was translated into verbal or mathematical expression - notated At | in N L P (for Auditory digital). It is

Einstein differentiated between 1) "sense experiences" coming as input from our environment 2) "memory pictures" or impressions left by the sense experiences we have re- ceived, 3) "images" (presumably of internal origin as opposed to 'sense experiences' which come from the 'external world') and 4) "feelings" (which would be our subjective reactions to the sense experiences, memories and images). To Einstein, these four categories form the total group of experiences from which we select and make combinations in order to build our mental models of the world.

From the N L P standpoint it is interesting to note that his definition is highly visual (i.e., "colorful succession", "memory pictures", "images"). He mentions feelings, but makes no

reference at all to the auditory or verbal representational systems.

And in fact, Einstein claimed that for his most important discoveries language (verbal or mathematical) played little if any role at all. In an interview with Max Wertheimer on the development of the theory of relativity, Einstein claimed:

"'These thoughts did not come in any verbal formulation. I very rarely think in words at all. A thought comes, and I may try to express it in words afterward.' When I [Wertheimer] remarked that many report that their thinking is always in words, he only laughed. "5

Instead of words or mathematical formulas, Einstein claimed to think primarily in terms of visual images and feelings. In a letter to cognitive psychologist Jacques Hadamard, Einstein explained:

"The words or the language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The psychical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images which can be 'voluntarily' reproduced and combined.

"There is, of course, a certain connection between those elements and relevant logical concepts. It is also clear that the desire to arrive finally at logically connected concepts is the emotional basis of this rather vague play with the above mentioned elements. But taken from a psychological viewpoint, this combinatory play seems to be the essential feature in productive thought - before there is any connection with logical construction in words or other kinds of signs which can be communicated to others.

"The above mentioned elements are, in my case, of visual and some of muscular type. Conventional words or other signs have to be sought for laboriously only in a secondary stage, when the mentioned associative play is sufficiently established and can be reproduced at will...[My typical thinking style is] visual and motoric. In a stage when words intervene at all, they are, in my case, purely auditive, but they interfere only in a secondary stage as already mentioned."6

What Einstein is saying is that the verbal or mathematical representation of his thoughts came only after the important creative thinking was done. His actual creative thinking took place through internal visual images (notated V' in N L P - for Visual internal) and "motor" or "muscular" kinesthetic sensations (notated K i n N L P for Kinesthetic).

It was only after the imagery was sufficiently well devel- oped, that it was translated into verbal or mathematical oxpression - notated A, in N L P (for Auditory digital). It is

interesting to note that he even uses the term "interfere" to describe the way words fit into his strategy.

In Einstein's strategy, then, the organization and explora- tion of information takes place through the "combinatory play" of visual images and body sensations. The auditory digital (i.e., verbal) system is used primarily to evaluate the results of the "play" according to "logical" rules for connecting the elements together, and then to output or express the constructions made through the Visual—>Kinesthetic loop.

Internally generated feelings or emotions (notated KJ for

internal kinesthetic sensations) seem to serve as the motiva- tional access and guiding system in the strategy as is indicated by Einstein's statement that "the desire to arrive finally at logically connected concepts is the emotional basis of this rather vague play." These feelings seem to give information about the relative 'connectedness' (and presum- ably also the lack of connection) between the visual and kinesthetic 'play' and the more logical verbal and mathemati- cal models: (V—>K) "combinatory play"

t

1

Einstein explained the role of these internal feelings more fully when he stated:

"During all those years there was a feeling of direction, of going straight toward something concrete. It is, of course, very hard to express that feeling in words; but it was decidedly the case, and clearly to be distinguished

from later considerations about the rational form of the solution. Of course, behind such a direction there is always something logical; but I. have it in a kind of survey, in a way visually." 7

What Einstein is saying here is that these 'guiding feel- ings' were functioning in coordination with some kind of higher level 'big picture' - i.e., "visual survey". This "visual survey" —>"feeling of direction" process not only stood in between the "combinatory play" and "logical concepts" pro- cesses but stood a b o v e and somehow influenced the "combinatory play" process at a higher level - as a puppeteer would control a marionette. The lower level play with the visual and "muscular" or "motoric" kinesthetic elements were operated by the higher and broader level visual survey and more whole-body emotional sense of direction. As Wertheimer summarized it:

"Two directions are involved: getting a whole consistent picture, and seeing what the structure of the whole

requires for the parts."8

The following diagram summarizes what we have dis- cussed about Einstein's strategy up to this point: