The 19th century physicist Ludwig Boltzmann has often been considered a sort of “hero of scientific materialism”, such that many Marxists such as Lenin held him in high regard for what they saw as his theoretical support of materialistic philosophies. He has been described as a ‘materialist’ due to his atomistic views, rejection of idealism and his wholehearted acceptance of evolution. Thus, it might seem strange at first to notice some commonalities between the views of his contemporary, ʻAbdu’l-Bahá the son of Baha’u’llah, the prophet founder of the Baha’i faith and Boltzmann. Both incidentally were born in 1844 which saw the declaration of the Bab marking the birth of the Baha’i faith. ʻAbdu’l-Bahá was born on the very night of that declaration and Boltzmann several months earlier in February. Also, both seemed to ‘believe’ in the concept of ‘atoms’. But beyond these superficial similarities, there is more in common with their philosophies than is initially apparent.

Ludwig Boltzmann (1844–1906), austrian phyisicist

By the end of the 19th century a majority of philosophers and many physicists were not convinced of the existence of atoms and many believed in the Energetics concept which was championed by the famous philosopher and physicist Ernst Mach and the physical chemist Wilhelm Ostwald. The Energetics concept was that energy not matter was the chief component of the universe. Against this trend Boltzmann developed a new theory of thermodynamics based on the kinetic motion of atoms and molecules. He showed that the ‘classical’ understanding of thermodynamics could be re-derived by considering the probabilistic behavior of a many particle system. This approach is called statistical mechanics. During his lifetime he struggled against philosophers and physicists who rejected the existence of atoms. These were mostly idealists of his age who had embraced a dogma of Energetics, supported by many intelligent and respected individuals. The Energetics had even gone so far as to equate the physical idea of ‘energy’ with the ill-defined concept of ‘mental energy’. After Wilhelm Ostwald half joking, made an algebraic formula for happiness, Boltzmann railed against them and this construction of “theoretical structures out of mere words and phrases”.

Such was Boltzmann’s frustration with the philosophers of his age that he expressed antagonism to whole project of philosophy quoting Francis Bacon and calling it a “a hallowed virgin. …that she will remain eternally barren precisely because of this lofty quality”. Yet he still saw value in philosophy and in an attempt to rescue it and to defend his ideas against the bitter attacks of his famous colleague, Ernst Mach, Boltzmann went on to become a philosopher.

If we probe Boltzmann’s philosophy a bit, it is evident that there is much more nuance to his so-called materialism. An inkling of this can be seen in the forward to part I of his Lecture on Gas Theory, where he quotes the German poet Goethe “Alles Vergängliche Ist nur ein Gleichnis!” or, “all transitory things are only symbols or reflections (of reality)”. His version of ‘materialism’ did not entail the rejection of a deity but rather the claim, that an external material world does exists and is knowable by science. It is not a rejection of the transcendent but an acknowledgment that what is possible to know resides in the realm of science and that this knowledge has its limits. Boltzmann explains:

“It is certainly true that only a madman will deny God’s existence, but it is equally the case that all our ideas of God are mere inadequate anthropomorphisms, so that what we thus imagine as God does not exist in the way we imagine it. If therefore one person says that he is convinced that God exists and another that he does not believe in God, in so saying both may well think the same thoughts without even suspecting it. We must not ask whether God exists unless we can imagine something definite in saying so; rather we must ask by what ideas we can come closer to the highest concept which encompasses everything.” ( Ludwig Boltzmann: The Man Who Trusted Atoms)

Thus, in both accepting the reality of a deity yet rejecting the possibility of conceptualizing it Boltzmann appears to line up with ʻAbdu’l-Bahá’s description of Divinity:

Know that the reality of the Divinity and the nature of the divine Essence is ineffable sanctity and absolute holiness; that is, it is exalted above and sanctified beyond every praise. All the attributes ascribed to the highest degrees of existence are, with regard to this station, mere imagination. ( ʻAbdu’l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions, newly revised edition, p. 165.)

Boltzmann developed a philosophy which he called “realism” that was counterposed to what he understood as the idealism of his day.

Ernst Mach (1838–1916)

“The idealist compares the assertion that matter exists just like our sensations to the view of the child that a beaten stone suffers pain. The realist compares the assertion that one can never conceive how mental phenomena can be represented through matter or even through a play of atoms with the opinion of an uneducated person who maintains that the Sun cannot be 20 million miles (German miles) from the Earth, as he cannot imagine it. As ideology (idealism) is only a view for one individual, but not for mankind, to me the terminology of realism appears more useful than that of idealism. If we want to include the animals, nay Universe.” (The Boltzmann Equation: Theory and Applications p32)

Thus, he rejected the extreme idealism of the philosophy of Berkeley who in an attempt to rescue literalist Christianity against the challenges of modern science, held that everything was ultimately a non-physical intellectual experience “Take away this material substance, about the identity whereof all the dispute is, and mean by body what every plain ordinary person means by that word, to wit, that which is immediately seen and felt, which is only a combination of sensible qualities or ideas: and then their most unanswerable objections come to nothing” (The Works of George Berkeley Collected and Edited with Prefaces, Volume 1 p205)

Thus Boltzmann’s insistence on ‘realism’ mirror’s ʻAbdu’l-Bahá’s :

“THE SOPHISTS HOLD that all existence is illusory, indeed, that each and every being is an absolute illusion that has no existence whatsoever — in other words, that the existence of created things is like a mirage, or like the reflection of an image in water or in a mirror, which is merely an appearance devoid of any basis, foundation, or ascertainable reality. This notion is false, for although the existence of things is an illusion compared to the existence of God, yet in the contingent world it is established, proven, and undeniable.” (Some Answered Questions page 79)

But Boltzmann also presciently recognized that there should be a physical correspondence or expression of thought realizable in matter. Ideas which we now take for granted with our understanding of the role that the neurological structure of the brain plays in thought, memories and computational science. This was gravely challenging to idealists and the religious minded since it suggested that the heretofore unassailable bastion of ‘mind’ and ‘thought’ might not be as transcendent and metaphysical as they believed. That thoughts and memories can be ‘physical’ meant that mind could arise from matter and not as they supposed, matter from mind.

While both ʻAbdu’l-Bahá and Boltzmann admitted the existence of a true ‘reality’, their discussion of divinity demonstrates that they both placed limits on what the human mind could perceive and conceive of that ‘reality’. For Boltzmann this was the genesis of his concept of Theoretical Pluralism which appears to have foreshadowed and influenced the development of the philosophical understandings of quantum mechanics. Boltzmann explains:

“Hertz makes physicists properly aware of something philosophers had no doubt long since stated, namely that no theory can be objective, actually coinciding with nature, but rather that each theory is only a mental picture of phenomena, related to them as sign is to designatum. From this it follows that it cannot be our task to find an absolutely correct theory but rather a picture that is, as simple as possible and that represents phenomena as accurately as possible. One might even conceive of two quite different theories both equally simple and equally congruent with phenomena, which therefore in spite of their difference are equally correct. The assertion that a given theory is the only correct one can only express our subjective conviction that there could not be another equally simple and fitting image. ” (Boltzmann, L., 1899. On the Development of the Methods of Theoretical Physics in Recent Times p90)

Baha’i Temple in Frankfurt Germany

While ʻAbdu’l-Bahá in many of his talks affirmed the existence of a ‘universal law’, he also appears to have not claimed that our human understanding would ever terminate into a single theory of everything. In a very interesting passage from the Tablet of the Universe, he makes this observation:

“For particulars in relation to what is below them are universals, and what are great universals in the sight of those whose eyes are veiled are in fact particulars in relation to the realities and beings which are superior to them. Universal and particular are in reality incidental and relative considerations. The mercy of thy Lord, verily, encompasseth all things!

Know then that the all-embracing framework that governs existence includes within its compass every existent being — particular or universal — whether outwardly or inwardly, secretly or openly. Just as particulars are infinite in number, so also universals, on the material plane, and the great realities of the universe are without number and beyond computation.” (Tablet of the Universe by Abdu’l-Bahá provisional translation by Anonymous. published in Makátib-i ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Volume 1, pages 13–32 1997)

What appears new here is the idea that the progression from particular laws to more general laws is an infinite process and would never terminate into some final theory of everything. This is in line with Boltzmann’s suggestion that there can perhaps there can be no “ultimate theory” of everything. This idea is reinforced by another observation about the progress of science made by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá:

“Mathematicians, astronomers, chemical scientists continually disprove and reject the conclusions of the ancients; nothing is fixed, nothing final; everything is continually changing because human reason is progressing along new roads of investigation and arriving at new conclusions every day. In the future much that is announced and accepted as true now will be rejected and disproved. And so it will continue ad infinitum.” (‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 21)

The idea of theoretical pluralism was no doubt a natural development for Boltzmann given that he was fighting what he viewed as an entrenched dogma of anti-atomist. His position really represents a rejection of all dogmatism as being antithetical to the whole project of scientific discovery. As he explains “Simple consideration as well as experience show that it is hopelessly difficult to find the right pictures of the world by mere guessing into the blue. Rather, the pictures always form slowly from individual lucky ideas by fitting. Rightly epistemology turns against the activities of the many lighthearted producers of hypothesis who hope to find a hypothesis explaining the whole of nature with little effort, as well as against the dogmatic and metaphysical derivation of atomistics.”(The Boltzmann Equation: Theory and Applications

edited by E.G.D. Cohen, W. Thirring p20–21)

ʻAbdu’l-Bahá likewise condemned the mindless dogma found in religion saying:

“Shall man, gifted with the power of reason, unthinkingly follow and adhere to dogma, creeds and hereditary beliefs which will not bear the analysis of reason in this century of effulgent reality? Unquestionably this will not satisfy men of science, for when they find premise or conclusion contrary to present standards of proof and without real foundation, they reject that which has been formerly accepted as standard and correct and move forward from new foundations.” (24 May 1912 Talk at Free Religious Association, or Unitarian Conference Boston, Massachusetts)

Boltzmann’s life ultimately ended tragically, committing suicide in 1906. He was a victim of mental illness aggravated by the brief resurgence of the anti-atomist ideology at the beginning of the 20th century and failing health. Yet his ideas on the nature of order, matter and mind have helped shape the course of modern physics and the debates between science and religion. Indeed, the questions concerning the primacy of matter over mind resurfaced with the advent of quantum mechanics and the later development of information theory based on his statistical mechanics. For while it should be obvious that many aspects of mind can be constructed from the interactions of matter, what is necessary in this and all of physics is the centrality of relational information or math. Thus, the same ‘physics’ or equations can be manifest across a variety of physical systems, and it is this math which ultimately determines the nature of the observed order. Additionally, the quite stunning revelation of quantum mechanics, that the abstract math of a field is all that seems to underlie the appearance matter and energy, leads us to an idealism of a very different sort. It is not one founded upon some ill-defined concept of ‘mental energy’ as the 19th century Energetics thought, but rather returns us to the ancient Pythagorean hypothesis that places mathematics as the primary substance of both mind and matter.