Erwin Schrodinger — "I consider the idea of a personal God as being very childish. We must give up th…"
I consider the idea of a personal God as being very childish. We must give up this idea.
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More from Erwin Schrodinger
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About Erwin Schrodinger (1887-1961)
Austrian physicist who shared the 1933 Nobel for the wave equation that bears his name and the famous cat thought-experiment. Closely associated with Werner Heisenberg (matrix-mechanics rival who reached the same physics by different math) and Albert Einstein (his pen-pal on quantum interpretation). For an intellectual contrast, see Niels Bohr, Danish physicist and architect of the Copenhagen interpretation — Schrödinger's cat thought-experiment was specifically designed to ridicule Bohr's 'observer-dependent reality' reading of quantum mechanics — Schrödinger thought the Copenhagen interpretation was absurd; the cat was meant as reductio ad absurdum.
Details
Attributed, general philosophical stance, but exact wording and source are elusive.
Date: Approx. 1950s
ShockingVerification
Unverifiable
Found in 1 providers: grok
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Understanding this quote
What it means
Personal gods — deities that intervene, hear prayers, and care about individuals — are a primitive, anthropomorphic projection. Mature thinking requires abandoning this comforting but intellectually untenable fiction. Reality operates by impersonal laws, not divine will. Growing up intellectually means accepting an indifferent universe governed by physics, not by a conscious being managing human affairs.
Relevance to Erwin Schrodinger
Schrödinger, who formulated quantum wave mechanics in 1926, was steeped in Vedantic philosophy and saw consciousness as unified, not personal. His equation describes reality through probability waves, not divine intention. He believed the observer and universe were one — a panpsychist view incompatible with a separate personal God. His Eastern philosophical readings reinforced rejection of Western theism throughout his career.
The era
Schrödinger worked during the early-to-mid twentieth century, when quantum mechanics was dismantling classical determinism. Einstein, Bohr, and Heisenberg were rewriting physics while Freud psychologized religion as wish-fulfillment. Two world wars shattered faith in divine providence for millions. The rise of logical positivism and scientific secularism made religious skepticism intellectually fashionable among European scientists of his generation.
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