Nope. When we talk about life
...we're not talking about what Einstein meant. If we talk about what Einstein meant, then we find problems with your interpretations:
It is a half-truth, if you will. Einstein made it clear he believed in the God of Spinoza, leaning to pantheism and claimed agnosticism, while giving a nod to Buddhsm.
Einstein actually said "I’m not an atheist, and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist." (from Jammer's Einstein and Religion, p. 48).
I think his spirituality went a bit beyond that. If it is true that he was a pantheist, then we are talking about an intelligent universe, and 'material' is more than it would imply to the ordinary mind:
This is what happens when you don't bother to try to understand context. Case in point:
"I am fascinated by Spinoza's Pantheism. I admire even more his contributions to modern thought. Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things."
What I quoted above (when Einstein says he doesn't think he can call himself a pantheist) and this quote are from the same source:
"I’m not an atheist, and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist...I am fascinated by Spinoza’s pantheism, but admire even more his contribution to modern thought because he is the first philosopher to deal with the soul and body as one, and not two separate things."
In other words, Einstein saw the 'material' world infused with spirit, with consciousness.
Have you actually read Spinoza (in some translation)?Or a commentary on his work? The idea that Spinoza believed the "soul and body as one" was understood (and still is) as early physicalism: "God must be identical with the whole of Nature, including all of its contents. This is because the properties or states of a thing are the thing, existing in particular manner. Thus, God is both the universal elements of Nature – substance, its attributes and whatever they involve – as well as all of the things that are (immanently) caused by and belong to those natures, right down to the lowest level of particularity. God is material nature"
But God is not actually all of "nature" only
natura naturans. In English, we might say "physical nature". Spinoza wrote about materialism. He rejected the dualism of Descartes, and Descartes mind/body distinction, but that's because everything is either physical or is an attribute or property of some physical "thing" (
res). The sole exception Spinoza explains (at one point, as he explains the same elsewhere) using a person and death. When someone dies, the only thing that remains of them is the idea of that person which another has. So, for example, Spinoza would tell me that my Grandparents are dead, their souls do not remain but died with their bodies, as did their minds/consciousness. All that remains of them is the ideas/memories others (like me) have of them.
When understood this way, the so-called 'material world' becomes transformed
When understood the way you would understand it it can become anything you want. If you want to understand what Einstein actually meant, you'd have to start actually reading more that quotes. Einstein references Spinoza. He does this because as a German intellectual writing (in this case) ~1930, he is situating his understanding of reality not just in terms of his own descriptions but in relationship to the ideas of another (and how that other, Spinoza, was interpreted/understood).
This awe is an intuitive 'seeing', rather than a systematically thought out concept about what one sees.
Which is why Einstein is noted for his brilliant works in metaphysics, his critique of materialism and physicalism, his passionate exposition on immateriality and the intuitive nature of true discovery, and unicorns.
Only he isn't. He's famous because his love of discovery through science caused him to dedicate his life to physics, which was then (and to a lesser extent still is) the science of discovering the fundamental, elementary material which makes up our physical reality. He's also famous because his work was foundational to quantum physics, which to him seemed too immaterial, too illogical, too distinct from what physics is supposed to be.
For Einstein, physics was what we now call classical physics. And it
had to work, without any new "quantum physics", because it treats the cosmos as fundamentally deterministic and physical/material (Einstein himself showed that even energy was matter). As Einstein believed this was true, QM must be flawed.
But back to the original point that Einstein referred to an intuitive view as the basis for science, his statement is clear
He never said that. He did say this: "Höchste Aufgabe des Physikers ist also das Aufsuchen jener allgemeinsten elementaren Gesetze, aus denen durch reine Deduktion das Weltbild zu gewinnen ist. Zu diesen elementaren Gesetzen führt kein logischer Weg, sondern nur die auf Einfühlung in die Erfahrung sich stützende Intuition."
"The fundamental task (or "supreme goal") of the physicist is the search for the fundamental elementary laws from which, through pure deductive reasoning, the structure of the universe can extracted. To these elementary laws no logical path leads, but rather inspiration supported by heartfelt experience."
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