The Meaning of It All

by Richard P Feynman

  So when the time comes to buy the land, it turns out that the state has made an attempt to help you. So they have a description of this particular thing that you have to read, and the man who sells you the land says it’s the law, we have to give you this to read. They give it to you to read, and it says that this is very much like many other real estate deals in the state of California and so on and so on and so on. And among other things, I read that although they say that they want to have fifty thousand people at this site, there is not water enough for a number which I better not say or I’ll get accused of libel, but it was very much less—I can’t remember it exactly—it was in the neighborhood of five thousand people, somewhere like that. So, of course they had noticed that this was in there before, and they told us that they had just found water at another site, far away, that they were going to pump down. And when I asked about it, they explained to me very carefully that they had just discovered this and that they hadn’t had time to get it into the brochure from the state. Hmmmm.

  I’ll give another example of the same thing. I was in Atlantic City, and I went into one of these—well, it was sort of a store. There were a lot of seats, and people were sitting there listening to a man speaking. And he was very interesting. He knew all about food, and he was talking about nutrition, different things. I remember several of the important statements which he made, such as “even worms won’t eat white flour.” That kind of stuff. It was good. It was interesting. It was true—maybe it wasn’t true about the worms, but it was good stuff about proteins and so on. And then he went on and described the Federal Pure Food and Drug Act, and he explained how it protects you. He explained that on every product that claims to be a good health food that’s supposed to help you with minerals and this and that, there must be a label on the bottle which tells exactly what’s in it, what it does, and all claims must be explicit, so that if it’s wrong, so on and so on. He gives them everything. I said, “How is he going to make any money?” Out come the bottles. It comes out, finally, that he sells this special health food, of course, in a brownish bottle. And it just so happens that he has just come in, and he’s been in a hurry, and he hasn’t had time to put the labels on. And here are the labels that belong on the bottles, and here are the bottles, and he’s in a hurry to sell them, and he gives you the bottle, and you stick it on yourself. That man had courage. He first explained what to do, what to worry about, and then he went ahead and did it.

  I found another lecture which was somewhat analogous to that one. And that was the second Danz lecture given by myself. I started out by pointing out that things were completely unscientific, that things were uncertain, particularly in political matters, and that there were the two nations, Russia and the United States, at odds with each other. And then by some mystic hocus-pocus it came out that we were the good guys and they were the bad guys. Yet, at the beginning, there was no way to decide which was the better of the two. In fact, that was the main point of the lecture. So by some sort of magic I produced some kind of relative certainty out of uncertainty. I told you about the bottle with the labels, and then I came out on the other end with a label on my bottle. How did I do it? You have to think about it a little bit. One thing, of course, that we can be certain of, once we’re uncertain, and that is that we are uncertain. Somebody says “No, maybe I’m sure.” Actually, though, the gimmick in that particular lecture, the weak point in the whole thing, the thing that requires further development and study is this one: I made an impassioned plea for the idea that it’s good to have an open channel, that there’s value in uncertainty, that it’s more important to permit us to discover new things, rather than to choose a solution that we now make up—that to choose a solution, no matter how we choose it now is to choose a much worse thing than what we would get if we waited and worked things out. And that’s where I made the choice, and I am not sure of that choice. Okay. I have now destroyed authority.

  Associated with these problems of lack of information and so forth, but particularly lack of information, there are a number of phenomena that are more serious, I believe, than astrology.

  I, in preparation for this lecture, investigated something that was in my town, in the shopping center. There was a store with a flag in front. And it’s the Americanism Center, Altadena Americanism Center. And so I went into the Americanism Center to find out what it is, and it’s a volunteer organization. And on the front outside, there is a Constitution and the Bill of Rights and so on, and a letter which explains their purpose, which is to maintain rights and so on, all in accordance with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and so on. That’s the general idea. What they do in there is simply educative. They have books that people could buy on the various subjects that help to teach the ideas of citizenship and so on, and they have, among other books, also Congressional records, pamphlets on Congressional investigations and so on, so that people who are studying these problems can read them. They have study groups which meet at night, and so on. So, being interested in rights for people, I asked, since I said I didn’t know very much about it, I would like a book on the problem of the freedom of the Negroes to vote in the South. There was nothing. Yes, there was. There was one thing which turned up later, two things which I saw out of the corner of my eye. One was what went on in Mississippi according to the Oxford city fathers, and the other was a little pamphlet called “The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and Communism.”

  So I discussed it at some greater length to discover what was going on and talked to the lady for a while, and she explained among other things (we talked about many things—we did this on a friendly basis, you will be surprised to hear) that she was not a member of the Birch Society but there was something that you could say for the Birch Society, she saw some movie about it and so on, and there was something that she could say for it. You’re not a fence sitter when you’re in the Birch Society. At least you know what you’re for, because you don’t have to join it if you don’t want to, and this is what Mr. Welch said, and this is the way the Birch Society is, and if you believe in this then you join, and if you don’t believe in this then you shouldn’t join. It sounds just like the Communist Party. It’s all very well if they have no power. But if they have power, it’s a completely different situation. I tried to explain to her that this is not the kind of freedom that was being talked about, that in any organization there ought to be the possibility of discussion. That fence sitting is an art, and it’s difficult, and it’s important to do, rather than to go headlong in one direction or the other. It’s just better to have action, isn’t it, than to sit on the fence? Not if you’re not sure which way to go, it isn’t.

  So I bought a couple of things there, just at random that they had. One of the things was called “The Dan Smoot Report”—it’s a good name—and it talked about the Constitution, and a general idea I’ll outline: that the Constitution was right the way it was written in the first place. And all the modifications that have come in are just the mistakes. Fundamentalists, only not in the Bible but in the Constitution. And then it goes on to give the ratings of Congressmen in votes, how they voted. And it said, very specifically and after explaining about their ideas, “The following give the ratings of the congressmen and senators with regard to whether they vote for or against the Constitution.” Mind you that these ratings are not just an opinion, but they are based on fact. They are a matter of voting record. Fact. There’s no opinion at all. It’s just the voting record, and, of course, each item is either for or against the Constitution. Naturally. Medicare is against the Constitution, and so on. I tried to explain that they violate their own principles. According to the Constitution there are supposed to be votes. It isn’t supposed to be automatically determinable ahead of time on each one of the items what’s right and what’s wrong. Otherwise there wouldn’t be the bother to invent the Senate to have the votes. As long as you have the votes at all, then the purpose of the votes is to try to make up your mind which is the way to
go. And it isn’t possible for somebody to determine by fact ahead of time what is the situation. It violates its own principle.

  It starts out all right, with the good, and love, and Christ, and so on, and it builds itself up until it’s afraid of an enemy. And then it forgets its original idea. It turns itself inside out and becomes absolutely contrary to the beginning. I believe that the people who start some of these things, especially the volunteer ladies of Altadena, have a good heart and understand a little bit that it’s good, the Constitution, and so on, but they are led astray in the system of the thing. How, I can’t exactly get at, and what to do to keep from doing this, I don’t exactly know.

  I went still further into the thing and found out what the study group was about, and if you don’t mind I’ll tell you what that was about. They gave me some papers. There were a lot of chairs, you see, in the room, and they explained to me, yes, that evening they had a study group, and they gave me a thing which described what they were going to study. And I made some notes from it. It had to do with the S.P.X.R.A. In 1943 the S.P.X. research associates—which turns out to be the . . . well, I’ll tell you what it turns out to be—came into being through the professional interest of intelligence officers then on active duty in the armed forces of the United States concerning the Soviet revival of a long dormant tenth principle of warfare. Paralysis. See the evil. Dormant. Mysterious. Frightening. The mystic people of the military orders have had principles of warfare since the Roman legions. Number one. Number two. Number three. This is number ten. We don’t have to know what number seven is. The whole idea that there are long dormant principles of warfare, much less that there is a tenth principle of warfare, is an absurdity. And then what is this principle of paralysis? How are they going to use the idea? The boogie man is now generated. How do you use the boogie man? You use the boogie man as follows: This educational program concerns itself with all the areas where Soviet pressure can be used to paralyze the American will to resist. Agriculture, arts, and cultural exchange. Science, education, information media, finance, economics, government, labor, law, medicine, and our armed forces, and religion, that most sensitive of areas. In other words, we now have an open machine for pointing out that everybody who says something that you don’t agree with has been paralyzed by the mystic force of the tenth principle of warfare.

  This is a phenomenon analogous to paranoia. It is impossible to disprove the tenth principle. It’s only possible if you have a certain balance, a certain understanding of the world, to appreciate that it’s out of balance, to think that the Supreme Court—which turns out to be an “instrument of global conquest”—has been paralyzed. Everything is paralyzed. You see how fearful it becomes, the terrible power which is demonstrated again and again by one example after the other of this fearful force which is made up.

  This describes what a paranoia is like. A woman gets nervous. She begins to suspect that her husband is trying to make trouble for her. She doesn’t like to let him into the house. He tries to get into the house, proves that he’s trying to make trouble for her. He gets a friend to try to talk to her. She knows that it’s a friend, and she knows in her mind, which is going to one side, that this is only further evidence of the terrible fright and the fear that she’s building up in her mind. Her neighbors come over to console her for a while. It works fairly well, for a while. They go back to their houses. The friend of the husband goes to visit them. They are spoiled now, and they are going to tell her husband all the terrible things she said. Oh dear, what did she say? And he’s going to be able to use them against her. She calls up the police department. She says, “I’m afraid.” She’s locked in her house now. She says, “I’m afraid. Somebody’s trying to get into the house.” They come, they try to talk to her, they realize that there is nobody trying to get into the house. They have to go away. She remembers that her husband was important in the city. She remembers that he had a friend in the police department. The police department is only part of the scheme. It only proves it once again. She looks through the window of the house, and she sees across the way someone stopping at a neighbor’s house. What are they talking about? In the backyard, she sees something coming up over a bush. They’re watching her with a telescope! It turns out later to be some children playing in the back with a stick. A continuous and perpetual buildup, until the entire population is involved. The lawyer that she called, she remembers, was the lawyer once for a friend of her husband. The doctor who has been trying to get her to the hospital is now obviously on the side of the husband.

  The only way out is to have some balance, to think that it’s impossible that the whole city is against her, that everybody is going to pay attention to this husband of mine who’s such a dope, that everybody’s going to do all these things, that there’s a complete accumulation. All the neighbors, everybody’s against her. It’s out of proportion. It’s only out of proportion. How can you explain to somebody who hasn’t got a sense of proportion?

  And so it is with these people. They don’t have a sense of proportion. And so they will believe in such a possibility as the Soviet tenth principle of warfare. The only way that I can think to beat the game is to point the following out. They’re right. And like my friend with the bottle with the label, the Soviets are very, very ingenious and clever indeed. They even tell us what they’re doing to us. You see, these people, these research associates are really in the hire of the Soviets who are using this method of paralysis. And what they want us to do is to lose faith in the Supreme Court, to lose faith in the Agriculture Department, to lose faith in the scientists and all the people who help us in all kinds of ways and so on and so on, and lose faith in all sorts of ways, and it’s a way that they have entered into this movement of freedom that everybody wanted, this thing with all the flags and the Constitution, and they’ve gotten in on it, and they’re getting in there, and they’re going to paralyze it. Proof. In their own words. S.P.X.R.A. has qualified, under oath, in the United States court as the leading, American authority on the tenth principle. Where did they get the information? There’s only one place. From the Soviet Union.

  This paranoia, this phenomenon—I shouldn’t call it a paranoia, I’m not a doctor, I don’t know—but this phenomenon is a terrible one, and it has caused mankind and individuals a terrible unhappiness.

  And another example of the same thing is the famous Protocol of the Elders of Zion, which was a fake document. It was supposed to be a meeting of the old Jews and the leaders of Zion in which they had gotten together and cooked up a scheme for the domination of the world. International bankers, international, you know . . . a great big marvelous machine! Just out of proportion. But it wasn’t so far out of proportion that people didn’t believe it; and it was one of the strongest forces in the development of anti-Semitism.

  What I am asking for in many directions is an abject honesty. I think that we should have a more abject honesty in political matters. And I think we’ll be freer that way.

  I would like to point out that people are not honest. Scientists are not honest at all, either. It’s useless. Nobody’s honest. Scientists are not honest. And people usually believe that they are. That makes it worse. By honest I don’t mean that you only tell what’s true. But you make clear the entire situation. You make clear all the information that is required for somebody else who is intelligent to make up their mind.

  For example, in connection with nuclear testing, I don’t know myself whether I am for nuclear testing or against nuclear testing. There are reasons on both sides. It makes radioactivity, and it’s dangerous, and it’s also very bad to have a war. But whether it’s going to be more likely to have a war or less likely to have a war because you test, I don’t know. Whether preparation will stop the war, or lack of preparation, I don’t know. So I’m not trying to say I’m on either side. That’s why I can be abjectly honest on this one.

  The big question comes, of course, whether there’s a danger from radioactivity. In my opinion the greatest da
nger and the greatest question on nuclear testing is the question of its future effects. The deaths and the radioactivity which would be caused by the war would be so many times more than the nuclear testing that the effects that it would have in the future are far more important than the infinitesimal amount of radioactivity produced now. How infinitesimal is the amount, however? Radioactivity is bad. Nobody knows a good effect of general radioactivity. So if you increase the general amount of radioactivity in the air, you are producing something not good. Therefore nuclear testing in this respect produces something not good. If you are a scientist, then, you have the right and should point out this fact.

  On the other hand, the thing is quantitative. The question is how much is not good? You can play games and show that you will kill 10 million people in the next 2000 years with it. If I were to walk in front of a car, hoping that I will have some more children in the future, I also will kill 10,000 people in the next 10,000 years, if you figure it out, from a certain way of calculating. The question is how big is the effect? And the last time . . . (I wish I had—I should, of course, have checked these figures, but let me put it differently.) The next time you hear a talk, ask the questions which I point out to you, because I asked some questions the last time I heard a talk, and I can remember the answers, but I haven’t checked them very recently, so I don’t have any figures, but I at least asked the question. How much is the increase in radioactivity compared to the general variations in the amount of radioactivity from place to place? The amounts of background radioactivity in a wooden building and a brick building are quite different, because the wood is less radioactive than the bricks.