What did Einstein mean when he said "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one"?

No, Norse, he was NOT joking. He was allowing his extreme metaphysical skepticism to show through. "Einstein, most likely because of his scientific achievements, was voted one of the ten outstanding skeptics of the twentieth century by the Fellows and Scientific Consultants of CSICOP (see Skeptical Inquirer, January/ February 2000).

However, Einstein was no skeptic when evaluating evidence outside of his field of expertise." But as this link demonstrates, he was a skeptic only within his own field, yet very certain of his beliefs in the political arena. http://www.csicop.org/si/show/myth_of_co... He also said, ""When I examined myself and my methods of thought, I came to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge."

http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/weird/skepq... So he was skeptical even of his own scientific methods. To prove my assertion, he also said this: "The skeptic will say, 'It may well be true that this system of equations is reasonable from a logical standpoint, but this does not prove that it corresponds to nature.' You are right, dear skeptic. Experience alone can decide on truth."

http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/weird/skepq... When Copernicus finished the work that Galileo would use to destroy Aristotle's cosmology, he said he could not believe his work was correct because it was so counter-intuitive--after all, we cannot feel the earth spinning. Yet he KNEW his math was correct and still could not eliminate his skepticism, to the point that he refused to allow it to be published until just before his death. He knew the rest of the world would be more skeptical than he was.

Einstein said precisely the same thing about his own Theory of Special Relativity--he couldn't imagine how it could be true, but he knew, or believed, that it was.

Merely an illusion because every species sees the world in a different way. Every species perception of reality is different. We are "made" by nature to perceive the world in a certain way.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.