In one of the letters written to the Infeld group in Warsaw Einstein wrote:
"A new manner of thinking is essential if humankind is to survive."

  

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ASTONISHING CAREER OF THE ASSIGNMENT OPERATOR.
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Let us note the astonishing career of the assignment operator "is" in 
the European culture. Grammatically it happens to be a verb and in spite 
of its auxiliary function it admits formally the infinitive "to be" just 
like the verb "to talk". However, while "to talk" clearly designates a 
specific action, "to be" does not designate anything at all, unless specifying 
"to be what". "To be (a) table ..." or, explicitly "to be an INSTANCE of 
the TYPE "table" ..." is an expression introducing the definition, 
the type "table": "To be (a) table, an object has to satisfy the following 
definition ...".

"To be (a) table ..." is a way of saying "table means ...", a clumsy
way perhaps, but still meaningful. "To be" by itself, on the contrary,
does not mean anything at all. Consequently, the most famous question 
of the European culture "to be, or not to be" is no question at all and 
two most important philosophical works of our century "L'Etre et le Néant" 
and "Sein und Zeit" have meaningless titles.
We are certainly aware, of the misunderstanding being largely verbal.
"To be" may imply "to exist", "to live", "to be conscious ...".
Nevertheless, the usage of the vague cliché "to be" rather than clearer 
and more elegant "to live" or "to exist" illustrates the tendency to 
intellectual pretension dressed up as pseudo-mysticism, tendency deeply 
rooted in our culture.

Strangely enough, the most mystical language of the Judeo-Christian 
culture, the Hebrew, does without the auxiliary "is".
"(The) house is great" is in Hebrew "bait gadol", "house great".
Assignment operator is implicit, but the assignment is carried out
as clearly as in English. No "is" results in no "to be". ("Lihiyot" has
an entirely different connotation). Shakespeare's question cannot be
directly translated into Hebrew. Absence of the misleading cliché
directs the ontological interrogation towards its legitimate domains
of existence, life and awareness, which possibly accounts for the relative 
sincerity of Hebrew mysticism.

The so called "linguistic subconsciousness" seams to confirm our view.
Indeed, one does not say "table is", but "there is a table" which suggests
pointing to some particular table existing in some physical, or imaginary
context. French "il y a une table" (one has there a table) goes further
and, while keeping the pointing 'there', replaces auxiliary 'is' with 'has' 
thus suggesting a subject having in his context 'this there' table.
German goes still further replacing 'is' with 'gives': "es gibt einen Tisch"
(a table is given) thus suggesting an object-datum 'table'.
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