This quote was also phrased, "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."

I think that version does a little bit more in explaining the meaning. It means that we must develop our intelligence and level of thought if we are to find the answers to problems we create. He also said, "The important thing is not to stop questioning."

What he is saying is that we need to always strive to have a better understanding of things if we are to survive and prosper as a people.

I think what he's saying is that by the time a situation degenerates itself into what we call a problem, it's no longer a simple, easy-to-fix, nip-it-in-the-bud thing. Repairing something that's broken is never as simple as preventing it from getting broken in the first place. Another way of stating it is, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

Einstein is one of my heros. One of the reasons for that was that he looked at physics from the standpoint of a child. He realized that a solution to a problem cannot be reach as long as you continue to look at it from the same perspective as the guy that confused it in the first place. He often looked at a problem as one that was seeing the world for the first time. It could be said that the "level" in which the genious chose to solve problem was a lower one. Not assuming that you are going to solve it because you are "so damb smart, and educated".

I was going to post a simular quote here as Sketchy, but he beat me to it.

I think he's being quoted out of context!

A problem is always born at a certain level of social consciousness. The United States was pro-slavery until our consciousness shifted, rose above our previous misconstrued ideas, and addressed the issue. Individually, a person cannot solve a problem at the level of consciousness it was created. That level must be transcended, a feat only a spark of creativity can truly achieve. New levels are reached by taking a new, creative approach and then looking back at the problem Creativity is needed to get to a new level of consciousness to address a created problem.

A problem created, and creativity addressing that problem are just two poles of the sames process. Creation, positive or negative can only be matched with a creative solution.

You have to use first order mathematics! Or just do as Einstein would, just have some one else solve it for him! He stole so much from so many that he has no right what so ever to any of the acclaim!

To me it is simple: To change our Thinking, we must change our Actions.

It means you have to remove yourself from the problem before you can get a true perspective of it.

A similar expression is, "You can't see the forest for the trees." If you were able to rise high above the trees, you'd be able to see the forest itself, not just individual trees.

The process, to overcome the level at which the problem was created, is
connected with the following phrases:

He must rise above to find something greater.
To rise above the clutter.
Rise above the rest.
To rise above the level of cliche.
To rise above the mediocre and conventional
To rise above individual interest and to embrace our common interest.
Reality is something that you rise above
To rise above it all and not be sucked into something lower.

"So this is the great insight with which we are concerned; this is the great lightning flash that Zarathustra teaches 'the overman', teaches that man is something that shall be overcome, and asks 'What have you done to overcome him?' That means, of course, to overcome yourself. Other, lesser flashes follow, and the other flashes show us how Nietzsche arrived at the concept of the overman. Nietzsche quite clearly, quite explicitly, arrived at the concept of the overman by consideration of the general nature of the evolutionary process. Zarathustra, in this prologue - or rather Nietzsche - points out that so far in history all beings have created something beyond themselves. They never stopped. They never came to a halt. Every being, every kind of being, has created something beyond itself, has given birth as it were to something higher than itself in the evolutionary scale. And Nietzsche, through the mouth of Zarathustra, says that there is no reason to suppose that this process will stop with man. He says, clearly, explicitly: the ape created man. And in the same way, in an even higher way, an even better way, more glorious way, man himself must now create the overman by overcoming himself. And this means that he must learn to look down on himself, to despise himself, to be dissatisfied and discontented and disgruntled with himself; because it is only when he begins to look down on himself that he can begin to rise above himself and be something higher and greater and nobler than he was."

http://centrebouddhisteparis.org/.../to_be_overcome.html

A wish to overcome whatever obstacles block our aspirations, whatever stops us reaching our goal, is natural. This is done through rising above the problem either in a positive sense, by realizing letting go can often liberate the intent, or in a negative sense of avoidance and denial. To rise above something is the way of transcendence. As well as rising above the problem, it is possible to become immersed in it, investigating and working within its field of influence, watching for the outcome to emerge, allowing the process of soul to unfold. This is the positive side of immanence.

http://209.85.175.104/custom

Everything we have ever known was created and thus we will never be able to solve the greatest question of all... the origin! Perhaps this is Einsteins way of being pretentious as he actually does attempt to do so...