What is Energy?

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
There have been many cases where religion and science clashed historically, to the detriment of religion. I did not write this law, and it has been around for a very long time, since the 19th century. All it takes to disprove a scientific law is one exception, this has not happened.

What has happened is science has established matter and energy are the same thing. If you can create energy from nothing, you can create matter from nothing. Folks who believe this is possible generally believe in magic, since it is pretty much the same thing.

If you're religious beliefs include magic that is your choice, it is an issue of faith. I'll go with science in predicting what will happen under a set of circumstances though.
 

sceadwian

Joined Jun 1, 2009
499
I agree with you in principal Bill but.
I'll go with science in predicting what will happen under a set of circumstances though.
We can't even predict the weather over a course of hours, the scientific analysis of airflow even in a common household is so complex there's no super computer model that would be able to predict it over any length of time.

Reality is so complex that even with the proper theory, understanding or prediction of any meaningful sort is absolutely impossible because the human mind and even all the technology it has at it's disposal is multiple orders of magnitude unable to deal with the sheer scale of the real world.

This is where God comes in, it's the name we put to everything we can't possibly ever truly understand, which in the end regardless of the proliferation of mathematics and science will always be everything real.

I'm truly a person that believes in absolute raw science, I however know, simply looking out a window at the clouds in the sky that no math can ever explain that. Science will always win over god for physical understanding by philosophy and human nature won't allow us to be that simple removed entity from ourselves, we're thinking feeling human beings and that can't be overlooked in the grand scheme of things because it's that thinking feeling humna nature that is seeking the science, understanding, and will always come up short due to the total system complexity.

I personally know for fact that mathematically speaking detailed understanding of complex systems is not within the realm of human capability, there's more going on internally in a lump of rock the size of a quarter than the known computational power of the entire human race can calculate. Believe me when I say it will continue to go on even with we can't calculate it =)
 
I see that the topic has created a chain of philosophical thoughts.

Once I think about energy I think about its meaning, which is embedded in the word itself.

Energy = en (inside) + ergon (work)

Which means the ability of an object to perform a work.

Beside that, energy as everything that has been explained by humankind is part of a modeling process that we do to explain the life we see as it is.

Modeling means approximating using our "tools" (math for instance) to predict a certain event. If we predict what we are trying to model, the model works...otherwise does not!

The rest is philosophy or madness...which is sometime a good starting point for a new theory...a new model!

Ciao,

Mauro
 

Thread Starter

easycheez

Joined Sep 19, 2010
11
Goes back to my personal opinion on the nature of the everyverse, no one universe together make any sense alone, the interacts are going to be milenia or never in understanding. The entire every-verse when looked at altogether is however a closed system, things move around there is never a loss of energy into an outside system because there isn't one to lose the energy to.

The big bang for our known perceptual existence does no rule out a steady state universe.
I, personally, am inclined towards the steady state and oscillating universe theories, since these can also include the Big Bang (Plank's Constant). I think of it as a simple circuit: there is only a potential at the source until the loop is closed, then there is kinetic. I'm sure that is a oversimplification of the basics.
 

Thread Starter

easycheez

Joined Sep 19, 2010
11
This law which you wrote:
"energy can not be created or destroyed ....." is a physical rule and a fact. But you can imagine some idealized objects like GOD with whom another rules govern and he can create energy from nothing.
Accepting the existence of this object in mind, releases the mind from an unanswered question.
Though in my opinion this existence and power can not be verified by us because it contradicts our facts but it can exist in our mind.
Interesting. A *conscious* object is certainly a theory, that may or may not be governed by the same set of rules. But I digress, that path as a way to discovery and knowledge is perhaps best left to the philosophers and theologians.
 

logicman112

Joined Dec 27, 2008
69
My purpose of idealized objects are those which exist in our mind ONLY, like point and line(in geometry).

It seems to me that our knowledge is limited because there are many unanswered questions in this world and this forces us to accept many things without reasoning. (Even if other people have knowledge about some thing we may be at the time and opportunity which can not understand it sometimes!)

We all have experienced it at the university when professor said something but we did not understand but we accepted it!! We knew that it was 100% right and a fact!

In my opinion we'd better accept some laws or statements without even having solid reasoning with only one condition:
"If that statement reduces pain and hardship".

We all keep ourselves away from pain, sometimes some of us take himself into trouble and pain for a short period of time but it is for the great future pleasure he will experience later on. So that the average pleasure he receives will be more than a person who did not go through that temporary pain.

From all these words I want to reach the concept of GOD, when you accept it, when you do some good things in the Bible, or other holly books(Holly books introduce GOD), like not killing people, not to become angry soon, to forgive others, to punish people who oppress others and in short when you believe in GOD, messengers, good behaviour, politeness, angels and so on, you will reduce the pain in life and you will improve the average pleasure you get out of life even though you may fell into trouble a bit more than regular people sometimes.

(For example, when somebody has done sex with women many times and with many women with different figures, he will reduce his sexual pleasure in comparison with a man who has limited himself ONLY to his wife. The latter person does sex less but each sex has a lot more pleasure and if you add the total pleasure, in my opinion he will receive the more pleasure......)
 

retched

Joined Dec 5, 2009
5,207
(For example, when somebody has done sex with women many times and with many women with different figures, he will reduce his sexual pleasure in comparison with a man who has limited himself ONLY to his wife. The latter person does sex less but each sex has a lot more pleasure and if you add the total pleasure, in my opinion he will receive the more pleasure......)
So, what you are saying is my love life is over?

;)

Awww..
Thats Precious! If only it was explained like that earlier in life!
 

Thread Starter

easycheez

Joined Sep 19, 2010
11
I would like to keep this thread from derailing even further. While a *conscious* object is one theory, to paraphrase Bill earlier: sometimes that particular line of thought is detremental to science and discovery. In the past when seemingly complex natural occurances could not be explained, then too often the default position of God was used to explain.

It's neither here nor there if one accepts the*conscious* theory, since it still does not fully explain the "how".

To remain intellectually honest, I must explore and ask for knowledge. I asked what theories are there that are trying to explain how there is energy, that does not violate the energy laws? Which ones have the best evidence?

Perhaps we can get this thread back to physics now.
 

Thread Starter

easycheez

Joined Sep 19, 2010
11
I see that the topic has created a chain of philosophical thoughts.

Once I think about energy I think about its meaning, which is embedded in the word itself.

Energy = en (inside) + ergon (work)

Which means the ability of an object to perform a work.

Beside that, energy as everything that has been explained by humankind is part of a modeling process that we do to explain the life we see as it is.

Modeling means approximating using our "tools" (math for instance) to predict a certain event. If we predict what we are trying to model, the model works...otherwise does not!

The rest is philosophy or madness...which is sometime a good starting point for a new theory...a new model!

Ciao,

Mauro
I was thinking about the image Einstein used to help explain space-time the other day. About how an object warps space-time around it. Say, if we have two bowling balls sitting on a table. Then the potential of those balls will never change until an outside object acts upon them. But if we put the same two bowling balls on a bed, then the bed "warps" and the balls move towards each other: the space-time interaction, then, provides the means of kinetic energy; the two objects can now do work.

Does this sound like a correct analogy?
 

sceadwian

Joined Jun 1, 2009
499
If this thread is to be prevented from derailing any further the last page or two worth of posts should probably be edited and deleted by a moderator and the thread locked =)
 
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