What is energy
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Re: What is energy
So I might as well put in here what I submitted in "Is energy consciouness?"
What we tend to presume, however, as to what energy is, is a limited presumption due to the limitation of a brain which thinks it can objectively assess what energy is based on 3 dimensional experience. The brain's analytical function IS ITSELF 3 dimensional. It conceives and perceives Life (energy) in a 3D and therefore linear way. To experience and view life other than with this convention requires a different experience and/or a different understanding.
Our brain's commit a process of narrowing energy into 3 dimensional forms, which we usually often presume IS life as a totality, which we then mistakenly claim as "consciousness" or as "being conscious". This narrow view is an inherently limited consciousness just as it is a limiting of energy. Our body-minds are CONTAINED energy, therefore not necessarily free-flowing.
A personality's demonstration as an open character, one who appears as free in thought - emotionally free, represents this "free-flowing" ideal. This is what I presume to be a more accurate description of Love. "Love", therefore, as a constant sacrifice of every limitation as each limitation arises. The (false) self, "I" or "ME", is a limitation and as such must, at some point or stage within Existence, be sacrificed. "I" is merely BELIEVED to be who or what you are. This process of "sacrifice" is represented in the symbolic and mythological gesture of crucifixion where one's BELIEFS are "crucified" in order to "rise again". A "re-awakening", in other words.
- Taylorthephilosopher
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Re: What is energy
"to do work" is to exert effort, and to exert effort is to behave in a way which requires intention.
Energy, therefore, seems to possess the same trait that consciousness is defined by.
Energy, it seems, is conscious.
And If you are connected to a certain "wavelength" of reality you are able to see that every single little bit of everything is animated by life; and is life.
The little beam of light streaming out in every direction from the carbon dioxide monitor above your bed at night, upon inspection from this wavelength, will be alive to dance the night away singing tales of eternal ecstacy.
At least... one time when I was on drugs.
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Re: What is energy
Well, what is drugs other than another view? The conventional "sober" view is as illusory (maybe even more so).Taylorthephilosopher wrote:Energy is "the ability to do work", and Consciousness is "the ability to possess intention"
"to do work" is to exert effort, and to exert effort is to behave in a way which requires intention.
Energy, therefore, seems to possess the same trait that consciousness is defined by.
Energy, it seems, is conscious.
And If you are connected to a certain "wavelength" of reality you are able to see that every single little bit of everything is animated by life; and is life.
The little beam of light streaming out in every direction from the carbon dioxide monitor above your bed at night, upon inspection from this wavelength, will be alive to dance the night away singing tales of eternal ecstacy.
At least... one time when I was on drugs.
- Taylorthephilosopher
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Re: What is energy
Could that have been the idea I was winking at?Granth wrote:Well, what is drugs other than another view? The conventional "sober" view is as illusory (maybe even more so).
- Dawson
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Re: What is energy
I am very familiar with this kind of experience. I've often wondered whether certain drugs short circuit the mind's rational ability to make a conceptual distinction between 'seeing as' and 'it being such'.Taylorthephilosopher wrote:Energy is "the ability to do work", and Consciousness is "the ability to possess intention"
"to do work" is to exert effort, and to exert effort is to behave in a way which requires intention.
Energy, therefore, seems to possess the same trait that consciousness is defined by.
Energy, it seems, is conscious.
And If you are connected to a certain "wavelength" of reality you are able to see that every single little bit of everything is animated by life; and is life.
The little beam of light streaming out in every direction from the carbon dioxide monitor above your bed at night, upon inspection from this wavelength, will be alive to dance the night away singing tales of eternal ecstacy.
At least... one time when I was on drugs.
Then one can go on to wonder whether in general such a distinction, in situations where we're not concerned with practical outcomes, is important or necessary.
But then I suppose that if we are interested in a philosophical quest to approach more closely to the 'truth', then we have to consider every possibility in order to insure that we are not indulging in unintended or, perhaps even deliberate,perhaps emotionally motivated, obfuscation.
Many 'non-philosophers' (religionists, poets, artists) are content to believe whatever makes them feel good, or inspires them,and for them, that's fine too.
I guess we have to find out what kind of people we are or want to be in order to decide what we will be content with.
- Taylorthephilosopher
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Re: What is energy
Dawson wrote:
(Nested quote removed.)
I am very familiar with this kind of experience. I've often wondered whether certain drugs short circuit the mind's rational ability to make a conceptual distinction between 'seeing as' and 'it being such'.
Then one can go on to wonder whether in general such a distinction, in situations where we're not concerned with practical outcomes, is important or necessary.
But then I suppose that if we are interested in a philosophical quest to approach more closely to the 'truth', then we have to consider every possibility in order to insure that we are not indulging in unintended or, perhaps even deliberate,perhaps emotionally motivated, obfuscation.
Many 'non-philosophers' (religionists, poets, artists) are content to believe whatever makes them feel good, or inspires them,and for them, that's fine too.
I guess we have to find out what kind of people we are or want to be in order to decide what we will be content with.
"Why does the human imagine a vain thing?"
Much has been hallucination it seems,
but some has assuredly been a reflection of real reality.
Whether we are sober and awake or intoxicatedly sleeping,
we can not be sure any experiences are more real than imagined.
God put a knife to my throat one day during meditation,
he told me his son was sacrifice for my forgiveness.
I begged and promised saying I would become better,
God happily released me and next moment I came to a conclusion,
it was all just delusion caused by marijuana and psychosis.
I should really know better.
"Why does the human imagine a vain thing?"
- Dawson
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Re: What is energy
in the words of the exemplary
power (of religion and the dance of flames
for the sake of love in the cave of ethics) in favour of
faith, more than faith given the belief in the rightness
and universality through experiment.
All this untimeliness proceeds from our experience,
through the gateway of five senses,
and the ovulation
of the world around us. These and all other observations
and all subjective, imaginal,
affective elements purged
from our predications of actual outcomes,
and hence useful in a practical sense.
Some oftimes
these very successful theories have then
later been possessors, it is only by appealing
to the absolution of universals or the but no non-sense
in relation to metaphysicals it must
be stated, it is hard to see how any
absolute acceptance of the ‘ultimate’ truth-value .
plausibility sometimes enters the equation
somewhere. As an example
at the palace of ‘god created the universe
and everything in it
then to stand up and state that
“Mickey Mouse created the world
and associated references of those names
above to the idea nonsensically only
of metaphysical statements, dumb
questions of philosophy, namely ‘What are the
limits of our world of the everyday, the
world of the justification in someone’s
experience, a theory of worlds circa now to be
absorbed directly from the world of concepts.
Obviously this is done through the sensory
involvement of the senses
in this is only instrumental and has little to do
with the conceptual language/poetic language?
art of evocation? evoke knowledge?
Or end insight?
-
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- Joined: July 20th, 2012, 11:56 pm
Re: What is energy
Wonderful!Dawson wrote:Kneel now to say our prayers
in the words of the exemplary
power (of religion and the dance of flames
for the sake of love in the cave of ethics) in favour of
faith, more than faith given the belief in the rightness
and universality through experiment.
All this untimeliness proceeds from our experience,
through the gateway of five senses,
and the ovulation
of the world around us. These and all other observations
and all subjective, imaginal,
affective elements purged
from our predications of actual outcomes,
and hence useful in a practical sense.
Some oftimes
these very successful theories have then
later been possessors, it is only by appealing
to the absolution of universals or the but no non-sense
in relation to metaphysicals it must
be stated, it is hard to see how any
absolute acceptance of the ‘ultimate’ truth-value .
plausibility sometimes enters the equation
somewhere. As an example
at the palace of ‘god created the universe
and everything in it
then to stand up and state that
“Mickey Mouse created the world
and associated references of those names
above to the idea nonsensically only
of metaphysical statements, dumb
questions of philosophy, namely ‘What are the
limits of our world of the everyday, the
world of the justification in someone’s
experience, a theory of worlds circa now to be
absorbed directly from the world of concepts.
Obviously this is done through the sensory
involvement of the senses
in this is only instrumental and has little to do
with the conceptual language/poetic language?
art of evocation? evoke knowledge?
Or end insight?
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- Joined: December 17th, 2012, 5:25 pm
Re: What is energy
I suppose it is to me, but it's also obvious that all the neuroscienctists in the world, I would be no closer to the essence of consciousness. I think this is characteristic of all forms of specialisation, if in an attempt to understand the whole, we for some reason concentrate of a particular part, then the whole disappears, and we're left thinking that the part we can see is in fact the whole. Any attempt to understand reality, is necessarily an attempt to understand many different parts that make up the sum of existence, and trying to understand any part in isolation is bound to be a fruitless operation. A mechanic could describe and understand the principles of a car, and a biologist could understand the principles of the man driving, but just combining these two disciplines would not bring a complete understanding of why and how auto locomotion exists, even the addition of theology, would probably not be sufficient to understand, additional sub divisions such as those of historical, and geographical considerations would need consideration. So what I'm trying to say is that simply by passing questions over to different specialisations, does not help to understand those individual fields, there needs to be a combined understanding of the whole, if it is the whole we seek to understand. If our understanding is thought of as a mental simulation of the system, then that simulation cannot be smaller than the events we wish to understand, so we therefore need to have a mental simulation of all the parts as an integrated whole.
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Re: What is energy
That should be obvious, it's not known.Bohm2 wrote:How about the universe before life?
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Re: What is energy
And it depends on what one means by life or universe. They are words to describe something.wanabe wrote: (Nested quote removed.)
That should be obvious, it's not known.
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Re: What is energy
- Consul
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Re: What is energy
QUOTE>
"energy. A measure of a system’s ability to do work. Like work itself, it is measured in joules. Energy is conveniently classified into two forms: potential energy is the energy stored in a body or system as a consequence of its position, shape, or state (this includes gravitational energy, electrical energy, nuclear energy, and chemical energy); kinetic energy is energy of motion and is usually defined as the work that will be done by the body possessing the energy when it is brought to rest."
(Oxford Dictionary of Physics. 8th ed. Edited by Richard Rennie. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. p. 185)
"work. work done by a force acting on a body is the product of the force and the distance moved by its point of application in the direction of the force."
(Oxford Dictionary of Physics. 8th ed. Edited by Richard Rennie. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. p. 666)
<QUOTE
Here's the definition of "energy" in the Oxford Dictionary of English:
QUOTE>
"energy
=def
1. Power actively and efficiently displayed or exerted. Sometimes in pl. in same sense.
2. Effectual operation; efficacy. Obs.
3. pl. Individual powers in exercise; activities.
4. Power not necessarily manifested in action; ability or capacity to produce an effect.
5. Physics. The power of 'doing work' possessed at any instant by a body or system of bodies."
<QUOTE
The term "energy" goes back to Aristotle and his distinction between dynamis and energeia. By the former he means power or potentiality (potency, ability, capacity), and by the latter he means the exercise of power, manifested or activated potentiality, power in action or operation, power at work, activity, operativity, effectivity.
It is very important to mention that powers or potentialities can exist without being exercised or manifested. An unexercised or unmanifested potentiality is not a mere possibility but an actuality/reality in itself, being an actual/real property rather than a merely possible one; so for a power to get activated or manifested is not for it to be actualized/realized in the sense of being brought into existence. A power doesn't become actual/real through its manifestation, because it is already actual/real before its manifestation, which needn't ever occur.
Note that the modern physical definition of "energy" as "the ability/capacity to do work" ("the power of doing work/to do work") corresponds to Aristotle's term "dynamis" rather than to his term "energeia", because energeia is doing work as the manifestation of dynamis as the power of doing work!
As for the categorial status of energy (in the modern physical sense) in ontology:
QUOTE>
"Energy is not a stuff. …Rather, energy is a real, quantitative property…. Not every property of an object consists of the object's possessing some sort of stuff. For example, to be happy is not to be filled with a large quantity of a special kind of stuff: 'happiness'. A body's velocity does not measure the amount of a stuff that it possesses. Likewise, neither a body's kinetic energy nor a field's energy is stuff. ...Since energy is a property, any energy (like velocity) cannot exist without something possessing it."
(Lange, Marc. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Physics: Locality, Fields, Energy, and Mass. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002. p. 152)
"In physics, energy means the ability to do work. Energy is an attribute (or 'property') of a physical object or of whatever is contained in a specified region of space."
(p. 311)
"Because energy is 'the ability to do work,' energy is not a substance. There is always something out there in space that possesses the 'ability,' that possesses the attribute in some quantitative measure (such as 17 joules). That something may be a tennis ball or a charged battery or an electromagnetic field, to mention just three examples.
We often talk about energy as though it were a substance, but it is not. Rather, motion confers the ability to do work, and so kinetic energy arises as an attribute. Position can confer the ability to do work, and so potential energy arises as an attribute jointly of object and source of force (as in an apple and the earth or an electron and the nucleus of an atom). Electromagnetic radiation has the ability to do work, and so we say that electromagnetic waves possess radiant energy, again an attribute, just like the waves' momentum. What we seem to mean by the phrase 'forms of energy' is that we can link the attribute 'ability to do work' with other attributes of a physical system, such as motion or position or wave amplitude.
How can we be sure that energy is not a substance? Relativity theory itself provides reasons; perhaps one will suffice here, as follows.
To begin with, let me note that physicists take momentum to be an attribute, not a thing or a substance. Because momentum is a quantity with a direction as well as a magnitude, momentum has (in general) components along all three directions (x, y, and z) defined by the axes of a reference frame. Relativity theory collects an electron's energy and the three components of its momentum into a single quantity with four components. (The technical name for that entity is the electron's energy-momentum four-vector.) Because the theory places energy and momentum on the same footing in that quantity, energy and momentum had better have the same ontological status: they must exist in the same way. Since momentum is surely an attribute, not a substance, the same must be true for energy.
In short, it is proper to say that something has energy. It is not correct to say that something is energy."
(pp. 322-3)
(Bailerlein, Ralph. Newton to Einstein: The Trail of Light. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.)
<QUOTE
As for the ontological concept of a substance: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/substance/
I too regard energy as an attribute (quantitative property, quantity) and not as a substance; but, for example, here are three Nobel Prize awardees who think that matter or material substance is inferior or even reducible to energy.
1. The German chemist Wilhelm Ostwald (1853–1932) developed an "energetic worldview" with "energy" as the fundamental physical category. He calls energy "die allgemeinste Substanz" ("the most general substance") and regards matter as nothing more than "ein Komplex von verschiedenen Energien" ("a complex of different energies").
* Ostwald, Wilhelm. Vorlesungen über Naturphilosophie. Leipzig: Veit & Co., 1902. p. 146
* Ostwald, Wilhelm. Die Energie. Leipzig: Barth, 1908. p. 143
2. The English neurophysiologist Charles Sherrington (1857–1952) writes that…
"The world is, so to say, a manifestation of energy. Indeed it is describable as one great manifold manifestation of energy."
(Sherrington, Charles. Man on his Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1940. p. 296)
3. The German physicist Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976) writes that…
QUOTE>
"[A]ll different elementary particles could be reduced to some universal substance which we may call energy or matter…" (p. 61)
"We may remark at this point that modern physics is in some way extremely near to the doctrines of Heraclitus. If we replace the word 'fire' by the word 'energy' we can almost repeat his statements word for word from our modern point of view. Energy is in fact the substance from which all elementary particles, all atoms and therefore all things are made, and energy is that which moves. Energy is a substance, since its total amount does not change, and the elementary particles can actually be made from this substance as is seen in many experiments on the creation of elementary particles. Energy can be changed into motion, into heat, into light and into tension. Energy may be called the fundamental cause for all change in the world." (p. 63)
"Since mass and energy are, according to the theory of relativity, essentially the same concepts, we may say that all elementary particles consist of energy. This could be interpreted as defining energy as the primary substance of the world. It has indeed the essential property belonging to the term 'substance', that it is conserved. Therefore, it has been maintained before that the views of modern physics are in this respect very close to those of Heraclitus if one interprets his element fire as meaning energy. Energy is in fact that which moves; it may be called the primary cause of all change, and energy can be transformed into matter or heat or light. The strife between opposites in the philosophy of Heraclitus can be found in the strive between two different forms of energy.
In the philosophy of Democritus the atoms are eternal and indestructible units of matter, they can never be transformed into each other. With regard to this question modern physics takes a definite stand against the materialism of Democritus and for Plato and the Pythagoreans. The elementary particles are certainly not eternal and indestructible units of matter, they can actually be transformed into each other. As a matter of fact, if two such particles, moving through space with a very high kinetic energy, collide, then many new elementary particles may be created from the available energy and the old particles may have disappeared in the collision. Such events have been frequently observed and offer the best proof that all particles are made of the same substance: energy." (pp. 70-71)
(Heisenberg, Werner. Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science. New York: Harper & Bros., 1958.)
<QUOTE
- Consul
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Re: What is energy
"Einstein's famous equation e = mc2 announces the preeminence of energy. However, it is not terribly clear what energy is: when we attribute energy to a system what is it that we are attributing? What is the ontological status of energy? What is its objective nature? How exactly is it related to such things as heat, motion, electricity, mass, and gravity? When an object possesses a quantity of energy, how does it differ from another that lacks that energy? Some earlier theorists, of idealist sympathies, took it to consist of something like will, possibly of the divine variety, no doubt anxious to find some familiar reality with which to understand energy. But eschewing such fancies, there is a question as to what energy really consists in—about its ontological standing. If our physical ontology is to include energy, what exactly is it including? And how robust a reality is energy? Physicists routinely employ the definite description 'the energy of system S': what exactly are they referring to, if
anything? The physics textbooks tend to pass quickly to scales of measurement and experiments, but the metaphysical question cannot be avoided. What kind of being does energy have?
I propose to explore this question by considering the conservation of energy across different physical systems over time. We know on good authority that energy is conserved and that this conserved quantity can take different forms; so we can ask what it is that is thus conserved—that will be what energy is. Electromagnetic energy can be converted to chemical energy (by photosynthesis), and this in turn can be converted to kinetic energy (as with the movements of animals)—all the while maintaining the original amount of energy. Energy cannot be lost, and it also cannot be gained (so the big bang cannot actually have created any energy): it is a constant. It can appear in one form and then reappear, undiminished, in another form. Thus energy is (apparently) transferred from one thing or system or spatial point to another—communicated, passed on. As it does so, it is transformed, embedded in a new type of physical substrate; yet it remains constant. The energy in a gravitational field, say, is transmitted to the motion of massive objects, which can then pass it on to other bodies. Thus ontological diversity in the underlying entities is consistent with a fundamental sameness in energy content. Over time an imperishable something hops from one physical location to another. The universe changes while also remaining the same.
My question is how to interpret these facts of physics—what should the ontology of energy look like? There are two basic theories: conservation is the identity of a measure or it is the identity of a thing. According to the first type of theory, it is merely that we make measurements that turn out the same as energy is (said to be) transformed, and that is all that the conservation of energy amounts to. If we measure energy by means of joules, then energy is just the measured joules in a system, i.e., a certain number. According to the second type of theory, however, there is an underlying entity or material or stuff or substance that is physically continuous throughout the process of transformation—a thing that grounds the constancy of measurement. Energy, then, is not a number, but an objective physical reality: we assign a number to this reality, according to a chosen scale, such as the joule, but it is not itself a number.
The usual definition of energy in physics does not suffice to decide between these two theories, but it is still a useful place to start. Energy is most generally understood as the capacity to effect change, but in physics the idea of change is usually specialized to 'work', where work is taken to involve motion. This is by no means semantically required by the word 'energy': it reflects the focus on motion that is characteristic of physics as we have it. Let us, however, follow physics and define energy simply as the capacity to generate motion. Then we can say that conservation entails that the capacity to generate motion remains constant. This capacity may shift location, but it does not vary in amount. The question accordingly becomes: when we speak of the capacity to generate motion, do we mean a measure or a thing? Is it merely that the capacity in question is measured as the same over time, or is it rather that the capacity springs from a constancy in physical reality?
……
We must not let the customary operationalism of physics, as it is typically expounded, dictate the answer to our question. We should not suppose that since everything in physics is to be defined by how it is measured, energy is just a special case. That would rob the question of its specific interest. For in the case of energy there seem to be distinctive reasons to adopt an operational interpretation, since energy is so closely tied to doing—energy is what makes things act in certain ways (perform “work”). So the question is whether the conservation of energy just consists in the fact that things keep acting in the same way—performing the same amount of “work.” The total quantity of action in the universe is what is invariant—and action is not a stuff or substance or entity. There is no reduction or increase in the overall amount of action the universe contains, i.e., movement (actual or potential): and to say this is not yet to say that any underlying entity persists through space and time—it is purely a statement about what happens at the observational level. So energy might be said to be uniquely operational: it just consists in kinetic facts—propensities to motion. And this might be thought to favor the metrical conception over the metaphysical conception. So, again: is the energy of a system just a measure of its ability to do work or is it a sui generis physical reality? Is there some physical reality that is measured or is the measuring all there is?"
(McGinn, Colin. "The Ontology of Energy." In Basic Structures of Reality: Essays in Meta-Physics, 165-174. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. pp. 165-8)
<QUOTE
- Consul
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Re: What is energy
"…According to the second type of theory, however, there is an underlying entity or material or stuff or substance that is physically continuous throughout the process of transformation—a thing that grounds the constancy of measurement. Energy, then, is not a number, but an objective physical reality: we assign a number to this reality, according to a chosen scale, such as the joule, but it is not itself a number."
(pp. 166-7)
"I conclude, then, that energy is a single homogeneous thing that takes up residence in different material forms—light, heat, tension, masses, etc. It is a real attribute or state that different types of physical system can share."
(p. 173)
"I have suggested that energy is a real objective trait of reality, not merely a useful mathematical fiction."
(p. 174)
(McGinn, Colin. "The Ontology of Energy." In Basic Structures of Reality: Essays in Meta-Physics, 165-174. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.)
<QUOTE
If energy is an objective physical reality, to which ontological category does it belong?
McGinn uses different terms: "attribute", "trait" (= "distinguishing quality, characteristic"), "state", "thing", "stuff", "material", "substance".
In my understanding, a state is a state of affairs consisting in the having of a property by something. Energy itself is not a physical state (as a whole), but only an attributive content of a physical state, which is a property of the state's substrate, which is some physical thing or stuff.
I share McGinn's view that energy is an objective physical reality, but I think that to call it a thing (in the narrow sense of term), a stuff, a material, an object (in the narrow sense of term), or a substance is to commit an ontological category mistake. For energy is an objective physical attribute or property (or "trait") of physical things or masses of stuff, of material substances or materials.
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