What is energy?

[Gambit]

If asked what the meaning of life is, would you go to Merriam-Webster or Wikipedia?

The bottom line is that "perception" is not limited to the senses. Questioning the credibility of Merriam-Webster will not change this.

There is no sense in which you can perceive anything that isn't either via the senses or in you more common (but still altered) personal definition of perceive such that the above could be true. Either you see the perfect circle, or imagine you do, and in either case there is no way that you could possibly know that this is what you are "perceiving" because if there were actually a perfect circle in reality you would be incapable of discerning that it was.

I have just demonstrated to you that the perception of mathematical abstractions is nonsensory (your objections to the contrary notwithstanding).

Saying "math isn't physical" really isn't that meaningful, still less thought-provoking.

Au contraire. If we make the argument that all matter reduces to mathematical abstractions (e.g. probablity wave functions), then we are obligated by the dictates of intellectual honesty to acknowledge that reality entails some nonphysical aspect.

 

[Gambit]

The concepts themselves exist as thoughts in our brains (thus as matter and energy).

You have already gone on record and defined "concepts" as nonphysical. So, if concepts exist as thoughts in our brains, then it logically follows our thoughts are nonphysical.

 

[HonestJoe]

You have already gone on record and defined "concepts" as nonphysical. So, if concepts exist as thoughts in our brains, then it logically follows our thoughts are nonphysical.

I think you've mixed me up with someone else. I'm pretty sure I've not called anything "non-physical", not least because the term leads to exactly this kind of dishonest twisting. I'm quite clear in that I consider thoughts (and concepts) to be functions of our physical brains.

The complication is that things like "thoughts" and "concepts" don't really exist at all. They're like "height" in that way. Things can have height but height in itself doesn't exist as an independent thing. This is all semantics though - it doesn't have any practical consequence on what you opened the thread to talk about, it just adds verbal complications.

 

[Gambit]

I think you've mixed me up with someone else.

Yes, I was confusing you with "Bunyip" because you were responding to posts that were originally addressed to him.

I'm quite clear in that I consider thoughts (and concepts) to be functions of our physical brains.

This does not make them physical.

The complication is that things like "thoughts" and "concepts" don't really exist at all. They're like "height" in that way. Things can have height but height in itself doesn't exist as an independent thing. This is all semantics though - it doesn't have any practical consequence on what you opened the thread to talk about, it just adds verbal complications.

Nothing exists as an independent thing. There is no physical object that has an independent existence.

 

[gnostic]

I am just wondering what all this talk about concept, perception and consciousness being physical or non-physical to do with "energy"?

 

[`mud]

Consciousness is the net physicallatic and neurontronic factor produced by the human species.
That consciousness creates the ongoing thought process' that exist in the development of these concepts.
Until complete oxidation of the flesh of these examples,
may continue the process'
Some particle from all of us will be finally found.
With a God or not,
Life is the stuff of Life, the chemicals all mix in.
Unless 'heaven' comes in....and the other cronies.
But after the natural process of finally,
in ages and ages of eons of time,
we'll come back.
Maybe Thief has a point after all, about the process,
not the cloud stuff !
~
'mud

There be not that, that represents a perfect circle,
nor a perfect tangent line,
or any straight line to infinity.
Nothing in movement,
will repeat these paths in the Cosmos.
~
'mud

 

[Gambit]

I am just wondering what all this talk about concept, perception and consciousness being physical or non-physical to do with "energy"?

It has direct relevance to the questions I asked in OP: "What is energy? Is it only material? Or, is it also spiritual?"

 

[Thief]

There be not that, that represents a perfect circle,
nor a perfect tangent line,
or any straight line to infinity.
Nothing in movement,
will repeat these paths in the Cosmos.
~
'mud

very nice....
but I can still see the concept of perfection
might not get there for myself....but I don't run about in circles anyway.
I am soooooooooo linear!

 

[Bunyip]

You have already gone on record and defined "concepts" as nonphysical. So, if concepts exist as thoughts in our brains, then it logically follows our thoughts are nonphysical.

No, that does not logically follow, concepts being non-physical does not mean that thoughts are

I am just wondering what all this talk about concept, perception and consciousness being physical or non-physical to do with "energy"?

Nothing

 

[shawn001]

"I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam; I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me."
Woody Allen

 

[Sees]

Religion that use spirits, to explain what they believe in, like gods, angels, demons, or any other spiritual beings, is usually self-defeating and contradictory to what they claim.

Energy require mass, which means there matter or substance, in order for any work to be done. Mass and energy are interwine together. Energy is measurable.

According to what I have learned from the church is that spirits has no substance. No substance then mean no energy. The religious stance on spirit is that spirits are undetectable, but with energy it not only detectable, it is also quantifiable.

Hope you have been well brother
Supposedly only 5% or so of matter and energy fits in with that... universe/s aren't as easily dissected and neatly labeled as people like to believe.

There is nothing that we actually know about science that dismisses out half as much as people do in its name. I think it's a too easily given bluff. My opinion of course. Most of what is real, is mysterious - not just my opinion.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

The bottom line is that "perception" is not limited to the senses. Questioning the credibility of Merriam-Webster will not change this.

Questioning it won't, but it's credibility will. It's a moot point, though, as there are German, French, etc., neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists too. We all use language to describe processes related to internal "perception" and external "perception", and it turns out that this is meaningless here. Because all perception ends up being internal (your eyes perceive nothing; your brain does).

I have just demonstrated to you that the perception of mathematical abstractions is nonsensory (your objections to the contrary notwithstanding).

What you have demonstrated is that you can use your imagination.

Au contraire. If we make the argument that all matter reduces to mathematical abstractions (e.g. probablity wave functions), then we are obligated by the dictates of intellectual honesty to acknowledge that reality entails some nonphysical aspect.

We can't say that. We can either go with Bohr and say that our models are probabilistic, or we can go with Einstein and say they're wrong, or we can go the way of many others and try to figure out how physical systems are probabilistic. The mathematics of physical systems always represent something about physical systems. Before QM, we still had statistical mechanics, and we used probability functions to represent properties/processes/states of physical systems all the time (we still do this in classical physics). In fact, wave functions in classical physics don't actually exist; they're the affect of certain processes on matter (they exist only as aspects of the behavior of physical systems; this is still true of many waves, from ocean to sound). Also, most models of systems aren't 3D even in classical physics. The phase space of any and all classical systems is determined by momentum and position, but often enough we are only interested in "position" in the sense of movement along one dimension or total movement along 10,000 dimensions.

QM is irreducibly statistical in the sense that we can't, as we can with statistical mechanics, say that we know we're only approximating the configuration space of a liquid crystal at time t or the distribution of gas molecules in some container. However, it is not irreducibly statistical in the sense that the mathematical abstractions have a one-to-one correspondence with whatever is modeled. In fact, that's the problem- no such correspondence exists. We do not know how the mathematical representations correspond to physical reality, but we do know they don't directly correspond (we know this because we prepare systems by fundamentally disturbing them in specified ways so that we can represent average values in a particular way consistent with quantum theory, such that the "system" we measure is something we know doesn't exist the way we describe, because we're describing something we obtained from average values and a priori theoretically-based procedures).

 

[gnostic]

It has direct relevance to the questions I asked in OP: "What is energy? Is it only material? Or, is it also spiritual?"

Other than in myth and religious belief do "spirit" exist, otherwise it is just make-believe or delusion.

Perception, consciousness, mind, understanding, emotion, etc, like any bodily function come from the brain, and not from any "spirit" or "soul".

People often believe that everything to do with emotional state of person (like love, anger or fear), come from the heart. But this is really not true.

The heart may beat quicker because of fear, but it is the brain that actually perceive threat or danger. Fear will also cause the breathing to change, and usually the adrenaline will kick in. Biologically, the heart only regulate the pumping of blood through the body, but the heart has no consciousness of itself.

And usually, the people who believe in the soul or spirit, often linked to the heart, and at other time, with the mind, but I find such connection to illogical and contradictory to what a spirit is supposed to be.

 

[HonestJoe]

Nothing exists as an independent thing. There is no physical object that has an independent existence.

Nobody is going to want to discuss anything with you if you're just going to play evasive games with semantics. You're clearly not stupid so you understand exactly what I was trying to explain there. It's become clear that you didn't start this thread to ask a question but to rationalise some predetermined answer and you're just going to keep dodging and spinning anything that dares to suggest the possibility of an alternative.

 

[shawn001]

Other than in myth and religious belief do "spirit" exist, otherwise it is just make-believe or delusion.

Perception, consciousness, mind, understanding, emotion, etc, like any bodily function come from the brain, and not from any "spirit" or "soul".

People often believe that everything to do with emotional state of person (like love, anger or fear), come from the heart. But this is really not true.

The heart may beat quicker because of fear, but it is the brain that actually perceive threat or danger. Fear will also cause the breathing to change, and usually the adrenaline will kick in. Biologically, the heart only regulate the pumping of blood through the body, but the heart has no consciousness of itself.

And usually, the people who believe in the soul or spirit, often linked to the heart, and at other time, with the mind, but I find such connection to illogical and contradictory to what a spirit is supposed to be.

"The heart may beat quicker because of fear, but it is the brain that actually perceive threat or danger. Fear will also cause the breathing to change, and usually the adrenaline will kick in."

To expand on this its the bodies fight or flight responce hard wired to the brain, its not even concious as it would take to long to conciously think about it, nor does it have to be real it can be perceived. It also involves the HPA axis, or The hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis (HPA or HTPA axis), also known as the limbic system.


What is the "fight or flight response?

The Fight or Flight Response - 5 Minute Stress Mastery

How Cells Communicate During Fight or Flight

How Cells Communicate During Fight or Flight

 

[gnostic]

"The heart may beat quicker because of fear, but it is the brain that actually perceive threat or danger. Fear will also cause the breathing to change, and usually the adrenaline will kick in."

To expand on this its the bodies fight or flight responce hard wired to the brain, its not even concious as it would take to long to conciously think about it, nor does it have to be real it can be perceived. It also involves the HPA axis, or The hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis (HPA or HTPA axis), also known as the limbic system.


What is the "fight or flight response?

Not that I'm disagreeing with you, but there is a 3rd response...or more like a lack of response - hesitation or indecision, where a person who can't react, so neither run nor fight.

Despite the adrenaline, some would freeze...and end up - dead.

 

[Gambit]

Nobody is going to want to discuss anything with you if you're just going to play evasive games with semantics. You're clearly not stupid so you understand exactly what I was trying to explain there.

Previously you argued: "The complication is that things like "thoughts" and "concepts" don't really exist at all. They're like "height" in that way. Things can have height but height in itself doesn't exist as an independent thing."

Just because thoughts do not exist as "independent things" does not imply they do not exist. No physical object exist as an "independent thing."

 

[gnostic]

Previously you argued: "The complication is that things like "thoughts" and "concepts" don't really exist at all. They're like "height" in that way. Things can have height but height in itself doesn't exist as an independent thing."

Just because thoughts do not exist as "independent things" does not imply they do not exist. No physical object exist as an "independent thing."

Just because "thoughts" or "concepts" can exist, they don't exist without the brains behind them.

Thinking is not independent to the person with the brain.

Thoughts don't come from any spirit or soul because there are no evidences to support either are real. Spirit or soul are make-believe concepts. Without a person believing in things, like soul or spirit, these spirits and soul wouldn't exist.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

What is energy? Is it only material? Or, is it also spiritual?

If one looks at the full EM (electro-magnetic) energy spectrum. it comprises a potential vibrational wavelength continuum from that approaching the infinite on the one hand to that approaching the infinitesimal on the other.

Now present orthodox science, if I understand it correctly, puts a limit on the smaller wavelength side as Planck length (1.6 x 10-35 m), which means the quantum vacuum would appear granular if one could 'see' the vibrational frequency at this wavelength. However in Zero Point Energy research, there is some speculation that the EM spectrum quantum vacuum vibrations continues to 1 x 10-115 m, and some even to the infinitesimal.

If the vibrations indeed form an infinite continuum, then the concept of spirit/aether/dark energy/etc., could be that EM energy spectrum below the Planck length. What is not speculation is that the vacuum of space is not empty and that there is an omnipresent ZPE pressure as a result of the summation of all the contributing energy of all the ZPE frequency spectrum. Therefore it is speculated by some that space is a matrix in which all subatomic particles are spherical standing waves formed from the smaller vibrational wavelength ZPE.resonating around a point.

If this speculation is correct in principle, then so called matter is made of spirit/dark energy....but appears to be different due to the energy of which it is constituted being in the form ofspherical resonant standing waves..

 

[Thief]

If I may assist.....

If you take an item that by it's 'nature'.....moves in waves and simultaneously....
moves in a straight line at the speed of light....

Force it (somehow) to stay 'put'.

That wave would become a very tight little sphere....