There is no such 'thing' as energy.

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by ColinT, May 29, 2018.

  1. river

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    What though of Cosmic Plasma energy ?

    So a standing wave then ? But why would this standing wave not propagate ?
     
    Last edited: Jun 6, 2018
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  3. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Tolerance

    As I understand one of the test the machine was calibrated (with no input) with a small (about 2.5cm) heat pad
    Pad at a certain warmth was marked 1, next warmth 2 etc

    The heat applied to each person SAME
    Tolerance different
    You scream at 2
    Next subject at 4
    The heat is a known variable as in 2 or 4 hence we know tolerance is lower in one (and we know that temperature) and another, (with a higher tolerance) we know that temperature level

    Measured

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  5. river

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    Kinetic energy
     
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  7. river

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    Kinetic energy is about movement . Hence interactions between things . Understood .

    What though of Cosmic Plasma ? which is ionic energy .
     
  8. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    None of which changes the fact that we are not measuring the pain, we are measuring someone's verbalization of their qualia. These are not the same things.

    It would be like getting two people to observe two stars and have us record their opinions on brightness. That'snot measuring star brightness in any objective way.
     
  9. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    So putting colour hat back on

    Does GREEN exist objectively?

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  10. Speakpigeon Valued Senior Member

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    You're assuming qualia are something physical but we don't know that. If qualia are somehow not physical, it's reasonably deniable that you should be able to send them by post.

    The only reason we have to believe qualia as physical things is that we are supposed to be ourselves physical beings and we somehow experience qualia. However, if all we know of the physical world, including its very existence as such, are our qualia themselves, the reason to believe qualia as physical things becomes logically circular and inconclusive. You may just as well argue that the bench you're sitting on isn't at all physical but bunch of qualia.

    To say that the evidence of qualia is entirely, as far as we know, that you experience them subjectively is a very special kind of argument. Given it's form, it is for each of us to assess and decide on it's value from our own subjective point of view. It is for you to decide whether you experience qualia subjectively, whether this amount to you knowing them, and whether this is conclusive as to their existence. You're sole judge. That's the way the Cogito works, too.

    I accept that for all I know it might be possible to send qualia by post. That doesn't entail I or anybody knows it can. So, you can't require me to send qualia by post as proof of their existence. For that to be reasonable, you'd need to be reasonably certain qualia can be sent by post. Which of course, nobody is.

    I would say the reverse is true in that we seem to need a human being to experience qualia to begin with.

    Still, if you send a human being by post, you ipso facto send qualia by post. But there, it's M345 who would baulk at the value of this evidence.

    No, the two sides of a coin are definitely not the same thing. Time and space are not the same thing. Otherwise everything would be the same thing just because it's part of the same universe. Not a very helpful angle, that.

    The laws of thermodynamics work along the time axis and only along the time axis. There are no laws of thermodynamics within a chunk of space considered at the same moment. What there is in space depends on what there was in space the previous moment.


    Not quite. Qualia may well be stand-alone things without being physical and therefore without that you could send them by post. I tend to favour this possibility but I obviously don't have any evidence or even any compelling reason. I just suspect that the fact that we experience qualia is incidental. That qualia exist independently of the human mind, and I see no reason that they should be properly physical things. But I may be wrong here.

    Physical existence of qualia, always a theoretical possibility, may not be enough in itself to make sending them by post possible just like you can't send space or time by post, as far as I know.


    You would have to prove in my view that you'd be sending space and time themselves rather than the local geometrical properties of the Black Hole. Gravitational waves are supposed to be a moving geometrical deformation of space-time. Is space-time moving along with the wave? Nah.
    EB

     
  11. NotEinstein Valued Senior Member

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    No, I'm not. In fact, I'm explicitly not, so I don't know how you got that idea.

    Yes, and I think that's quite clear from my statement as well.

    I know of this conundrum, which is why I steered clear of it in my quoted statement.

    Mind actually addressing my statement, instead of repeating it back at me?

    Yes, that's if you're assuming that your own mind is the starting point of knowledge. One could also start from an objective/materialistic point, where our minds are emergent. In that case, qualia must originate from objective/materialistic principles, otherwise they by definition wouldn't exist.

    Agreed.

    True, that's clearly not what (s)he meant.

    Are two different sides of a single cube two different things, or two parts of the same thing? I guess it all depends on ones definition of "thing". I guess we can conclude that saying that time and space-time are different things is unclear without properly defining the terms: they are not identical/the same, but they aren't unrelated either: for both it's true that one cannot exist without the other (in our universe).

    That's clearly not what I meant, nor a consequence of what I said, so I don't know why you'd say this.

    Ah, I see. A result of the same confusion as above.

    So qualia are supernatural or non-material. That's a possibility, but one without any evidence whatsoever.

    I'm not sure if I agree. Name me something that physically exists, but cannot be moved. (Space-time addressed below.)

    That's why GR says happens. If you want to disbelieve GR, sure, but then what's space-time in your opinion?

    I agree, but I don't see how that's related to anything I posted?
     
  12. Speakpigeon Valued Senior Member

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    1,123
    As a matter of logic, the impossibility of sending qualia by post rules out just that and nothing else. So it seems possible to me that qualia be somehow stand-alone things and you still could not send them by post. And this conveniently leaves each of us free to decide for ourselves what best to believe on the matter.
    Sure, just as you could also start from a belief in God, where our minds are His creation. In that case, qualia must originate from divine principles, otherwise they by definition wouldn't exist.

    Me, I prefer to start from my own mind as the only thing I know.
    Sure, at least as far as we know, but it remains that time and space are very different aspects of space-time and the laws of thermodynamics don't relate to time and space in the same way at all. The only laws that specify the expected evolution of entropy are relative to time, not to space. So, no, it's not true that "time and space-time are pretty much the same thing" as you said.
    Qualia don't need to be "supernatural" to be non-physical. And the evidence that qualia are not physical is certainly as good as any evidence we have to the contrary.
    If gravity waves are not bits of space-time moving, I don't see why moving a Black Hole would be moving space-time. I assume that a Black is a geometric deformation of space-time. You move the Black Hole, you move the deformation leaving behind the space-time where it is, just like a gravity wave is a deformation of space-time moving, not space-time moving.
    EB
     
  13. NotEinstein Valued Senior Member

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    I understand you personally don't believe it's possible (and neither do I, at least in the case of the color green), but you can't say it's logically impossible and then admit it may be possible (unless you have no problem in having a logically inconsistent view of the world).

    Personally, I'm still conflicted; there is no single right answer (that anybody knows of), and I don't want to rule things out; both viewpoints seem to have value, but they do seem to lead to some incompatible results.

    I don't deny that, and (hopefully) haven't done so anywhere in this thread. I've balked at them being called different things, which to me suggests they can exist independently of each other.

    Alright, shall we compromise that they are two aspects of the same thing (= space-time)?

    (I think the original statement was that time and space-time were two things, but I don't think they even belong in the same category.)

    (And I've never claimed that they must be.)

    I guess we can only rule out certain types of nature for qualia, at the moment.

    I'm still confused why you brought this up, because you giving an example of space-time not moving doesn't prove that space-time can't move.

    How are gravitational waves like black holes? They are two completely different things. A wave travelling across a pond isn't the same as the vortex around a drainage plug, and conclusions about the movement of the waters for one don't automatically apply to the other.

    Yes. (Obviously, there's some energy stuck in there as well to form the black hole in the first place, but for our discussion the deformation is the essential feature.)

    Except that there's a bunch of space-time stuck under the event horizon, and that may open up the possibility of a separate bubble of space-time. Here's a not-so-scientific source, but it illustrates what may be possible:
    https://www.quora.com/Is-the-Big-Bang-a-black-hole-in-reverse
     
  14. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Hm. No.

    It exists subjectively. Green is an emergent qualia of a perceptive mind.
     
  15. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    And that is the point I have been making all alone

    As well as TIME not existing

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  16. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Time is not a qualia. We can measure time objectively. We don't have to rely on each others' experiencing and reporting of our personal time. See?
     
  17. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    So if I am traveling at near light speed to Andromeda and same on return
    Am I objectively the same age as my twin who stayed home?

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  18. NotEinstein Valued Senior Member

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    No, but that doesn't disprove time; it merely disproves Newtonian time.
     
  19. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    And the other version of TIME would be ........?

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  20. Speakpigeon Valued Senior Member

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    ???
    That's what I seem to have just said: "I accept that for all I know it might be possible to send qualia by post."
    So... You don't know that you know green whenever you're experiencing looking something green?
    Or perhaps, you don't know you're ever seeing anything green?
    Or, you don't know whatever it is you seem to be experiencing.
    Regardless, sounds totally incredible to me!
    Still, you're the sole judge.
    Thanks for the link but that doesn't seem relevant to whether space-time can be moved from one part of the universe to another. The case discussed in your link is consistant with a space-time geometrical deformation spreading to neighbouring regions of space-time or developing into a new universe. Nothing like space-time being moved around like a parcel by the postal service.
    Gravitational waves obviously are not Black Holes but they share this feature that they are essentially a geometrical deformations of space-time. The example of gravitational waves shows how moving a Black Hole could possibly only results in moving the geometrical deformation (appart from also moving the matter trapped into it) and not the bit of space-time itself.
    I'm not claiming to know space-time can't be moved and can't be sent by post, only that we don't know that it could be in principle as your previous post suggested. And I also don't think General Relativity says or suggest it could be done as your previous posts suggested.
    EB
     
  21. Speakpigeon Valued Senior Member

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    Not true. Your point was that qualia don't exist.
    And you said it explicitly twice:
    EB
     
  22. NotEinstein Valued Senior Member

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    What about the "time"-part of space-time? And perhaps there are even more that I'm unfamiliar with...
     
  23. NotEinstein Valued Senior Member

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    But you said:
    How is something still a possibility if it, as a matter of logic, is impossible?

    With certainty? No. I don't even know for certain that "something green" even exists as a thing-in-itself.

    It seems my experience of green matches that of other people. But do I know for certain it is the same, or that those other people even exist as they seem to? No.

    With certainty? No.

    Now I'm interested in your point of view. Can you please answer the same questions I just did?

    Indeed, the link doesn't mention that, and I never claimed it did. It does demonstrate that isolating parts of space-time seems to be a possibility (or at least, not excluded by current theories). Such a bubble of space-time would be trapped inside the black hole's event horizon, and thus can be moved around by moving the black hole around.

    But they are significant different types of deformations. For example, a gravitational wave must travel, but a black hole can be stationary. That to me seems like a relevant difference in this discussion, and thus what's true for one cannot be assumed to be true for the other.

    True, and I have never denied that possibility; in fact, I'm very much aware of it. But since it doesn't exclude the possibility of movable space-time, it's not really relevant to this discussion.

    I've given a plausible (albeit hand-waving) possibility, that seems to be compatible with current theories. To me, it seems that the burden of proof that it cannot lies with you. You are making a hard claim; I'm simply unconvinced either way.

    Please provide evidence for this. I don't find the gut-feeling of someone who (literally one sentence earlier) said: "I'm not claiming to know space-time can't be moved and can't be sent by post, ..." particularly trustworthy.
     

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