Action vs Reaction?

Discussion in 'Free Thoughts' started by Kumar, Dec 13, 2015.

  1. Kumar Registered Senior Member

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    1,990
    Hello,

    Newton's 3rd law tells: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

    Any work done by us is an action.

    So accordingly, how our good and positive actions will bring bad and negative reactions?

    Best wishes.
     
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  3. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Why don't you bother to learn some basic science for yourself, rather than asking silly questions here?

    I'll help you. You can start with this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton's_laws_of_motion

    This tells you what Newton's Laws actually say.

    Note, please, that there are called "Newton's Laws of Motion". Motion, right? Nothing about positive and negative human actions.
     
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  5. Kumar Registered Senior Member

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    Thanks and welcome here.

    Newton mentioned action not motion and how action can not be linked to motion?
     
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  7. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

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    The word "motion" appears 73 times in the wiki article linked. Please read it.
    While what you said in the OP is vague, it implied value judgements, which have nothing to do with motion.
     
  8. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    When you have read the article I linked to and can provide a response indicating you have done so, we can perhaps talk further.
     
  9. Beer w/Straw Transcendental Ignorance! Valued Senior Member

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    Kumar, you have over a thousand posts. Yet, I can't make sense of yours in this thread. Is this about science, or philosophy?
     
  10. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    NOTE FROM A MODERATOR: Despite the title, this thread is not really about science. It has been moved to Free Thoughts.

    --Fraggle Rocker
     
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  11. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Too f'ing true, squire!
     
  12. Kumar Registered Senior Member

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    No problem.

    I think opposing forces do operate to bring balance from excess of either side on every action. Say if eg. 7 is balance, to achieve it either things can move from 1 to 7 or 13 to 7. Angels and Devils can also be example of opposing forces to bring balance state or probably GOD state. Like following definition:-
    Superiority complex: A psychological defense mechanism in which feelings of superiority counter or conceal feelings of inferiority.
     
  13. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    This is religious or metaphysical speculation, but has nothing to do with science, let alone Newton's laws of motion. If you would like to learn more about science, there are plenty of people here keen to help. If you want to discuss religious or metaphysical speculation you can do that too, under the appropriate subject headings.

    Just do not mix up the two, that's all.
     
  14. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    In other words 0+0=0.
    Got it.

    And when the superiority complex isn't a result of feeling inferior?
     
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  15. Spellbound Banned Valued Senior Member

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    Quantum Mind


    Any kind superiority complex is the result of a need to balance an inferiority complex.
     
  16. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    Ok.

    The word 'action' is ambiguous.

    In physics, it refers to physical forces and the effects of those forces.

    But when we are thinking about human beings, the word 'action' often refers to intentional actions by an agent.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_theory_(philosophy)

    Pushing a button intentionally counts as a human action. Pushing the button accidently, because of a muscle spasm or something, wouldn't be an action in this second sense. This distinction is important in both ethics and law, because the ascription of blame and guilt often depend on it.

    Both events, the intentional pushing of the button and the muscle spasm would be actions in the physical sense, since the same physical force was exerted.

    In physics, 'equal and opposite reaction' means that when a finger pushes the button, the button comes under pressure, but so does the finger that's doing the pushing. We can feel the pressure in our finger, the harder we push.

    When you introduce moral predicates like 'good and positive' and 'bad and negative', you are implicitly opting for the second sense of action, namely human action that has ethical consequences. But Newtonian mechanics doesn't apply in ethics as it does in physics.

    It's possible to imagine such a moral principle, but in that case we might be thinking about something like karma.

    I guess that a similar principle is implicit in ethics in most cultures. The idea that blame and praise should be proportional to the blameworthiness and praiseworthiness of the human actions to which they are applied would seem to be analogous to Newton's third law.

    But it's only an analogy.

    I'd like to apologize for the rudeness and incomprehension with which your original post was received, Kumar. I think that its subtlety went over some people's heads.
     
    Last edited: Dec 14, 2015
  17. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    It probably should be in philosophy.
     
  18. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    Unsupported crap.

    Nope.
    "Balance" has bugger all to do with it.
     
  19. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    That's basically the same idea as Aristotle's doctrine of the mean. He argued that many of the qualities that we ascribe to people can have defects of both excess and deficiency. Too much bravery is foolhardiness, while too little is cowardice. The ideal state is somewhere in the middle. (I believe that this idea is found in many cultures.)

    Maybe what you are thinking about here isn't so much Newton's law in particular, but rather the more abstract principle of balance that underlies it. That might best be termed 'symmetry'. Human cognition and perception are such that people like symmetry and seek out examples of it all around them. We find symmetry principles everywhere in mathematics, theoretical physics and even in more distant subjects like art, ethics and psychology.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetry
     
    Last edited: Dec 14, 2015
  20. Spellbound Banned Valued Senior Member

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    Excellent advice Yazata!

    Correct again. The fact is that symmetry and balance fulfills us somehow. It defines our purpose.
     
  21. Beer w/Straw Transcendental Ignorance! Valued Senior Member

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    I would have said Goldilocks and the three bears

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  22. Kumar Registered Senior Member

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    Yes but why religious thoughts and alternative therapies and practices can't be checked and linked with science?
     
  23. Kumar Registered Senior Member

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    This may be ultimate knowledge.



    I think, when we say a law, it should be universally applicable in principle.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetry[/QUOTE]
     

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