All is energy / God is energy

Is there a God? If so, what is She like?

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Age
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Re: All is energy / God is energy

Post by Age »

popeye1945 wrote: Mon Dec 05, 2022 8:07 am Age,

That isn't an argument, it is in fact nonsense.
It was NEVER meant to be a so-called 'argument' as such.

And if 'you' think or BELIEVE ANY of it is nonsense, in fact, then WHY do 'you' NOT QUESTION NOR CHALLENGE 'me' on 'it'?

What are 'you' AFRAID OF, EXACTLY?

See, I CAN and WILL back up and support what I have SAID and CLAIMED here, and WILL do so with IRREFUTABLE PROOF.

So, what 'you' said here is NOT an argument, it is in Fact just NONSENSE.
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Re: All is energy / God is energy

Post by Age »

Walker wrote: Mon Dec 05, 2022 9:23 am
Astro Cat wrote: Sun Dec 04, 2022 11:46 pm So what is “energy” as being asked about in the OP?
The OP says, "everything." Take your pick. The distinguishing evidence of energy is change detected by motion through time and/or space.
Since there is ALWAYS CHANGE, the Universe being in a CONSTANT motion of CHANGE, this could then imply or infer that there is ALWAYS ENERGY, as well.
Walker wrote: Mon Dec 05, 2022 9:23 am The most directly relevant energy for humans is the energy that moves body, voice, or mind.
What IS this 'mind' 'thing', EXACTLY, which 'you', adult human beings, keep going on about, in the days when this is being written.

HOW the body and voice moves, with the human body, but HOW does this 'mind' 'thing' MOVE, EXACTLY?
Walker wrote: Mon Dec 05, 2022 9:23 am Thinking about the energy that moves planets is a function of mind energy.
So, now this 'mind' 'thingy' has its OWN 'energy', which is supposedly called 'mind energy', correct?

Is there ANY 'thinking' that is NOT the result NOR function of this so-called 'mind energy' 'thing'?
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Re: All is energy / God is energy

Post by Walker »

Is thingy exactly the same as thing?
Age
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Re: All is energy / God is energy

Post by Age »

Walker wrote: Mon Dec 05, 2022 10:19 am Is thingy exactly the same as thing?
IF 'you' are asking 'me' this, then I suggest DIRECTING it to 'me'.

Also, IF someone answered that question, for 'you', would 'you' then answer the questions asked, and posed to 'you' DIRECTLY?
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Re: All is energy / God is energy

Post by Astro Cat »

Lacewing wrote: Mon Dec 05, 2022 6:47 am
Astro Cat wrote: Sun Dec 04, 2022 11:46 pm What is meant by energy here? I only understand two contexts for the word:

We have the energy of physics, as in mass-energy, probably sufficient to say it is the capacity to perform work. Yet this context of energy is a property, not a thing that exists unto itself (nothing “is” energy, there are only things which possess energy).
It is my understanding that everything is made up of energy, as described by the following scientific concepts:

> Quantum physics suggests that solid matter does not exist in the universe.

> Since everything is made of atoms, which are energy, this could mean that everything is made up of energy.
This isn't correct. Not everything is made of atoms (only baryonic matter is), and atoms aren't "made up of energy." Atoms possess energy as a property.

Nothing is "made up of" energy, energy is a property. It would be like saying a ruler is "made up of" length or a pillow is "made up of" softness, that would be the same kind of conceptual error. You will not find a clump of just energy anywhere in the universe, you will only find other things which possess energy as a property -- just like you won't find a clump of length anywhere in the universe, only things which possess length as a property.
Lacewing wrote:> The Observer Effect states that by the very act of watching, the observer affects the observed reality. This suggests not only that everything is energy, but that this energy responds to consciousness.
This is also incorrect. The observer effect has nothing to do with consciousness, it has to do with the fact that it isn't possible to observe a system without affecting it somehow. For instance consider looking at something under an electron microscope. It would be like observing a car by pelting it with basketballs and then detecting how the basketballs deflect off the car to form the image of the car. Well, obviously pelting a car with basketballs is going to affect the system: the act of "looking" at the car affects it. That's what the observer effect is about, it has nothing to do with consciousness.
Lacewing wrote:> Entanglement states that once particles have interacted, they become “entangled,” no matter how far apart they are. They are connected by energy that permeates everything.

I created this thread to consider the implications of 'everything is energy', including how that applies to a concept of 'God': if someone thinks 'God is in all' or that 'we are created in a 'God's image', then that god is non-solid energy too.
Entanglement isn't as easy as just having particles interact, it happens under particular circumstances that usually have to be deliberately brought about (which is why quantum computing is still so difficult). It isn't correct to say that entangled particles are "connected by energy," it is more that there is a superposition of states that gives you information about a partner once you know more information about the other. For instance, if I took an ace of spades and a queen of hearts and shuffled them and gave one of them to you without looking at mine, we have a sort of superposition of states going on. I could then travel to the other side of the Earth and look at my card (perhaps the queen of hearts) and instantly know that you have the ace of spades. That's all that entanglement is.
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Re: All is energy / God is energy

Post by Lacewing »

Astro Cat wrote: Mon Dec 05, 2022 3:16 pm ...
Thanks for your input. Clearly there are many different views and ideas regarding the concept of 'energy'. I'm not able to debate it with you on a technical level. 'Energy' is a word that is widely used in all kinds of ways -- whether or not anyone might think that is appropriate. And one of the ways the word is used by many people is to encapsulate this idea: Everything is made up of the same creative 'stuff' which is fully connected. The implications of this idea are what intrigue me.
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Re: All is energy / God is energy

Post by Astro Cat »

Lacewing wrote: Mon Dec 05, 2022 6:07 pm
Astro Cat wrote: Mon Dec 05, 2022 3:16 pm ...
Thanks for your input. Clearly there are many different views and ideas regarding the concept of 'energy'. I'm not able to debate it with you on a technical level. 'Energy' is a word that is widely used in all kinds of ways -- whether or not anyone might think that is appropriate. And one of the ways the word is used by many people is to encapsulate this idea: Everything is made up of the same creative 'stuff' which is fully connected. The implications of this idea are what intrigue me.
That’s fair enough, I just wanted to demarcate that we can’t be talking about the energy of physics
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Re: All is energy / God is energy

Post by Walker »

Do not electrical impulses create muscular contraction?

Does not electricity conform to known laws of physics.

I vote yes.

(to be continued by Walker)
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Re: All is energy / God is energy

Post by Walker »

(continued by Walker)

Is not the branch of science called physics a branch of the science of motion, and does not electricity cause motion? I vote yea, and the answer can be scientifically proven by touching a live wire, although there can be detrimental effects if you do that. Metaphorically speaking, getting struck by lightning isn’t all good times and sunshine. The natural balance of Shiva/Shakti, yin/yang, shines forth without attempting to overcompensate. In this way we have tomboys and effeminate boys, thingy-focused females and people-focused boys*, but none of this just-be-yourself-business requires radical medical tampering, or externally-maintained changes in chemical motion. It does not even require an edification to self-concept.

*affectionately labeled non-recessive gossip gene until they start getting mean and nasty.
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Re: All is energy / God is energy

Post by Dontaskme »

We usually describe the world in terms of trees, mountains, rivers, clouds, cars, houses, people, and so on.

But a chemist could say: “No, this is not how things truly are! The world is basically composed of molecules which are ceaselessly combining one with another at random”.

However a physicist would reply: “Not at all! Reality is actually made up of intermingling fields of energy/matter where the dance of waves/particles takes place ceaselessly”.

Who is right? Who is wrong?

All of them are clearly mere conceptual descriptions that can just supply a relative view of reality.

We do not actually live in ‘reality’, but rather in a description of it, that is like a ‘bubble’ of concepts and words all around us, which in time builds up a fictitious view of ourselves and the world.

Even non-dualism (as any other -ism without exception) is just a conceptual description of reality, that hopelessly tries to point to the unknowable ‘Whatever it is’: in so far as it becomes an ideology that relies on words and thoughts, it is unable to enjoy the taste of Being.

So we live in concepts without realizing it.

We blindly believe that reality is just as our thought represents it.

Science gives us an ‘objective’ description of the material world that, to some extent, can be very useful for the improvement of humankind, however relative and incomplete it is.

Non-duality - as far as it still relies on words and thoughts - is just another conceptual description of reality, though its understanding of non-separation can dispel a huge amount of suffering in one’s life.

Neither of them is more or less right, and both are useful.

But as long as we rely merely on them, we remain trapped in the net of concepts.

Just as the fisherman’s net can catch only fishes, but not the water that passes through it and even supports it, so the thinking mind can grasp only concepts, but not the awareness that perceives it as an object: the ‘water of awareness’ can never be detected by the net of the thinking mind.

Indeed, awareness is a paradoxical mystery: on the one hand its evidence is undeniable for the very fact that we are aware of objects, but on the other hand it is unknowable, just as the existence of the eye is undeniable for the very fact that we can see objects, though it always remains invisible, outside the picture.

However, even ‘awareness’ is just a concept: through it, we are ultimately confronted with the unknown ‘bottom line’ of any human knowledge.

No understanding whatsoever can touch the unknowable Source of everything.

What if any idea about who I am, including even the idea of ‘consciousness’, totally collapses?

What if any idea about reality, including even the idea of ‘non duality’, totally collapses?

What if even these very words you are reading now lose any meaning whatsoever and fall away?

What remains when every attempt to understand or to know reality reveals its utter futility?

Then, out of frustration, the thinking mind cannot help saying “I don’t know” and finally quits.

But when that “I don’t know” plunges off the head into the heart, the philosopher dies and the mystic is born.

It is not a process in time. It is a singularity where all the known collapses and disappears.

It is a timeless explosion of pure wonder and awe that blows away everything else.

And what remains is a wild, free, spontaneous, and utterly unknowable aliveness, within the glowing darkness of the Mystery that we ultimately are.

The Wonder of Unknowing
Beyond science and non-dualism.


https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/ar ... -unknowing


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Re: All is energy / God is energy

Post by Iwannaplato »

Astro Cat wrote: Mon Dec 05, 2022 3:16 pm This isn't correct. Not everything is made of atoms (only baryonic matter is), and atoms aren't "made up of energy." Atoms possess energy as a property.
Pardon the hubris of amateur me in the following. I will write as if I am more sure of things, just to get clearer contrast and I know I am discussing this with a professional.

I think the context makes the issue more complicated. We won't find a clump of mass either (not that you said we would). But, In a sense we don't find clumps of anything but properties in a certain place. I think there is a kind of metaphysical baggage from the monist materialists (physicalists) and the dualist churches they contrasted themselves with. No, stuff is just physical. But physical turns out not to be like what we meant by physical/material. It's thinginess is not solid (not in the states of matter sense of solid, but at all). When I was a kid you divvy up matter into three states - while learning - gas liquid and solid (later plasma gets tossed in). But you learn there are these little planetlike things inside even the non-solid states. Atoms and then neutrons, etc. making up these. But really these things are not solid (now in the not-state-of-matter sense, but rather properties (that also can change) in certain places (though not always even restricted to one place, thinking here of superposition).

So, when a layperson says matter is really made up of energy, yes, they are wrong, because energy is the ability to do work not a substance other than matter. But I think what they are getting at is that it isn't matter in the sense we used to (or as laypeople) usually have. There's no hard but small thing and whatever that not hard, small thing can unfold into something with more energy and less mass, can be in a waveform, perhaps is also in a waveform already. It's a lot like what we think of as energy.

Am I saying Laypeople think this way, so we should use terms this way?

No. I think it's wonderful we can have an expert point out how the terms are being used not like scientists would use them. But at the same time I think scientists (and Science) has clung to terms with metaphysical baggage (physical and it's related terms, and material and its related terms) too long. I think they are misleading at the ontological level.

Apart from being a layperson, I find this extremely hard to talk about, but I hope some of what I am saying comes across. I think once the word matter is in the context and even words like atom - which has its own metaphysical baggage 'uncuttable' like some tiny uberdiamond that resists, through its solidity - being reduced. My point not being that yes, we can 'cut' atoms, it turns out, but that the conception of the 'little things' is ontologically questionable. If we are going to be fussy - and we should be in many contexts - about the use of the word energy - then I think we need to be fussy about matter, atoms and so on, since they are not at all what those words still imply, even if physicists know the orginal meanings are necessarily relevant.
Nothing is "made up of" energy, energy is a property. It would be like saying a ruler is "made up of" length or a pillow is "made up of" softness, that would be the same kind of conceptual error. You will not find a clump of just energy anywhere in the universe, you will only find other things which possess energy as a property -- just like you won't find a clump of length anywhere in the universe, only things which possess length as a property.
And this holds for mass, solidity also. The stuff we associate(d) with what matter is, instead of properties it has.
Lacewing wrote:> The Observer Effect states that by the very act of watching, the observer affects the observed reality. This suggests not only that everything is energy, but that this energy responds to consciousness.
This is also incorrect. The observer effect has nothing to do with consciousness, it has to do with the fact that it isn't possible to observe a system without affecting it somehow. For instance consider looking at something under an electron microscope. It would be like observing a car by pelting it with basketballs and then detecting how the basketballs deflect off the car to form the image of the car. Well, obviously pelting a car with basketballs is going to affect the system: the act of "looking" at the car affects it. That's what the observer effect is about, it has nothing to do with consciousness.
Again, provisos for my lay status. But looking does not send photons, say, at something. Light comes from the thing-seen and enters the eye.

Is there a difference when someone places their eye on the viewing device in particle observations from when they do not place their eye on the viewfinder?

In each situation whatever process is allowing vision to notice what is going on in the chamber is present. In one the person looks, in one they don't. Aren't their different results when one places one's eye in the way of photos emerging from the viewfinder and makes and obsevation and those instances where one does not?
Entanglement isn't as easy as just having particles interact, it happens under particular circumstances that usually have to be deliberately brought about (which is why quantum computing is still so difficult). It isn't correct to say that entangled particles are "connected by energy," it is more that there is a superposition of states that gives you information about a partner once you know more information about the other. For instance, if I took an ace of spades and a queen of hearts and shuffled them and gave one of them to you without looking at mine, we have a sort of superposition of states going on. I could then travel to the other side of the Earth and look at my card (perhaps the queen of hearts) and instantly know that you have the ace of spades. That's all that entanglement is.
I think it's more than that. Haven't we now found that the act of measuring leads to specific outcomes for both particles not just the process of elimination can be used?
I am thinking of the recent Nobel Prize work...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... proved-it/
Your version with the cards implies that the property is X before measurement - it was the Queen of Spades before we looked. But that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

Apologies in advance for all the messes of the expert having to show what is obvious to her about the lay person's hallucinations.
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Re: All is energy / God is energy

Post by Belinda »

Dontaskme wrote: Sun Dec 11, 2022 9:09 am We usually describe the world in terms of trees, mountains, rivers, clouds, cars, houses, people, and so on.

But a chemist could say: “No, this is not how things truly are! The world is basically composed of molecules which are ceaselessly combining one with another at random”.

However a physicist would reply: “Not at all! Reality is actually made up of intermingling fields of energy/matter where the dance of waves/particles takes place ceaselessly”.

Who is right? Who is wrong?

All of them are clearly mere conceptual descriptions that can just supply a relative view of reality.

We do not actually live in ‘reality’, but rather in a description of it, that is like a ‘bubble’ of concepts and words all around us, which in time builds up a fictitious view of ourselves and the world.

Even non-dualism (as any other -ism without exception) is just a conceptual description of reality, that hopelessly tries to point to the unknowable ‘Whatever it is’: in so far as it becomes an ideology that relies on words and thoughts, it is unable to enjoy the taste of Being.

So we live in concepts without realizing it.

We blindly believe that reality is just as our thought represents it.

Science gives us an ‘objective’ description of the material world that, to some extent, can be very useful for the improvement of humankind, however relative and incomplete it is.

Non-duality - as far as it still relies on words and thoughts - is just another conceptual description of reality, though its understanding of non-separation can dispel a huge amount of suffering in one’s life.

Neither of them is more or less right, and both are useful.

But as long as we rely merely on them, we remain trapped in the net of concepts.

Just as the fisherman’s net can catch only fishes, but not the water that passes through it and even supports it, so the thinking mind can grasp only concepts, but not the awareness that perceives it as an object: the ‘water of awareness’ can never be detected by the net of the thinking mind.

Indeed, awareness is a paradoxical mystery: on the one hand its evidence is undeniable for the very fact that we are aware of objects, but on the other hand it is unknowable, just as the existence of the eye is undeniable for the very fact that we can see objects, though it always remains invisible, outside the picture.

However, even ‘awareness’ is just a concept: through it, we are ultimately confronted with the unknown ‘bottom line’ of any human knowledge.

No understanding whatsoever can touch the unknowable Source of everything.

What if any idea about who I am, including even the idea of ‘consciousness’, totally collapses?

What if any idea about reality, including even the idea of ‘non duality’, totally collapses?

What if even these very words you are reading now lose any meaning whatsoever and fall away?

What remains when every attempt to understand or to know reality reveals its utter futility?

Then, out of frustration, the thinking mind cannot help saying “I don’t know” and finally quits.

But when that “I don’t know” plunges off the head into the heart, the philosopher dies and the mystic is born.

It is not a process in time. It is a singularity where all the known collapses and disappears.

It is a timeless explosion of pure wonder and awe that blows away everything else.

And what remains is a wild, free, spontaneous, and utterly unknowable aliveness, within the glowing darkness of the Mystery that we ultimately are.

The Wonder of Unknowing
Beyond science and non-dualism.


https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/ar ... -unknowing


Image
I agree with all of the above except for your conclusion which is fatalistic. You and I are not sticks or stones or robots. You and I are active agents of change and that makes us different from the things that have no notion of causes and effects.
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Re: All is energy / God is energy

Post by Dontaskme »

Belinda wrote: Sun Dec 11, 2022 12:38 pm I agree with all of the above except for your conclusion which is fatalistic. You and I are not sticks or stones or robots. You and I are active agents of change and that makes us different from the things that have no notion of causes and effects.
The idea of fatalism, you and I, sticks and stones or robots, active agents of change that makes us different from the things that have no idea of cause and effect...Are all ''APPEARANCES'' of No-thing-not-a-thing-nothing.

NOTHING IS EVERYTHING simply because nothing is not an experience. There is simply here, just 'What Is', there is just what is happening apparently. Nothing is not an experience, there is herenow, only, this immediate ''EXPERIENCING'' one without a second. The Absolute.

You and I are not IN, or OF, or OUT of, the ABSOLUTE. You are the ABSOLUTE.

In reality, there is no separate awareness that is witnessing experiences. No thing is witnessing this immediate one without a second experiencing.
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Re: All is energy / God is energy

Post by Dontaskme »

Life proceeds rather by unknowing than by knowing. The apparent knowing of knowledge is only an appearance when there is a demand for knowledge that can only point to the illusory nature of reality, insofar as the demand for knowledge is the demand for the continuity of knowing, but which is already dead and past away like a flowing river that cannot flow in reverse, and cannot ever be this immediate unknowing seamless timeless aliveness.
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Re: All is energy / God is energy

Post by Belinda »

Dontaskme wrote: Sun Dec 11, 2022 1:11 pm
Belinda wrote: Sun Dec 11, 2022 12:38 pm I agree with all of the above except for your conclusion which is fatalistic. You and I are not sticks or stones or robots. You and I are active agents of change and that makes us different from the things that have no notion of causes and effects.
The idea of fatalism, you and I, sticks and stones or robots, active agents of change that makes us different from the things that have no idea of cause and effect...Are all ''APPEARANCES'' of No-thing-not-a-thing-nothing.

NOTHING IS EVERYTHING simply because nothing is not an experience. There is simply here, just 'What Is', there is just what is happening apparently. Nothing is not an experience, there is herenow, only, this immediate ''EXPERIENCING'' one without a second. The Absolute.

You and I are not IN, or OF, or OUT of, the ABSOLUTE. You are the ABSOLUTE.

In reality, there is no separate awareness that is witnessing experiences. No thing is witnessing this immediate one without a second experiencing.
But the reality is there is both the Absolute and the temporal. Most people are aware only of temporal existence and will not or can not understand the Absolute. Even those who have the best understanding of the Absolute are caught up within the net of time and relative change.
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