Quantum Physics Question

[Buddy]

Our dog, Cherie. I was playing with her outside a while ago. She thinks. The game is simple: she brings you the ball and waits until you throw it. Then she would catch it and bring it to you again, putting two feet from you. If you do not throw it again immediately, she will pick it and bring it right to your feet. But - if you are walking, she will put the ball on the ground some 20 feet in front of you. If you are walking fast - she will somehow calculate the appropriate (in her estimation) distance, usually quite reasonably.

Does she has a free will? Is she thinking? Or is it all just "instinct"? What is the difference between Cherie's thinking and human thinking. Moreover not all dogs think the same way and not all humans think the same way. The quality varies, sometimes dramatically.

I see no reason to consider freewill or instinct. Rather, I see an inductive thinking mode where the deeper levels of mind can perform calculations and give results easily because there is no second-guessing going on. I believe Cherie simply 'trusts' and acts according to what is provided to her, internally or externally.

I think it's similar to our own inductive thinking mode where we can do logic by inferring general statements from a 'set' of observations (as distinct from 'deducing' statements that are implicit in premises).

Of course, I could be wrong. This is just what I think at the moment. I haven't got to the next question yet.

 

[RedFox]

There are actually two ways to view the energy content of the universe according to the First Law.

But if the first Law is false, then saying that it can be described that the universe has Zero or Infinite energy is also false....

Either it is always ZERO i.e. there is always precisely enough "negative" energy (from gravitation) to exactly counterbalance "positive" energy (from particles), resulting in a total universal energy of zero

Ok, this assumes a lot....I don't know much about physics, but isn't there more things in the universe than gravitation and particles??? What about the electromagnetic spectrum (and how colour is formed by particles 'absorbing' the rest of the light spectrum)?
Neutrinos? I am unsure if they are particles, but I seem to think they have no mass.....so they are not countered by gravity??
Both of these seem to break the idea that 'particles balance exactly against gravity'....it seems to be rather closed (black and white) thinking??

I'm wondering what the definition of 'energy' is here.....with Zero energy nothing would happen (that's how I see it)?? And with Infinate energy everything would happen at once?? Maybe this is like the new age thinking of 'all is one'??

Science has never been able to definitively prove which option is correct.

Perhaps then it is unprovable. Or a wrong/faulty/contradictory assumption. It seems way to simplistic.....maybe this is just my understanding based on lack of data.

Any other value of the universe's total energy is absurd since there would never be a sufficient reason for the energy content of the universe to be an arbitrary amount. (After all, why would one amount be any more likely than any other amount?)

How is it any more (or less) absurd than the theory above?? If the theory works based on a set amount of energy (and is provable) then it is miles ahead of the one above!

This all reminds me of Lauras facebook post...

In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation.

 

[Mountain Crown]

Aren't Zero and Infinity mutually exclusive measurements? Nothing is nothing.

 

[Oxajil]

Either it is always ZERO i.e. there is always precisely enough "negative" energy (from gravitation) to exactly counterbalance "positive" energy (from particles), resulting in a total universal energy of zero...or the amount of energy in the universe is always INFINITE. Science has never been able to definitively prove which option is correct. Any other value of the universe's total energy is absurd since there would never be a sufficient reason for the energy content of the universe to be an arbitrary amount. (After all, why would one amount be any more likely than any other amount?)

Okay so the options are + is equal to - Or ∞, but what about ''positive'' energy and ''negative'' energy continuously changing? Perhaps towards balance, or maybe towards imbalance? Perhaps the universe doesn't even ''need'' to have an arbitrary amount of energy, rather, the amount could be continuously changing. fwiw...

 

[Oxajil]

Our dog, Cherie. I was playing with her outside a while ago. She thinks. The game is simple: she brings you the ball and waits until you throw it. Then she would catch it and bring it to you again, putting two feet from you. If you do not throw it again immediately, she will pick it and bring it right to your feet. But - if you are walking, she will put the ball on the ground some 20 feet in front of you. If you are walking fast - she will somehow calculate the appropriate (in her estimation) distance, usually quite reasonably.

Does she has a free will? Is she thinking? Or is it all just "instinct"? What is the difference between Cherie's thinking and human thinking. Moreover not all dogs think the same way and not all humans think the same way. The quality varies, sometimes dramatically.

Usually when cycling or walking, or maybe driving we also calculate on if we could speed up here, or slow down etc. we also make calculations, I think it might be like Cherie's calculations, I think this might be ''instinct''? And I think there might also be some thinking involved, because if you don't pick up the ball, she will come to you with the ball, and if she sees you don't pick it up, she might decide (?) to just lie down somewhere. So I think there might be a mix of thinking, free will and instinct. Or maybe not...

 

[Buddy]

But there is more to spot. Or, at least, that is how I see it. What about zero and infinity?

Zero? I am not sure that logic allows any inference to be drawn from a true 'nothing'. His 'ZERO' is defined as the result in this proposition:

...there is always precisely enough "negative" energy (from gravitation) to exactly counterbalance "positive" energy (from particles), resulting in a total universal energy of zero

The result "zero" (as I understand it) does not follow from the statements. Rather, I see a result of "balance" which is different to "zero" and more suggestive of modal logics, OSIT, not the Aristotelian logic he seems to be using.

Infinity? Regardless of whether there is an "infinity" in Reality, the way the word is used in logic is an error, OSIT. Logically, 'infinity' cannot be proven because like any car engine, any 'counter' must eventually wear out and stop counting.

...or the amount of energy in the universe is always INFINITE.

As I see it (and I am not expert), wherever such linguistic fictions as this are used, they may be replaced with some suitable, very large number, that's all. Otherwise, he is using the form 'infinite' which seems to imply that in an 'open' system, a decision has occurred or has been chosen as to a stopping point for 'taking a measure', yet that activity seems to contradict the definition of 'infinite'.


Edit: included the quote I was replying to.

 

[EmeraldHope]

So far - so good. But there is more to spot. Or, at least, that is how I see it. What about zero and infinity?

Well, here is what the Cs say:

Q: (T) So, for us to try and think of this in third density...

A: Variable physicality is the key.

Q: (L) What makes the physicality variable?

A: Awareness of link between consciousness and matter.

Q: (L) What is the link between consciousness and matter?

A: Illusion.

Q: (L) What is the nature of the illusion?

(T) That there isn't any connection between consciousness and matter. It is only an illusion that there is. It is part of the third density...

A: No. Illusion is that there is not.

Q: (L) The illusion is that there is no link between consciousness and matter.

A: Yes.

Q: (T) The illusion is that there is not a link. In third density...

(L) I got it!

(T) Don't disappear on me now! [Laughter] The relationship is that consciousness is matter.

A: Close. What about vice versa?

Q: (L) Just reverse everything. Light is gravity. Optics are atomic particles, matter is anti-matter... just reverse everything to understand the next level... it can't be that easy.

(J) Wait a second: gravity equals light, atomic particles equals optics, anti-matter equals matter? It is all about balance.

(L) And the answer must always be zero.

A: And zero is infinity.

Q: (L) So, you are saying that it is not that there is a link, the illusion is that there is separation. There is no difference, they are the same?

A: Yes.

If zero and infinity are the same, there is no debate. This also negates the first post Ark gave us to find the fallacies with, as the C's say conciousness and matter are both the same.

 

[ark]

And how much it will be?

infinity+5

 

[ark]

Gravitational self-energy.

I the Berkeley course of Mechanics (author: Kittel, Knight, Ruderman) there is an exercise: calculate gravitational self-energy U of a ball of uniform density and a given radius R. The answer is calculated there and it is, surprise-surprise -

where M is the mass, G is the gravitational constant. Notice the sign minus. So, here, gravitational (self-)energy is considered to be indeed negative. Why? Because we have perform work to separate the ball carrying each of its atoms far away.

Therefore, concerning the statement that gravitational energy is negative, I would not consider it being an error. An explosive have positive energy (because it can perform work while its pieces escape to infinity), gravitational energy has negative energy, because gravitation is an attractive force, and we have to perform work disassembling a planet or the Sun.

But, frankly speaking, the sign of this of that energy is a convention. A convention that needs to be stated and explained, nevertheless. Do not be surprise if someone, in some book or a paper, will say that gravitational energy is positive. The devil is in the details and the details and conventions often have to be guessed from the context.

 

[Buddy]

And how much it will be?

infinity+5

The way I see it, the notion of 'infinity', 'zero' and some imaginary ‘perfect’ circle says more about the limited acuity of human visual equipment (or maybe just mine) than it does about Reality. If I am not mistaken there is also the logical fallacy that pre-supposes that just because a question is asked there is an answer for it?

I could benefit by having my own errors exposed because I am self-taught and my 'education' is not well-rounded.
I probably miss a lot. :)

 

[StrangeCaptain]

Without reading what Ark has added recently and trying not to use anything I already know about physics (not much) and not looking for information elsewhere, effectively just using what is written in the statement, the "zero" he uses seems to be a sort of net effect of the energy having a + or - sign. If there where infinite energy, I guess we would be saying that there is an infinite number (countably or uncountably infinite? :P) of energy "units." I don't see any reason, just looking at what is in the statement, why "half" of the infinitely many units of energy could not be negative and the other half positive. Or all of them negative or all of them positive... The point is that the 2 mutually exclusive choices he gives don't seem to be mutually exclusive but actually talking about 2 different things: the net effect of the energy and the amount of energy "units" so to speak. Of course, real physical concerns could change all of that, but I thougt we were trying to leave out any more physics for the moment and just concentrate on his presentation. This is my first impression.

 

[John G]

A zero made from a negative and positive still needs some value (finite or infinite) for the positive and negative. Even if that value is infinity there are different infinities (like the infinite whole numbers are twice the infinite even or odd whole numbers) aka Ark's infinity + 5 comment. Related to which infinity, is energy density and what finite value it has. In other words there are still finite values to be determined even with the zero and infinity scenarios. There might be deep philosophical vacuum related reasons for thinking about particle rest mass and gravitational mass cancelling out but for practical expansion of the universe type things, you need to look at the not cancelled out values.

 

[anart]

I the Berkeley course of Mechanics (author: Kittel, Knight, Ruderman) there is an exercise: calculate gravitational self-energy U of a ball of uniform density and a given radius R. The answer is calculated there and it is, surprise-surprise -

. Notice the sign minus.

Gravity is negative by convention and we have that 3 and 5 again, in the form of 3/5 ...

 

[StrangeCaptain]

I guess I am just having trouble wraping my head around what infinite energy could possibly mean. I can visualize a scenario with zero energy or almost zero energy like a satellaite in its proper orbit to circle around the earth for a very long time without having to expend energy to stay there. But infinite energy? What the heck does that mean?

 

[WhiteBear]

I guess I am just having trouble wraping my head around what infinite energy could possibly mean. I can visualize a scenario with zero energy or almost zero energy like a satellaite in its proper orbit to circle around the earth for a very long time without having to expend energy to stay there. But infinite energy? What the heck does that mean?

I like the example of the satellite in orbit, it's something I can wrap my mind around. A satellite has potential energy, due to its altitude, with a force vector pointing inward to the center of the earth, down the gravity well. It also has centripetal force, in the opposite direction, due to its rotational velocity around the Earth, holding it in place, altitude-wise. If somehow you could magically make that satellite indestructible, put it in orbit around an object with a theoretically infinite gravity well, like say a black hole, and give it infinite velocity, so its orbit will maintain due to the infinite centripetal force outward from the black hole, you have three infinities, all different directions, but the net expenditure is zero.