Arvin's done a nice video, where he talks to the authors of the new paper.

 

 

11 hours ago, birdguy said:

What a revolting thought.  How could an energy body turn over soil and plant roses in a garden?  Oh, yeah, that body would control a robot to it for him or her.

 

It's not something we need to worry about. It may be an impossibility. If it is possible, then the human race becoming energy beings would be an evolutionary process over millions of years. Those beings would have evolved to be perfectly happy with their existance and not to fond of ours now.

12 hours ago, birdguy said:

I'm assuming all of these 'energy bodies' would be invisible floating around in some form of ether.  None would be beautiful and none would be ugly.  Would they be able to speak or would inter-person communication be conducted telepathically?  And if telepathically how could we communicate secrets to each other?  How about the other forms of life on the planet?  From elephants to cockroaches would they also be 'energy bodies'?

 

Impossible to say. All of this is us allowing our imaginations to run wild. Evolution is about microscopic changes over a very long period and random mutations. We simply don't know if this is possible or not.

As for other animals, they too are subject to evolution and where it leads them.

The other point of course is that for this energy being hypothesis to be manifest, it would require our species to survive for millions of years so we could evolve that way. So you would have to believe a species could last that long.

It could be our 'souls' are 'energy bodies' if we have them.  An energy body residing in a physical body.

Maybe reincarnation is energy bodies floating around looking for physical bodies to share.  It could be that anti-social humans and career criminals are simply physical human bodies the energy body of  dead rattlesnakes decided to inhabit.

I think StarTrek has done stuff along this line.

Noel

I often wonder what percentage of an electron is mass and how much is pure energy.  Is it all mass?  Is it mostly energy?  Is it like I picture -- a bit like the Earth -- a crust covering a less solid center - aka pure energy center with a massive shell?  Maybe living things are similar.  We have mass but also energy and that energy could be considered  a soul or spirit.

What I do know though is that anyone who considers themselves a scientist but rules out spirits from the start because it "doesnt fit the plan" isn't taking a scientific approach to the subject.  it may not be possible to scientifically study such a thing but I hate to see it ruled out because it may help in our overall understanding of our so called reality.

and about quantum entanglement -- I feel that its no different than when we first discovered magnetic fields and considered it magic of some kind.  In the future we will probably look back at the primitive thought we had about what was going on and that we just hadnt yet discovered this new field or state of matter - maybe the spiritual state of matter for an appropriate term here.

P.S.:  I've seen a ghost that I know was there because three of us saw it at the same time and the other two I was with had a back and forth conversation describing exactly what I saw without me saying a word. Theres more to this world than meets the eye.

 

P.S.2:  How do we know that electrons aren't just billions of photons grouped together?  the math not work out? 

Edited April 27, 20215 yr by sightseer

1 hour ago, sightseer said:

1) I often wonder what percentage of an electron is mass and how much is pure energy.  Is it all mass?  Is it mostly energy?  

2) quantum entanglement -- I feel that its no different than when we first discovered magnetic fields and considered it magic of some kind. 

3) How do we know that electrons aren't just billions of photons grouped together?  the math not work out? 

1) That is actually a question with a very subtle answer. In principle, mass and energy are the same (up to a factor, since E=m c^2). However, one distinguishes between a rest mass and mass that is produced through an interaction with another object. The strong force that holds atomic nuclei together is an example of the latter. In nuclear fission, you break up a nucleus and the resulting fragments have less mass because they have less interaction energy.

For mathematical consistency, the rest mass in the standard model of particle physics must be zero for most particles. Their mass is entirely produced through interactions, and the Higgs Boson has been introduced precisely for the reason to provide a mass-generating interaction.

2) Entanglement is just a description of correlations. Two things are correlated if one thing implies the other; for instance, if you send two mittens to two different people, their findings will be correlated: if person 1 gets the right mitten, person 2 will have the left mitten. However, entanglement adds a quantum mechanical element to correlations, which leads to "spooky actions at a distance" (Einstein), see the following video

3) Electrons have an electric charge and photons do not. Hence, you will always need something more than photons to describe an electron.

Peter

I believe I remember reading once that scientists were idly musing about a theory that there was actually only one Electron in the entire universe, but that it was everywhere/everywhen...

17 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

I believe I remember reading once that scientists were idly musing about a theory that there was actually only one Electron in the entire universe, but that it was everywhere/everywhen...

 

Acording to quantum field theory a particle is an excitation in a field. The electric field fills the universe and an electron is a wobble in that field. A photon is an excitation in the electromagnetic field, a quark and excitation in the quark field, the Higgs Boson an excitation in the Higgs field etc.

 

Edited April 27, 20215 yr by martin-w

3 hours ago, birdguy said:

It could be our 'souls' are 'energy bodies' if we have them.  An energy body residing in a physical body.

 

Noel

 

There's zero evidence that's the case. The human brain is the most complex arrangement of matter we know of. The billions of neurons it contains can all connect with each other in an unimaginably huge number of patterns. That complexity is perfectly capable of generating what we call consciousness. 

@qqwertzde  I'd like to thank you for that video.  I've watched it once and would have to watch it many more times to even begin to grasp what its trying to tell me.  I do not at all understand 'spin' in that context for example.  but thank you anyway.

if I may ask one question:  Because we are part of reality, how do we ever hope to step outside of reality to see what truly may be going on?  If everything we could ever hope to measure were all changing at the same rate to the same degree by some outside (to us) force, how would we ever know?  

something that appears instantaneous to us may not be instantaneous at all... only to us.

So, Martin, can I assume from what you are saying about the billions, or perhaps trillions, of neurons in our brain are unconnected at birth and become connected as the learning process starts.  An engineer has a different connection set up than a doctor and a common semi-literate laborer has fewer connections.

Since life itself is a learning experience then as we age more and more connections are being made.

And when we die all the connections become disconnected...or do they?  Is being brain dead a state at which the connections become disconnected except those which control basic body functions?

Noel 

Apropos of my state of being,

some days I feel like I'm a Horta,

other days I feel like I'm a Tribble.

Just now, n4gix said:

Apropos of my state of being,

some days I feel like I'm a Horta,

other days I feel like I'm a Tribble.

And I'm always just a cat. 

 

1 hour ago, sightseer said:

@qqwertzde  I'd like to thank you for that video.  I've watched it once and would have to watch it many more times to even begin to grasp what its trying to tell me.  I do not at all understand 'spin' in that context for example.  but thank you anyway.

if I may ask one question:  Because we are part of reality, how do we ever hope to step outside of reality to see what truly may be going on?  If everything we could ever hope to measure were all changing at the same rate to the same degree by some outside (to us) force, how would we ever know?  

something that appears instantaneous to us may not be instantaneous at all... only to us.

Think of spin as an intrinsic rotation of a particle. The video is not very easy to grasp, but that's because it tries to explain one of the most subtle phenomena in nature. It is very well made, about as simple as one can describe entanglement without losing an important aspect. The CEO summary is: you can prepare two particles in such a way that they always rotate in opposite directions. If you measure the rotation of the two particles, then the probabilities to find certain results cannot be explained with a classical probability theory, you need quantum mechanics and the change of the rotation when you measure it.

Your question is a really nice one. To fully describe the entire universe (which comprises the reality around us), one would need a computer that is as least as big as the universe itself (and a quantum computer for that). That is a contradiction in itself, so any theory about nature must be an approximation and concentrate on specific aspects of nature. The trick is that we can isolate parts of the universe and make sure that it is not disturbed by the rest. For instance, if you have an experiment that runs for one second, then anything that is farther away than 380,000 km can be ignored since not even light from that area could reach your experiment in that time. Typical time scales in atomic physics are much smaller, and one can also shield the system of interest from the outside world. In that way, only a tiny part of the universe needs to be described. That works really well and has resulted in much of modern technology.

Peter

 

1 hour ago, birdguy said:

So, Martin, can I assume from what you are saying about the billions, or perhaps trillions, of neurons in our brain are unconnected at birth and become connected as the learning process starts.

 

It's billions. They used to say 100 billion but the latest estimate is 86 billion.

Neurological pathways exist at birth otherwise we would not be able to function as living beings. Pathways are dynamic though, malleable. And actually, young babies tend to be synesthetic, in that the senses tend to be jumbled up. (Even some adults suffer from synaesthesia, in that they experience odour as colour, sounds as taste etc) As babies develop the pathways sort themselves out and are assigned to the proper sense. But yes, the learning process is all about developing new neurological pathways and of course strengthening and weakening pathways that are pre existing. 

 

1 hour ago, birdguy said:

An engineer has a different connection set up than a doctor and a common semi-literate laborer has fewer connections.

 

Pretty much yes. Not all of the pathways of course but the pathways responsible for the activates the individuals do are strengthened by learning and repetition. 

 

1 hour ago, birdguy said:

Since life itself is a learning experience then as we age more and more connections are being made.

 

Pathways we don't use are deemphasised and those we use are strengthened. New pathways are created when we learn something new, a new task, in fact pretty much anything, even this conversation I'm having with you now is rewiring our pathways to an extent. Aging of course causes the neurons to shrink and lose dendrites. Connections between synapses drop. This is why its important to stay mentally active as we age. Playing chess, conversations like we are having now, new tasks to learn, all form new pathways and give us extra capacity. 

 

1 hour ago, birdguy said:

And when we die all the connections become disconnected...or do they?  Is being brain dead a state at which the connections become disconnected except those which control basic body functions?

 

I think its more to do with the lack of oxygen to the brain killing the tissue. 

 

I can use myself as a  example of how neurological connections work. I suffer from OCD. The best treatment for OCD is Exposure and Response Prevention therapy. When you suffer from OCD and carry out repetitive rituals, physical or mental, or carry out the compulsive aspect of the condition, you strengthen the neurological connections associated with that behaviour, thus making the condition worse. Exposure therapy encourages sufferers to stop carrying out the compulsions, thereby weakening the neurological connections associated with that behaviour.