energy versus spirit.

[danielost]

This is a science discussion. But if I put this in a science thread, people ould cry about it.

The saying goes you cannot make or lose energy. I am wondering if the samething can be said about knowledge. I know you can add to your own knowledge. But, is usually knowledge someone else had. If knowlege cannot be destroyed or made, could thi explain souls. We do not have a means to test a persons real knowledge. The closest is an iq test. Which measures knowledge on a subject.

[StarMountainKid]

Maybe all knowledge already exists and we just sample some of it. Information also cannot be destroyed. As information is basically energy, and energy cannot be created or destroyed, all the information that creates a universe must already exist for that universe to exist.

Perhaps spiritual information also exists, and this is what we call soul or spirit.

[freetoroam]

If man does not pass on his knowledge then it rests for the next man to find out himself. Fortunately man has be passing on his knowledge through cave drawings, books, word of mouth, education and now the internet. Can not see what this has to do with souls?

[danielost]

A soul could be the aaccumulation of this knowledge. As you accumulate moore jknowledge you can go from near nothing to being god like. Whhat god has done is created this life to help to accumulate more knowledge and learn how to use it for good, gods ddefinition if, good. It is like the accuumulation of enrrgy wait long eenough and you get a star.

[Gary Meadows]

Knowledge dies with the body unfortunately.

[Rlyeh]

Knowledge requires a medium.

[Almagest]

I don't think 'knowledge' is bound by laws on the conservation of energy. It can grow and spread. The only real limit on knowledge I guess is how much the brain can store.

[danielost]

Knowledge does not die with the body. It may float around through space, waiting for someone else to find it. But, it is still there.

Does the brain power knowledge or does knowledge power your brain. If knowledge powers the brain . Then knowledge is more than this life.

[dlonewolf85]

Knowledge does not die with the body. It may float around through space, waiting for someone else to find it. But, it is still there.

Nope. Knowledge doesn't work that way. It is cumulative i.e. new knowledge is always added to the previously known stuff. Knowledge can be information or a set of skills or maybe even a certain perspective on a subject that further leads to a deeper understanding. Sometimes knowledge can be lost too. If a person carries a secret with him and then dies, or if a civilization gets wiped out, or if the earth gets destroyed, knowledge can be lost. But it definitely doesn't float around in space. Dude! lol.

[Rlyeh]

Knowledge does not die with the body. It may float around through space, waiting for someone else to find it. But, it is still there.

What does knowledge look like or made of?

You seem to be confused about just what knowledge is.

[danielost]

Nope. Knowledge doesn't work that way. It is cumulative i.e. new knowledge is always added to the previously known stuff. Knowledge can be information or a set of skills or maybe even a certain perspective on a subject that further leads to a deeper understanding. Sometimes knowledge can be lost too. If a person carries a secret with him and then dies, or if a civilization gets wiped out, or if the earth gets destroyed, knowledge can be lost. But it definitely doesn't float around in space. Dude! lol.

I disagree. Knowledge has to exist in order for someone to discover it. You may learnn new knowledge but it has to be available too be learned. Which may be why tfhe greeks couldn't build a steam locoomotive. They had all of the parts to make one they just couldn'tg putf it together. Knowlledge seems to be "discovered" when we are ready to use it.

[danielost]

What does knowledge look like or made of?

You seem to be confused about just what knowledge is.

I don't know what it looks like made of or looks like. What does nrgy look like.

[Rlyeh]

I don't know what it looks like made of or looks like. What does nrgy look like.

Energy is the system's capacity to do work. Energy is not knowledge.

I disagree. Knowledge has to exist in order for someone to discover it. You may learnn new knowledge but it has to be available too be learned. Which may be why tfhe greeks couldn't build a steam locoomotive. They had all of the parts to make one they just couldn'tg putf it together. Knowlledge seems to be "discovered" when we are ready to use it.

Disagree all you like, the definition of knowledge doesn't mean what you think it does.

[danielost]

There are two forms for sure combine to make something that is greater than its parts. Energy, which can become a star. Life, which can become a human. Knowledge, which might become a god or god like being. Life seems to be made up of all three, from the single celled to the mighty red wood tree. All life on earth seems to have enough knowledge to be what it is with a little lift over.

My mommy cat showed her knowledge, two years ago, when I came home from the hospital. I had asked my roommate if she had a sausage she could fix for me. She said no. Mommy kitty went into the kitchen and grabed a hot sausage

She went out of the house and carried t around the house and brought to me. She know what I wanted and how to get it to me. She also did not take a bite out of it. I couldn't eat it but it tells me she has more knowledge than people would give a cat.

[danielost]

Energy is the system's capacity to do work. Energy is not knowledge.

Disagree all you like, the definition of knowledge doesn't mean what you think it does.

:-) ok you define it for me. I am just asking a question. Thyat is where knowledge begins right.

[dlonewolf85]

I disagree. Knowledge has to exist in order for someone to discover it. You may learnn new knowledge but it has to be available too be learned. Which may be why tfhe greeks couldn't build a steam locoomotive. They had all of the parts to make one they just couldn'tg putf it together. Knowlledge seems to be "discovered" when we are ready to use it.

I disagree also. Knowledge is available to us, yes - but through experience, individual or collective. But I think knowledge is never really 'out there' just waiting to be found. No disrespect but poetically you could be correct, practically, I think not. To illustrate my point, let's just assume here that you have absolutely no knowledge of Kung-Fu. That means, the knowledge of Kung-Fu is lost on you due to your lack of experience of it, although it is definitely "available" to all of us in this universe. And are you suggesting that the Greeks just weren't 'ready' to use steam locomotives but the knowledge was available to be discovered? Yeah lol. They would have looked kinda ridiculous using trains to travel or to make wars and history and culture and stuff.

[StarMountainKid]

Isn't knowledge information?

The information embodied by a thing can thus be said to be the identity of the particular thing itself, that is, all of its properties, all that makes it distinct from other (real or potential) things. It is a complete description of the thing,

http://en.wikipedia....cal_information

I think it could be argued that the total information that describes a human being at any moment in time would include that human's knowledge.

In physics and cosmology, digital physics is a collection of theoretical perspectives based on the premise that the universe is, at heart, describable by information, and is therefore computable. Therefore, the universe can be conceived of as either the output of a computer program, a vast, digital computation device, or mathematically isomorphic to such a device.

http://en.wikipedia....Digital_physics

So, if the universe is fundamentally information, and therefore a human being is fundamentally information (including its knowledge), the total amount of information in the universe must include this human being.

It may follow that this total amount of information was created at the big bang, and cannot be destroyed, for if information is destroyed the universe would not continue to have this initial coherent information to evolve as it has. So, perhaps the information that describes this human being cannot be destroyed.

This may be the source of the energy versus spirit of the OP, as information being expressed as energy.. Maybe I'm out on a limb here.

Edited September 16, 2013 by StarMountainKid

[freetoroam]

Knowledge does not die with the body. It may float around through space, waiting for someone else to find it. But, it is still there.

Does the brain power knowledge or does knowledge power your brain. If knowledge powers the brain . Then knowledge is more than this life.

Without a brain there would be no where for man to store his knowledge. Once stored, he can then pass it on through...speech, writings, drawings, etc etc etc,

but as for floating around through space?

[danielost]

Looks like we need to define what life, energy and knowledge is so I will ask three more questions.

What is energy? It isn't a star or lightening bolt, these are collections of energy.

What is life. It is a state of being alive but that isn't what life is.

What is knowledge. It isn't the brain as stated above that is a storage device. A computer is a storage device but it has no knowledge, no life, and does not produce energy.

[Almagest]

There's a difference between knowledge and information. Knowledge applies to human beings, consisting of justified true beliefs, and is limited to our storage capacity. Information is the raw details of the universe. The lines get blurred when you consider a book. It's a compilation of the author's knowledge, but is it knowledge to the reader, or is it information? Knowledge increases with education, investigation, reflection, and inspiration, and it declines as the holders of that knowledge die. Greek Fire, for instance, was used successfully by the Byzantine Empire for defence, but the recipe has long been forgotten. It could be rediscovered if archaeological evidence is found, or it could be re-invented. The former would be a transfer of knowledge in the form of information, and the latter would be a rediscovery of the chemical knowledge required to create it.

As for the Greeks and steam power, the principles involved have always existed. In fact they understood some of them, most important of all that the air is a physical thing that takes up space. The reason they didn't develop it is two fold. Firstly the Greeks only had patches of enlightenment, the majority of Greek civilization is defined by warring city states. Archimedes, Democritus and Eratosthenes could do all the theorizing they wanted, but it wouldn't manifest as anything in a society where the majority of people fell into either the farmer or slave category. Secondly they had no real need, there was little need to unite two city states via transport when it will more often than not be used to deliver soldiers. I can imagine it would be hard to get a King to sign off on a rail line express from Sparta. So the principles(information) existed, the time just wasn't right. We had to develop strong centralized government and industry before the need for rail emerged.

[danielost]

Knowledge is more than what is stored in the brain as far as humans are concerned. Our knowledge goes far beyond just information. We can have leaps of faith or leaps of insperation. As I stated a computer is a storage devise but it cannot have leaps of anything. At least not yet.

[Almagest]

Knowledge is more than what is stored in the brain as far as humans are concerned. Our knowledge goes far beyond just information. We can have leaps of faith or leaps of insperation. As I stated a computer is a storage devise but it cannot have leaps of anything. At least not yet.

Well of course there's more to the mind than that. As I said the brain just imposes the limit of the amount of knowledge. If you believe a soul or a spirit carries that knowledge after death it too would have to have a limit. Even if reincarnation comes into it, a soul might contain multiple lifetimes worth of wisdom, but that too is limited by the number of incarnations. Just because we have sudden inspiration at times isn't really proof of anything supernatural though. The subconscious might make a link between two things that the conscious mind never would, and the realisation is called inspiration. Although sometimes its not particularly clear where exactly inspiration emerges from, I firmly believe that the cause of it is biological. I am fond of the idea of a collective unconscious, however.

[danielost]

I never said insperation was supernatural. I said it comes from more than the information the brain holds. The brain holds information. Which is add to a persons knowledge. Adding skills, going to school, watching a nature show or other documentary adds to both information and knowledge.

I have thought a little more on my three questions. I think that life is a combonation of energy and pure knowledge(soul). God sent us here to learn something and it may not be the samething for everyone, and it could be to learn more than one thing.

I do know there was a state of being before life and it was not life. So the question is what was that state of being. Was it knowledge, was it energy, or was it something else.

That is what this thread is about. We can measure energy, we can measure life force, but we cannot measure pure knowledge.

[Rlyeh]

:-) ok you define it for me. I am just asking a question. Thyat is where knowledge begins right.

Knowing something.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/knowledge

Edited September 17, 2013 by Rlyeh

[Stubbly_Dooright]

This is a science discussion. But if I put this in a science thread, people ould cry about it.

The saying goes you cannot make or lose energy. I am wondering if the samething can be said about knowledge. I know you can add to your own knowledge. But, is usually knowledge someone else had. If knowlege cannot be destroyed or made, could thi explain souls. We do not have a means to test a persons real knowledge. The closest is an iq test. Which measures knowledge on a subject.

To me, I researched this online: from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/knowledge

a (1) : the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association (2) : acquaintance with or understanding of a science, art, or technique

b (1) : the fact or condition of being aware of something (2): the range of one's information or understanding <answered to the best of my knowledge>

c : the circumstance or condition of apprehending truth or fact through reasoning : cognition

d : the fact or condition of having information or of being learned <a person of unusual knowledge>

And knowledge here: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/knowledge

knowl·edge (nlj)

n.

1.

The state or fact of knowing.

2.

Familiarity, awareness, or understanding gained through experience or study.

3.

The sum or range of what has been perceived, discovered, or learned.

4.

Learning; erudition:

teachers of great knowledge.

5.

Specific information about something.

6.

Carnal knowledge.

So to me, it's like the if the tree falls in the forest can you hear it bit. Knowledge grows, when something the knowledge is about is created. And like others here are stating, it can die when one person holding a singular knowledge dies. I don't think it's compared to energy.