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Re: heat is a form of energy

On Sat, 11 Sep 1999, Bob Sciamanda wrote:

As you say: "Physics holds no truths about Nature. The best we can do is
to construct our best descriptions of Nature . . ."

And the raw materials for this construction are derived from our sensory
perceptions of corporeal substances. In our model construction we have
learned to invent incorporeal, mathematical entities. We can
mathematically define the properties of these mathematical entities, but
in order to speak of them and visualize them we perforce (and always with
some risk) turn to the properties of corporeal substances. (1)


...and yet the very concept of "corporeal substance" is a sort of metaphor
for an entity which we can never truely grasp except through
interpretations of sensory information; through "mental models". If we
cannot "see" the real world, but must "assemble" it using collections of
very solid-looking interlocking metaphors, then we have forgotten that it
is *WE* who supplied those metaphors. We have fallen for the illusion. We
mistake the phosphors on the video-game screen for reality, because we can
never see reality directly, and we know that *something* out there is
real.


Atoms are supposed to be more "real" than photons or electrons... yet in
the Bose-Einstein Condensate, they become just as delocalized as any
photon in a wavefront. How can we not respond to such a discovery?
Entire complicated atoms turn into "quantum fuzz" just like electrons do!
Do we just close our eyes to it, and pretend that it has no implications,
and proclaim that atoms are "real", and that they are not just collections
of mental models?


If we twist our minds a little bit, we will see that perhaps matter is
like an image in a dream, and if we look too closely at it, we don't see
details, instead we have concensual hallucinations. Hallucinations which
can vaporize cities, but hallucinations nonetheless.



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