Re: Matter, energy, space, and direction.

From: AllYou! (idaman_at_conversent.net)
Date: 01/13/05 

Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 15:37:48 -0500

"PD" <pdraper@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1105645903.032702.326020@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> Oh, good, then I think I'm catching on.

I reading what you've posted, no, you're not. Not at all.

> Boundaries are a human construct, because they are arbitrary and do
> nothing to account for the behavior of objects or even allow us to
> unambiguously distinguish objects. Boundaries are not physical. Nature
> doesn't distinguish objects, we distinguish objects, based on abstract
> boundaries.

That's silliness and you know it. It's pretty telling of the weakness of your argument
WRT the subject at hand that you so desperately what to take this discussion to what is
and what is not a boundary. It's also pretty telling that you chose to snip all of what I
posted so that you'd not be bound by the context in which I made my statements and yet
chose to post your interpretation of what I said. How sad is that?

We both know that you'd rather discuss this issue of boundaries and debate it ad nausium
rather than return to the argument that you know you've already lost. OK, I'll play a
little longer.

Objects have physical properties which cause them to influence other objects. As I said
and as you've chosen to snip, what you call these and how exactly they are defined and
differentiated from one another is what is arbitrary, but the fact that they are present
and that their effects can be observed is not. Therefore, whatever physical property of
an object you wish to call a boundary is up to you, however, the existence of that
property is just as physical in any case.

Do you not yet understand the difference between what you choose to call something and
that thing? No, you've already demonstrated that you do not. Either that, or you do know
but your post here was just a sham. Pick your poison.

> Influences are physical, and at any given "time-slice" all things in
> nature (I don't want to call them objects anymore because I don't know
> clearly what that means)

I'm sure that you do not.

> potentially influences every other thing. All
> influences stimulate, directly or indirectly, our senses -- or will
> eventually -- or did some time ago.

Any phenomenon which is observable is physical. Ultimately, we can only observe using our
senses, and so anything which is observable is capable, directly or indirectly, of
stimulating our senses. Terms like *eventually* and *some time ago* have nothing to do
with it.

> So I'm curious: An electric field that is set up in "space" around an
> "object" with "charge" -- that is physical because it is an influence,
> right?

Correct.

> I can measure an electric field's influence at any location in
> the surrounding "space" by sensing the force on a charged thing at that
> location, without knowing anything about the charge that created the
> field. The electric field is not an abstract construct, it's real?

If you observed it influence something physical, then it's physical. What is or is not
real has nothing to do with science.

> And
> it's a real thing with --- well, what shall we call it for our own
> small minds? --- infinite extent, no boundaries, influence over all
> other objects?

Infinity is a human concept. I'd prefer *indeterminate distance*.

> I'm just trying to get a grip on what things are real and what things
> are not.

You're getting the hang of it (what is physical and what is not), but that won't stop the
obfuscation, of that I'm sure.

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