Power

Nicolai Hartmann is worth reading - in any case -, yes.

Well they would not be called psychic if they were although I tend not to
accept something as true unless it can actually be demonstrated to be so

So what of an example of a delusional cult leader (like Heaven’s Gate for example) who believes he’s a prophet or messiah, or whatever, and whose delusions eventually lead to mass suicides? Let’s assume he’s truly insane too, and really believes what he’s saying, himself (no conscious manipulation involved). That would be an example of fantasy (“non-physical”) affecting events in physical world. Or what about suicide bombers who think they’re just earning a place in the afterlife by blowing themselves up and causing damage in physical world? Let’s say people are not even targets of insane visions. It could be animals or natural landscapes. Power or force is manifested in the physical world, but it comes from a mental delusion.

Psychological power. The ability to exploit a person by appealing to their emotions and feeding into their deepest desires.

You will notice that all religions and other methods of psychological manipulation feed into some fundamental human weakness/need. The God is the ultimate father figure, feeds into the human desire to be cared for and guided, makes one feel safe and gives a sense of purpose, absolving the individual of the responsibility of constructing their own purpose. Heaven promises eternal happiness for eternity - it doesn’t get much more obvious than that, appealing to the satisfaction of all of a person’s needs. And hell, its opposite - eternal punishment, appealing to fear of pain and suffering.

Those who are deluded themselves perhaps even make the best leaders because they are convincing, they don’t have to consciously switch between their private beliefs (what they actually believe) and public beliefs (what they sell to the masses), for they are one and the same.

But those who are aware that they are just manipulating others have the advantage of not being manipulated themselves by the same bullshit, Jews are the example of this - they sell all kinds of ideological bullshit to others, whilst of course rejecting it themselves. The downside is that others may perceive and point out this hypocrisy, which opens them up for criticism.

Even fantasy is physical in that it is constructed and contained by a physical brain, and representations of these connections in the brain can be expressed using written and spoken language.

The problem I’m having with the concept of power or force (which has been bugging me lately) is that it’s such a broadly used term, if you think about it, that it’s almost easier to think of it in terms of just physics if you’re trying to isolate it’s essence. Surely, force or power is something that has existed in nature before humans came along, and even before life itself appeared on earth. We talk about earth being created by cosmic forces, and later by geological forces and weather systems, which later created the environment conductive to life. Then life appeared, which could be considered a force of its own kind (negative entropy) which is driven by self replication/survival. Then, increasing complexity, either through assimilations or random mutations (how does force or power play into that?). It’s easy to use human or political examples of use of power, but what can we say of it’s essence? Is it determined by its function, or consequence/result, or its source, or is it a term that we use arbitrarily when you look at a bigger picture which does not even consider humans or animals as an exclusive source in power/force plays that may actually exist. Perhaps the problem lies in the language use, but then what would it be without linguistic definition?

Power is the ability to change.

An alternative definition would be that power is the ability to posit a goal and then achieve it but this excludes everything that does not have a goal (e.g. tornadoes) or is said to have an “unconscious” goal which is something that is rarely observed and often merely postulated (e.g. any human action that is not preceded by a conscious idea of a goal.)

A physically strong man is powerful because physical strength allows him to manipulate heavy objects by changing their physical position and shape.

A liar is powerful because he can change people’s thoughts.

An intelligent person is powerful because he can better anticipate events.

And so on and so forth.

That’s very broad. Everywhere I’d look I would see power because change is happening everywhere. (Maybe transfer of energy would be a better description).

You would still see transference (dissipation) of energy in tornadoes, from combination of ordered warm/cold fronts to their dispersal and dissipation(from non-equilibrium to equilibrium). It would not follow the goal per se, but it would follow a natural law, this is why we can predict the possibility of formation of tornadoes or hurricanes beforehand.

I think in physics that would technically be how much work is done. In physics, power (rating) would be how long it would take to do work (power=rate at which work is done). In people, we would also call this an efficiency factor, that is, an efficient person would do the same (or greater) amount of work in less time (and with less wasted energy)

The ability to cause change” is “potential energy”. The changing itself is “energy”. And then “power” is how much change is caused within an amount of time (usually conflated with “potential power”).

In physics, power is energy over time = how much changing (the “work”) is done within a specified amount of time (the rate of energy transfer or the rate of changing of the changing).

In physics energy is defined as the ability to perform work. That ability reduces over time
as entropy increases. In a system with maximum entropy no work at all can be performed

I agree that is what is said and taught, but it happens to not be true. The “Second Law of Thermodynamics” is merely a commonality, not a law.

The Second Law Of Thermodynamics states that entropy will not decrease over time so
some equilibrium can be maintained in specific cases but in most cases it does increase

True (close to where ever life grows).

Although universally, it increases in exactly one half of the cases.

Whenever you see one object changing another object – change must be caused – that would be a manifestation of power i.e. the ability to change. That, however, does not mean that every object has the same ability to change, in terms of both quality (kind of change) and quantity (degree of change), as every other object.

It is useful to define what ability is.

Ability means being able to do something.

Ability to do something means that you can do that action. That means nothing other than that you will perform that action when you’re expected to do so.

Ability is an interpretation not a fact.
Facts refer to memories of what was.
Interpretations refer to predictions of what will be or would have been.

A child, for example, is expected to be successful each time it tries to lift a lighter object and unsuccessful each time it tries to lift a heavier object. These expectations, of course, are limited to its early childhood.

When it grows up, say when it reaches adulthood, he is expected to be successful with both lighter and heavier objects.

Because we predict that an adult can physically perform everything a child can and then some more, we say that the adult is physically stronger than the child.

Right.

Well, I can only speak on that which I can observe and that which makes sense to me. I cannot, in honesty, really speak as to what’s going on elsewhere in the universe. How would I (or anyone) know anyway?

Yes, and in physics, as James noted, that ability to change would be considered potential energy. In physics, there would also be additional variables considered for power, such as speed of such change. You can do the same quality and quantity of change but doing it faster would be considered more powerful (in physics anyway), so, as an example, blasting a large hole in the mountain with dynamite in 2 seconds vs. digging it out by hand for 15 yrs vs. natural water erosion by rain water for 2 million yrs. Same result, different pace. (the first example of work would be considered more powerful on the account of speed) But then, in energy transfers, and work done, isn’t there also an efficiency factor involved, or the amount of energy used up for work. Which of the three would be most efficient? I’m thinking the third example. Sport vehicles, for example, maybe powerful and faster but would not be considered efficient, as they also consume a lot of fuel in the process. Maybe this does not specifically have anything to do with power per se, but if you’re talking change and energy transfers these elements start coming into play as well. It seems to me that the efficiency factor may actually exist independently of power factor. So far, I’ve identified four variables in energy transfer dynamics: potential energy (ability), power (rate), work (amount of change or the amount of energy transferred by force), and efficiency (energy lost/conserved in the process). Perhaps it can be debated whether power should be further differentiated to include rate and not just work (as it seems to be usually understood).

(Well, so much for me attempting to geek this thread out. :laughing: )

Logical necessity tells you of what must be, regardless of where it is.

You did pretty good … for a Geekette. :sunglasses:

I was trying to see it in terms of physics alone but that requires a certain kind of looking at things that I am not used to. I mean, don’t physicists see the physical world in terms of interplay of different forces? Perhaps they cannot capture all of it, especially when it comes to human behavior, but we must also act within the laws of physics or natural world, as we are just part of it. So language use and labels become problematic sometimes if you try to change the framing.

As an engineer, I certainly thought in terms of forces. And such is still a strong temptation, especially when talking to others. But more recently, I discovered that those “forces” don’t actually exist at all, so these days, I hold to a different perspective - no forces, merely a migratory reconstructive bustling with the ambience (swaying in the wind and waves).

The ability to preserve one’s identity and resist change while everything around you is changing and attempting to change you is a power as well, so power being “the ability to change” doesn’t always apply.

I would say that power is the ability to change and nothing more than that. It does not matter what you’re doing with it.

Beside that, in order to protect something (e.g. identity) from being destroyed you need to change something in your environment (e.g. redirect the threat, destroy the threat, evade the threat, etc.) In other words, successful protection of whatever you want to protect requires power and its proper use (which is where intelligence comes in, note that intelligence is not power, i.e. ability to change, but merely ability of a different kind.)

One picture, or in this case a video (which is really just a series of pictures with added sound), can say more than a thousand words. What power is about, at a fundamental level…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITgKLIWs5xY[/youtube]