Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mhuxv.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!mhuxv!pdt
From: pdt@mhuxv.UUCP (tyma)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.sci
Subject: Re: Energy (originally Mind and Brain)
Message-ID: <151@mhuxv.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 25-Jul-84 20:48:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: mhuxv.151
Posted: Wed Jul 25 20:48:46 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 27-Jul-84 05:44:18 EDT
References: <3496@brl-tgr.ARPA>, <1572@sun.uucp>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 28


sunny@sun.uucp sez:

	>Surely you can't propose that the communications is an energyless
	>phenomena [sic] (for anything which has a remote effect is doing
	>work, i.e. transferring energy).  

I'm not about to argue whether communications is an energyless
phenomenon.  For one thing, it doesn't sit well with the second law
of thermodynamics.  However, there is no truth to the rumor that "anything
which has a remote effect is doing work, i.e. transferring energy."

Consider gravity as a simple counterexample.  The force due to gravity
arises from the mass of an object.  Suppose that there is a large mass;
it produces a gravitational field.  If a small test mass is suddenly
introduced into this field at rest, it will be accelerated toward the
large mass as a result of the force of gravity.  The large mass is no
less massive as a consequence of this, and it has no less energy.
(It has not transferred any energy to the test mass.)  The movement
of the test mass, newly acquired kinetic energy, has come at the expense
of the (gravitational) potential energy of the test mass, which has been
concomitantly reduced.  A remote effect has been effected (the masses
were not in contact), but no energy has been "transferred"--it has
been interconverted from potential to kinetic form.

Never forget Fudd's First Law of Opposition:  "If you push something
hard enough, it will fall over."