Your Thoughts On Energy?

[omega minimo]

Aha! you say-- thoughts ARE energy. May I pick your brain?

This quote came up in a thread on Peak Oil and Capitalism. This reply struck me for it’s very universe-is-a-giant-pinball-machine POV regarding “energy.”

I thought I would ask the science-prone DUer for some insight on this. What do you think?

"Wealth is not a form of energy, and instead is created by every improvement in process, technology, and design. Value is not measured in joules, nor by how much labor went into a product or service."

[rman]

1. wealth comes about thanks to energy investment

wealth = resources * labor
(resources are of no use while in the ground and unprocessed - it takes labor to get it out of the ground and to process it)

where labor = energy * time

so

wealth = resources * energy * time

So while wealth is not literally "a form of" energy, it does represent - among others - energy.

[bemildred]

2. There is more to this thinking business than just slapping words together.

This makes no sense. He is picking an argument with Adam Smith when he says labor invested is not a measure of the value of a product, also ("The Wealth of Nations", Book 1, ch. 5).

[greyl]

6. I agree with you :) nt

[htuttle]

3. Energy is all just heat when you get right down to it

As far as 'creating energy' goes, pretty much all the energy in the whole universe comes out of nuclear suns. The rest of it is just passing that energy around.

If you want to assign an descriptive property to 'human ideas', something less tangible like 'value' *might* be appropriate, but 'value' is contextual and relative. A bucket is only valuable if you have something to put in it. 'Wealth' is even more intangible. It's forms and value are determined by the rest of the world at any given time, not by it's possessors. If nobody wants tulips anymore, they stop being 'wealth'.

:shrug:

[DrGonzoLives]

4. In general, I like energy

n/t

[sutz12]

5. Wealth ensues from the control of energy. nt

[Bill McBlueState]

7. maybe it's measured in ergs

Always a big fan of the cgs system, myself.