Nothing can be destroyed or created

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What's here in this world is here to stay, but in a different form. Try to obliterate something, and you run up against a law of conservation. That law says: Whatever we have here in this world, we can't get rid of. And you can't create something from nothing. Burn a log, you release its energy in the form of heat and the rest becomes ashes. If you were to add everything up, the heat and the ashes together would equal the content of the log's original mass and energy.

http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/cannot-really-destroy-anything

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Type: Discussion • Score: 9 • Views: 8,083 • Replies: 92

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@Rickoshay75,

True but what sort of consequence might surprise us

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@Rickoshay75,

That's all absolutely true, Rick. And I've known it for a long, long time. The commonly-voiced statement that "Nothing is eternal" is absolutely false on the face of it. Everything is eternal. We (homo sapiens and other primates, I mean) have no power to destroy anything. All we can do is transmute one thing into another -- matter to energy, for example. Explode a nuclear weapon over a major city and you haven't destroyed the city. All you've done is transform concrete and other building materials into rubble and created some radioactivity. It's all still there; just looks different.

But, now tthat we've agreed to that, what's your point?

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@Lustig Andrei,

Lustig Andrei wrote:

That's all absolutely true, Rick. And I've known it for a long, long time. The commonly-voiced statement that "Nothing is eternal" is absolutely false on the face of it. Everything is eternal. We (homo sapiens and other primates, I mean) have no power to destroy anything. All we can do is transmute one thing into another -- matter to energy, for example. Explode a nuclear weapon over a major city and you haven't destroyed the city. All you've done is transform concrete and other building materials into rubble and created some radioactivity. It's all still there; just looks different.

But, now tthat we've agreed to that, what's your point?

---That it strengthens my position of cause and effect, a fact that is accepted philosophically but not actually. Your post (cause) triggered my response (effect) is a clear example, but nobody seems to get it.

everything has a cause/effect, even the earth and moon, but actual cause is still a mystery in most things.

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@Rickoshay75,

So far we seem to be in agreement.

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@Lustig Andrei,

Lustig Andrei wrote:

So far we seem to be in agreement.

Earthquakes, another example of effect, has no way to find out what the actual cause is because it all happens underground, can't be seen, only detected by seismographs and other motion equipment, but that doesn't stop geologists and seismologists from making educated guesses.

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@Rickoshay75,

Now, the other question is: What happen when a person dies? What happen to the mind? (If there is such a thing). If everything follows the law of conservation, it follows that the mind is either transformed into something else or relocated itself to a different physical host.

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@Alexandergreat3,

Let me play the devil's advocate here and try and rebut that point of view.

If the mind (or soul, if you wish) is only one attribute of a sentient being, then it is most likely transformed into something else when the other (physical) parts of the body are transformed. It still exists but is not necesarily any longer a 'mind'.

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@Lustig Andrei,

Lustig Andrei wrote:

Let me play the devil's advocate here and try and rebut that point of view.

If the mind (or soul, if you wish) is only one attribute of a sentient being, then it is most likely transformed into something else when the other (physical) parts of the body are transformed. It still exists but is not necesarily any longer a 'mind'.

Actually there's no proof that a mind even exists, just memory, thinking, feeling, awareness, reaction, features that can be demonstrated.

OTOH, the mind could be the combination of all of the above.

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@Rickoshay75,

Why don't you post these in the philosophy forum?

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@Rickoshay75,

Rickoshay75 wrote:

Lustig Andrei wrote:
Let me play the devil's advocate here and try and rebut that point of view. If the mind (or soul, if you wish) is only one attribute of a sentient being, then it is most likely transformed into something else when the other (physical) parts of the body are transformed. It still exists but is not necesarily any longer a 'mind'.
Actually there's no proof that a mind even exists, just memory, thinking, feeling, awareness, reaction, features that can be demonstrated. OTOH, the mind could be the combination of all of the above.

the mind is the gathering of all faculties into a quardinated whole inotherwords the mind is greater than the seperate parts of the brain

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@north,

north wrote:

Rickoshay75 wrote:

Lustig Andrei wrote:
Let me play the devil's advocate here and try and rebut that point of view. If the mind (or soul, if you wish) is only one attribute of a sentient being, then it is most likely transformed into something else when the other (physical) parts of the body are transformed. It still exists but is not necesarily any longer a 'mind'.
Actually there's no proof that a mind even exists, just memory, thinking, feeling, awareness, reaction, features that can be demonstrated. OTOH, the mind could be the combination of all of the above.
the mind is the gathering of all faculties into a quardinated whole inotherwords the mind is greater than the seperate parts of the brain

That's pretty much what I said, but you phrased it better

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@Rickoshay75,

If one could see the universe as a process, and not a material or energy, then anything could be completly destroyed. If the universe is some amazing coincidence, given a infinite amount of time, anything is possible. Infinitly speaking though, prove this isn't some amazingly realistic dream.

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@Rickoshay75,

From the universe's perspective, 1 + 1 is less than 1. When everything in the universe is added up, it equals Zero. To "destroy" anything in the universe, you have to find its opposite energy state that would cancel its existence. Everything in the universe comes into existence because its "opposite energy state" went over to the other side of event horizon.

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@Alexandergreat3,

Quote:

mind is either transformed into something else or relocated itself to a different physical host.

Alex the apodictical existential pantheist sees much truth in that. Since nothing is entirely anything while everything is partly something else, the soul is considered everything you are except possibly your body and thus lives on in yours works

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@Rickoshay75,

Quote:

Whatever we have here in this world, we can't get rid of. And you can't create something from nothing.

Rick I don’t know. There’s one theory that the Universe arose from nothing and another that states Big-Bang—Big-crunch goes on forever but they’re separated by a moment of nothingness. However to skirt various paradoxes and contradictions, its duration is zero

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@zDamien,

Quote:

given a infinite amount of time, anything is possible.

zD that’s a noteworthy observation but infinity and forever entail suggestions troubling to the intuition. For instance by the laws of chance at any instant there exist an infinite number each of all possible galaxies

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@dalehileman,

dalehileman wrote:

Quote:
given a infinite amount of time, anything is possible.
zD that’s a noteworthy observation but infinity and forever entail suggestions troubling to the intuition. For instance by the laws of chance at any instant there exist an infinite number each of all possible galaxies

Or by using the same laws of chance the opposite could happen and none of the above would happen.

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@Rickoshay75,

Rickoshay75 wrote:

dalehileman wrote:

Quote:
given a infinite amount of time, anything is possible.
zD that’s a noteworthy observation but infinity and forever entail suggestions troubling to the intuition. For instance by the laws of chance at any instant there exist an infinite number each of all possible galaxies
Or by using the same laws of chance the opposite could happen and none of the above would happen.

true

and thats what we havn't generally figured out

the Universe has limits

hence the chemical periodic table , not all objects can combine

2 Replies

@Rickoshay75,

Given an infinite amount of time everything is probable. This absurd conclusion follows from the term infinite.

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Nothing can be destroyed or created

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