seanie

I know this is pointless but...


Originally posted by Seraphim:

My reply : Radiant heat - when power is turn on. Absent of heat without power. Existence of such energy is limited and dependant on existence of electricity - thus cannot be called Independant.

Living breathing organism;

Radiant heat - when power is turn on. Absent of heat without power. Existence of such energy is limited and dependent on existence of food - thus cannot be called Independent.

(Nurse! Quickly! The medication.)

Stephen T-B

The mind can produce extraordinary physical effects upon the body.
We see innumerable examples of this:
The hypnotist who tells his subject that he is holding a lighted match beneath his open palm when in fact the match is dead. And the skin on the palm is seen to have redenned - sometimes to have blistered (so I’ve read); Christian mystics who develop stigmata; Hindu mystics who can put hooks through their flesh attached to chains and pull lorries along and sustain no long-term injuries; tribal people who shut down their vital bodily functions because a witch doctor has pointed a stick of death at them; Westerners who make themselves physically ill because their minds are stressed.
At a very basic level, the mind can cause blood to pump into the penis to cause an erection. Anxiety can give you a stomach ache, or make the heart beat faster and increase blood pressure. And by using the mind, we are able to hit the keys on a laptop and make poetry appear on a blank screen.
When someone else makes something happen to my body - as in the case of the hypnotist - that is not because he is creating that effect by the direct power of his mind: he is creating it by using the power of MY mind, which he has succeeded in manipulating.
This ability is very useful, and is often associated with individuals whom we describe as charismatic, powerful, dominating, strong-willed etc.
If they lack these attributes, they can to some extent substitute them with impressive rituals involving mysterious-looking symbols, mysterious-sounding mumbo-jumbo, candles, chanting, weird costumes etc; or they may use steel rods which they stick into the skin, provoking neither blood nor pain. And that is something no-one could possibly expect considering the experiences we accumulate of hurting ourselves with sharp objects.
There isn’t in any of these cases a transfer of some arcane “energy” which defies scientific analysis. Mysterious, non-existent forces within the human body are not being tapped.
There is, though, the influencing of one mind by another.
Right?

[ October 18, 2002: Message edited by: Stephen T-B ]</p>

NialScorva

ATP is a chemical that can be broken down to release energy. The lithium ion batteries in a laptop also store energy chemically. Your definition of "independent is absurd". The human body runs mostly off of carbohydrates or fat. If you deplete the the available resources in your bloodstream, more will be released from stores. If you run out of them, you die. A laptop has a certain amount of current running through it. So long as it can continue to draw from it's batteries, it continues to run.

Both the human body and a laptop have a certain amount of measurable chemically stored potential energy that it can use to accomplish things. There is no difference between the two, both operate on well established principles of measurable energy in and out.

Beyond thermal, the body produces kinetic energy. A laptop also produces electromagnetic (light, RF, electromagnetic) and kinetic (hard drive spinning).

Nat

"The hypnotist who tells his subject that he is holding a lighted match beneath his open palm when in fact the match is dead. And the skin on the palm is seen to have redenned - sometimes to have blistered (so I’ve read); "

I doubt this immensely - I'd love to see a source on this.

"Christian mystics who develop stigmata; Hindu mystics who can put hooks through their flesh attached to chains and pull lorries along and sustain no long-term injuries; tribal people who shut down their vital bodily functions because a witch doctor has pointed a stick of death at them; Westerners who make themselves physically ill because their minds are stressed."

These are all at least mostly believable. I'd love to see some actually documentation on the shutting down of "vital bodily functions" one though and more description of what you mean by "stigmata."

Seraphim

"ATP is a chemical that can be broken down to release energy. The lithium ion batteries in a laptop also store energy chemically. Your definition of "independent is absurd". The human body runs mostly off of carbohydrates or fat. If you deplete the the available resources in your bloodstream, more will be released from stores. If you run out of them, you die. A laptop has a certain amount of current running through it. So long as it can continue to draw from it's batteries, it continues to run."

My reply : You call independent? The main different between a human and a laptop is the laptop (like all machine) have a certain limit of time which they could run. If your battery can run for 5 hours upon full recharge, no matter how hard it tries after those 5 hours, it will DIE. Thus, it is cannot be considered independent.

A human body on the other hand have no limitation of how many hours or days it could go on without food. I hear somewhere (not sure where) that the maximun a person could survive without water is 12 hours but people could survive for days without food. It all depends on a person and how much fat reserve he has - something that laptops and other machines do not have and thus human has an independant source of energy.

Another thing I want to add is that laptop uses only one form of energy - electricity, other form of energy such as heat, chemical etc is no use to it, another reason why I said it is not independant.

Humans could strive in anything - even eating tree barks if food is scarce enough, thus his body is capable of digesting almost anything that is digestive. Thus, humans are not dependant on ONE single resource for food other than water.

"Beyond thermal, the body produces kinetic energy. A laptop also produces electromagnetic (light, RF, electromagnetic) and kinetic (hard drive spinning). "

My reply : Is that all supposed to make a laptop more "human"? By stating it can produce heat and hot air?

tronvillain

Seraphim:
I try not to do this too often, but I think that abuse is sometimes justified: Seraphim, are you a complete moron? Do you even think about what you read before you write a response? What the hell is wrong with you?

Now, the problem is with your statement "A human body on the other hand have no limitation of how many hours or days it could go on without food." This is simply not true. In fact, you yourself admit it is not true when you say "I hear somewhere (not sure where) that the maximun a person could survive without water is 12 hours but people could survive for days without food." Eventually, a human body will succumb to the effects of starvation - in other words, a human body has a limitation on how long it can go without good.

As Nialscorva pointed out above, the chemical energy in the human body (found in fats, sugars, proteins, nucleotide triphosphates and assorted other molecules, is directly analagous to the chemical energy in a battery. A battery is of course far simpler than a human body, but this does not make one more "independent" than the other. The method for "recharging" a human's store of chemical energy is similarly complex, but again, eating is directly analagous to using electrical current to recharge a battery, and does not make humans more "independent" than a battery.

Finally, energy tranfer from human to human is far easier than energy transfer from human to battery. One human could simply eat the other and obtain significant amounts of chemical energy that way. Massage on the other hand appears to involve no transfer of chemical energy whatsoever, though it does involve the transfer of heat and kinetic energy. As a result, the only apparent effect concentration might have on massage is an improvement in technique and application. No ATP or any other molecule which carries chemical energy will flow between the two people involved.

Seraphim

"I try not to do this too often, but I think that abuse is sometimes justified: Seraphim, are you a complete moron? Do you even think about what you read before you write a response? What the hell is wrong with you?"

My reply: Forgive me if I gave TOO much credit to your common sense. I thought you will understand at least some of what I meant and I wasn't expecting you to follow the mean of word for word.

"In fact, you yourself admit it is not true when you say "I hear somewhere (not sure where) that the maximun a person could survive without water is 12 hours but people could survive for days without food." Eventually, a human body will succumb to the effects of starvation - in other words, a human body has a limitation on how long it can go without good."

My reply : When I pointed out that max. time a person could survive without water, I also stated that I heard of it from somewhere, which means it was my personal opinion and NOT a fact. Was that too hard to understand?
Now, could you tell me how MANY days or hours a person could survive without food? I want accurate data as how many days he or she could survive and NOT guesses.

"A battery is of course far simpler than a human body, but this does not make one more "independent" than the other."

My reply : Open your laptop and take out the battery, then try turning it on. Will it work?
A person who donates blood (ATP is carried from one tissue to another by blood) and that person still could walk around - he will be weak and dizzy, but he will still be alive.

Thus - human body is independant because it's energy source is from the cells ALL OVER his body, not in one place like a laptop.

"The method for "recharging" a human's store of chemical energy is similarly complex, but again, eating is directly analagous to using electrical current to recharge a battery, and does not make humans more "independent" than a battery."

My reply : Absurb! If a person skip a meal for a few hours, he won't die. If a laptop skip a recharge before it's limit runs out, it will die. And you still argue that human body and the laptop battery is same?

"No ATP or any other molecule which carries chemical energy will flow between the two people involved. "

My reply : I never said it had anything to do with ATP, I simply said the body produce energy in form named ATP.

Feather

<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

NialScorva

Seraphim

Common sense is only applicable in when your talking about things that are common, and your ignorance on this subject makes it clear that you haven't had much exposure to basic chemistry and physics.

From a top-down view, humans run off a chemical battery just like a laptop. There are several design differences, however:

1. The laptop battery is a single unit, whereas the human battery is distributed throughout the entire machine. You can give blood, but that only removes parts of the battery, not the whole thing. It would be analogous to removing a cell in the laptops battery. It would still work, just have a slightly reduced life.

2. LIon batteries are charged by applying a current that causes a chemical change within the battery. The human body takes in the pre-changed chemicals directly, and excretes the post-changed chemicals. There are batteries that run on decaying matter, and fuel cells work somewhat like this, taking in the raw chemicals it needs and releasing a lower energy by-product.


3. Humans have bigger batteries than a laptop. This should be obvious via mass if nothing else. The fact that they can run for 3 weeks on one charge instead of a couple hours doesn't mean that they are any less likely to go dead, so to speak. Once all the "fuel" chemicals are broken down, there's no go-juice left.


There is no magic to it.


[edit: thinko, addressed to a random person]

[ October 19, 2002: Message edited by: NialScorva ]</p>

Viti

NialScorva...it's Seraphim not SirenSpeak

Humans can live an average of one week without water and more than a month without food according to the EPA <a href="http://www.epa.gov/safewater/kids/trivia.pdf" target="_blank">Here</a>

Anorexics sometimes live (though not well) for years on extremely small amounts of food as do people in famine stricken countries.

So Seraphim, if it is possible to transfer the energy we individually create via touch, can we just massage starving people to keep them alive?

[ October 19, 2002: Message edited by: LadyShea ]</p>