the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

Here's a Feynman Lecture on Energy.

https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_04.html

Here's a quote that caught my eye:

It is important to realize that in physics today, we have no knowledge of what energy is.

That should really settle a lot of the BTDT on "what is qi / what is energy" blathering everyone does. Some try to take a linguistics pov (largely a waste of time imho) and some try to go into physics (more fundamental than the translation questions on the question itself, but still apparently largely a waste of time if physics doesn't know what energy is!).

TL;DR: shut up and train. Especially for anybody who doesn't understand "abstract".

Longer version: WTH. That's really kinda interesting.

Energy is what keeps the machine running

A good way to put it!

. We are slowed down sound and light waves, a walking bundle of frequencies tuned into the cosmos. We are souls dressed up in sacred biochemical garments and our bodies are the instruments through which our souls play their music./Albert

is there any need to go further than so?

The higher your frequency, the closer you are to speed of light, the slower everything appears around you, the nearer to perceived Eternity you reach

A couple of times I have had glimpses of speed going slow motion ......If that would be an controlanble state of mind/being ,something one could tap into at will...

I like your ponderings and quotes better than the article's

Trick wrote:

. We are slowed down sound and light waves, a walking bundle of frequencies tuned into the cosmos. We are souls dressed up in sacred biochemical garments and our bodies are the instruments through which our souls play their music./Albert

is there any need to go further than so?

Well, yes. Maybe Albert said that, but Einstein didn't, and never would because his own theories deny it. Otoh, if it's a metaphor, it doesn't really lead to any useful conclusions for a physicist or a philosopher.

For ex., light doesn't always move at the "c" (speed of light/causality constant). Through water or air, etc., it travels slower, but it's always light; it doesn't transform. The same is true for sound, which according to "Albert" must be slowed down light --what else? Humans are 60% water; is water slowed down light or sound? I don't think that makes sense.

Sometimes people turn physics into metaphysics and then ridicule mystics and New Agers. Afa Feynman's point about knowing "what" energy is, that doesn't prove anything about anything else, generally. And, Feynman is renowned for his work in theoretical quantum physics/mechanics. That's the subatomic (seemingly irrational) world that Einstein had problems with. (Where he said "God does not play dice.")

Ok, the op asks what energy is. How about describing what energy is not. Are we or are we not energy? (Oh, I'm happy to conclude that everything is energy, but then what?). What part of us (or a puppy) is NOT energy dressed up in sacred biochemical garments through which our souls play their music?

Is qi energy? Maybe, but just because we can't define either qi or energy means that qi "is" energy. We don't have to say that it's not, or use it as if it were. It's just undetermined, but generally harmless to believe.

I usually define Qi as Dynamic relationship.

For example, the Dynamic relationship between one hand and the other... there’s Qi there.

The dynamic relationship Between the arms & the legs... Qi there too.

Between the breath & movement... Between the mind & the body... definitely relationships there, so definitely Qi.

Between matter & energy... the dynamic relationship between matter & Energy is Qi...

...which means, in my books anyway, “Energy” is not Qi.

Cool thing about looking at Qi this way that I like: In this context, Qi can be crude (shit juggler) or refined (master juggler)

And it can also be clear (coherent) or obscured (incoherent).

Anyhoo.

I like your idea of qi as the relationship between matter and energy.

Anyway we apparently all know what energy is, yet it does seem strange that he says physics doesn't know. If we look up encyclopedia definitions, it's "capacity for work", which is abstract yet makes sense. But it doesn't really give much of a definition, does it? Maybe we have some understanding that the brain causes some electrical impulses to fire through some kind of chemistry, and those cause us to move muscles and "do work". We understand that thoughts and emotions can "energize" us. Maybe that's enough to know.

..."We understand that thoughts and emotions can "energize" us. .."

not quite right.

thoughts and emotions ARE energy
our brain is using (not only) them, to run us thru the jungle

yi leads qi, and the blood follows.

sounds about right.

So some clarifications, I only studied Physics to secondary school level and I have read the Feynamn Lectures which are an excellent read. My understanding of energy within the world of physics is that it has a concise definition, we might not know what it is, but it has a distinct definition; its work done. You push a ball to the top of a hill, the work done (kinetic energy) in getting the ball to the top of the hill, is now stored in the ball (potential energy).

When its used in the CMA world, energy just means a whole lot of things, it can be intent, it can be a feeling, it can be a movement, it can be the sensation, it can be a breath, it can be energy stored in that breath, it can be your picking up people's body language. It is such an overloaded term and the antithesis of its use in the scientific context.