Why things aren’t

Happy belated 4/20 everyone!
For non-reefer reasons, I have suddenly become motivated, whether out of sheer disrespect for the neurons of my potential audience, or out of basic boredom, to put forth an obviously specious theory concerning the non-existence of our material substratum.

That is, I’m going to disprove the existence of objects in the universe (objects, here, defined as rocks, tree, humans, etc….we’re not bringing dark matter, or any other such nonsense, into this).

Now, I’m not saying that there is NOTHING; there is, conceptually, “energy”, and this component is the key portion of the theory. Consider the following:

1) Matter is essentially just condensed energy; matter and energy are two sides of the same coin. When water molecules slow down in their movement, we call that ice, and when particles interact with the Higgs field they gain mass. E=mc^2

2) The mind (defined as the activity of the brain) contains concepts, including our understanding of energy. This understanding comes from the observation of coinciding events, leading to the creation of formulas for said events, which involve, as a mathematical necessity, a component called “energy”. This energy is inferred to be transferred in a variety of forms.

3) The definition of energy is generally something as follows (from Wikipedia): “In physics, energy is a scalar physical quantity that describes the amount of work that can be performed by a force.” Another definition: “The capacity of a physical system to do work.” (dictionary.com). In short, energy is an idea; a concept; a useful heuristic applied to repeated observations.

4) The concepts in the mind are loosely based on the world outside, but they are based only on regularity of events occurring, and the prototype images (ie, “car”, what is a “dog”, etc…); the mind cannot contain anything other than mere representations of matter.

∴ The mind probably exists (because “I think therefore, I am” is implied), but matter DOES NOT.

I have thus disproven the material world. Good day.

[response to Ernest]
Well...it DOES suggest that it isn't representative of an actual material entity....in the sense that frozen energy=matter, and that energy is not "material" in nature.

In fact, one could argue that we don't have ANY definition of matter at all. As you admitted before, the concepts of "work", used to define energy and "energy", simultaneously used to define work, create a chain of circular logic.

Therefore, either energy exists and material objects still don't, or energy itself doesn't exist, meaning that only our minds do. Essentially, our definition of "material objects" precludes them from existing in the strictest sense of the word.

This is the way the world ends…not with a bang, but with a teabagging

History is nothing if not self-reflecting and repetitious, each new attempt to recapture an old event being an increasingly farcical version of the last. And, more importantly, history's repetitions become more “merchandisable” with each iteration, turning meaningful actions into trinkets in "idea markets" and the participants into hypocrites.

The Levees of Hypocrisy are, as it turns out, constructed entirely from heaps and heaps of teabags, dipped in irony, being lobbed by “protesters” all around the country, whose organizers have spent significant funds to rally against what they see as wasteful government usage of funds.

Some unlucky individual effectively became the first “teabag-tossing terrorist” (different than a "teabagging-terrorist tosser"), flinging a lovely, perfectly good, box of Earl Grey onto Obama’s front porch. Of course, while this doesn’t sound too threatening, this brainless act caused a facility-wide lock down as a bomb-sniffing robot inspected the strewn-about packets, which were filled with some sort of “powdery substance” (where have we heard that before?).

The logic in teabagging the President’s place, apparently, is that Obama will save $10 of taxpayer money now that he doesn’t have to buy his own tea. Actually, now that I think about it, while we’re at it, I’d say that the teabaggers might just have a point; maybe instead of wasting government funds on firetrucks and libraries we can just get off our asses and pay for them ourselves? Right?

I felt that I owed it to the radicals to give them the benefit of the doubt. After all, they claim to support the American people at large. Here is just some of what I uncovered:

The definition of “grassroots” doesn’t include lobbyists, so I was “shocked” and “appalled” when I learned from the website of the right wing organization "Freedom Works" (http://www.freedomworks.org/press-releases/tea-party-movement-explodes-across-the-country) that these rallies are being organized by such a large, lobbyist-friendly, group.

Furthermore, FreedomWorks is itself run by Dick Armey. A consummate lobbyist, Dick has attempted to marshal a veritable army of teabaggers (all puns assuredly intended). Dick was unable to massage his connections enough to create true grassroots, bottom-up, protests. What DID happen, however, was a fairly mediocre turnout in most instances (nationwide turnout was just shy of 112,000 people).

Conspicuously, each “tea party” hosted by Fox News anchors Greta VanSusteren, Neil Cavuto, and Glen Beck, showed a higher level of attendance than other such patriotic celebrations around the country. Fox News maintains that it is appropriate to spend time “promoting” these teabaggings, without actually “sponsoring” them. Of course, they are paying their people to organize parties, so you can judge for yourself where the sponsorship line is crossed.

I only feel bad that supporters of the “movement” (fad) will finally be forced to give up their picket signs once they realize that they’re “recycling” the imagery of the Boston Tea party, a quintessential American cliche. I don’t mean that it’s the lack of creativity they'll be worried about, but rather performing an action associated with saving the environment ;-)

Welcome: let's get started boys and girls!

As I wrote in a recent paper of mine on Faust, the construction of one's worldview inherently derives from where he or she believes that "meaning" ultimately has its source.

We see Faust struggling with the fact that the waves before him do not obey a logical set of rules oriented toward ameliorating human ills; instead they waste energy, performing the same cycle over the course of many repetitions. Any reclamation of this meaning necessarily involves harnessing this energy, both figuratively (through logic) and literally (through science and empiricism).

Once a meaning has been salvaged, though, it is an internal meaning, which is perhaps the closest man can now come to the fundamentally ordered "chain of creation" that existed before. Knowledge of the world has become synonymous with knowledge of the “Self” , and that self must define its world through a series of logical propositions.
What little (if anything) that can be known about the exterior world through such a worldview is also, therefore, clouded by an insurmountable barrier, a dense organizational fabric, formed during childhood, which refuses to rot away.

This meshwork is as arduous to cross through as the impenetrable, interlocking, and perfect, union of the spheres at one time appeared. In doing so, however, the weight of God is hefted in one hand, while, to paraphrase Emily Dickinson, the other hand holds the essence of syllables used to capture sound from the noise of the air.

So, there you have it. Together with you (yes YOU), I hope to cross through this crosshatched facade of reality with absolutely no regard for its former arrangement; while you're here, you're Faust too. There's another world just on the other side of this door- let's go!