Subject:
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Re: Break Out the Cristal (trickle-down economics explained with champagne!)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 27 Mar 2003 04:16:34 GMT
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Viewed:
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551 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Richard Marchetti writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal writes:
> > I don't care what you *believe* will happen if you split an atom, potential
> > energy *will* be released.
> Potential has nothing to do with it, just as belief has nothing to do with
> it. It's an observable phenomena: if you split an atom, energy will be
> released. Emphasis dropped because it is not a wonder -- it is a known thing.
Forgive me if I stick my nose in for a point of clarification.
John, your equivocation (or misprision, if you prefer) hinges on two distinct
definitions of potential. In terms of physics, a system has potential energy
bound up in the nature of the system; the strong force binding the nucleus
together, for example. Potential behavior has nothing to do with physical
forces bound up in a person, except in a metaphorical way. I have the
potential to be a great ocarina player; does that mean that there is a
full-fledged ocarinist inside me waiting to be liberated? Not really, though
we may speak figuratively of such talent that might be cultivated. But the fat
in my body has great potential energy if someone cares to set me ablaze; that's
because the energy is stored in (bound up in) the chemical energy of my body.
And nothing cooks up finer than 200 pounds of Dave!
Potential energy and potential behavior are linked in name only. To equate
the two kinds of "potential" is really disingenuous in the same way that, oh
let's say, Creationists equate "evolution" of the universe with Darwinian
biological evolution. Or the way that people who claim that Einstein's
relativity somehow validates moral relativism.
Dave!
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