[Robert]

There are profound thoughts that have deep meanings and can stretch our minds in new directions or offer new perspectives on which to view things. These thoughts have been offered in the past by many of our great thinkers and remain profound and deeply moving even today. This forum is devoted to those thoughts.

This forum will have a bit more structure and organization than other forums. The threads may be edited a bit more for spelling and clarity. Posts will be deleted or moved to a more appropriate forum if they stray from the topic. If you know of a profound thought you wish to discuss please make a suggestion to this thread and, if possible, include a source or reference of some kind. Please refrain from personal thoughts which you consider to be profound. I'm generally looking for profoundness already in the public domain. I'll make exceptions of course. I'm sure we have some great thinkers among us who are members of the ToeQuest forums . Your profound thought suggestion will be reviewed and, if approved, a new thread will be started.

--Robert

[JAK]

Originally Posted by Robert There are profound thoughts that have deep meanings and can stretch our minds in new directions or offer new perspectives on which to view things. These thoughts have been offered in the past by many of our great thinkers and remain profound and deeply moving even today. This forum is devoted to those thoughts. This forum will have a bit more structure and organization than other forums. The threads may be edited a bit more for spelling and clarity. Posts will be deleted or moved to a more appropriate forum if they stray from the topic. If you know of a profound thought you wish to discuss please make a suggestion to this thread and, if possible, include a source or reference of some kind. Please refrain from personal thoughts which you consider to be profound. I'm generally looking for profoundness already in the public domain. I'll make exceptions of course. I'm sure we have some great thinkers among us who are members of the ToeQuest forums . Your profound thought suggestion will be reviewed and, if approved, a new thread will be started. --Robert

May I suggest Erwin Schrodinger's idea:

"How would we express in terms of the statistical theory the marvellous faculty of a living organism, by which it delays the decay into thermodynamical equilibrium (death)? We said before: 'It feeds upon negative entropy' ... entropy, taken with the negative sign, is itself a measure of order. Thus the device by which an organism maintains itself stationary at a fairly high level of orderliness (= fairly low level of entropy) really consists in continually sucking orderliness from its environment." - Schrödinger, Erwin. What is Life? NEW YORK: Cambridge University Press, 1944

[mkirkpatrick]

There are three thoughts,that keep occuring in my mind,with regards to,the
answer to all the questions,of,why,how,what is the secret of life?ect,
These thoughts are,with regards,conscious,intellegent,energy,which I
feel is omini-present,which seems to also fit into the string theory,I feel.

Also one other profound thought occurs to me,that is.Behind all the
outword manifestations,and eternal motion,there must be a place,of
absolute motionlessness,after all if energy is omini -present ,then where
would it move too?would not it already be there??

I would be very delighted for any comments,positive,or otherwise.
regards Michael.

[JAK]

Originally Posted by michael kirkpatrick ... Also one other profound thought occurs to me,that is.Behind all the outword manifestations,and eternal motion,there must be a place,of absolute motionlessness,after all if energy is omini -present ,then where would it move too?would not it already be there?? ...

Because of your reasoning, I prefer a description of the universe which is like a glassy pond. With that analogy, energy (or, at least, "time" and "space") is omnipresent. What we see as particles, electromagnetism, and other phenomena are just ripples, whirlpools, and eddies in the universal pond. Because we can test, observe, and measure these phenomena, and because we are unable to test, observe, or measure the "glassy" parts of the pond, we are mesmerized by the phenomena and oblivious to the "glassy" parts.

Continuing this analogy, the ripples of energy would move 3-dimensionally across the universal pond. If the "pond" is spheroidal (or mobius) in nature, the ripples will eventually cross themselves. If the pond is expanding at a faster rate than the ripples are moving, the ripples may never "catch themselves." The ripple rate would seem to be the speed of light.

With my analogy, I would answer your question by saying that something would "already be there" - the "glassy" part of the universal pond which we do not detect with our present technology. Might it be related to "dark matter"? Maybe. Maybe not.

[Bank Nurse]

Michael your concept is indeed very interesting and even the idea is worthy of a thread discussing is. My understanding (of your input) is that there is some sort of enery that governs the universe as a whole - and everything inside it. However, perhaps you could shead some light on to how the omni-present force fits in with the string theory?

[Robert]

Just a reminder that the Profound Thoughts forum is provide for discussion of profound thoughts of great thinkers of our past expressed as quotes that can be summarized succinctly as a title to a thread. As stated in the intro post, these profound thoughts usually will not originate with yourself. If you do have what you consider to be a profound thought, you will need to provide it as a succinct quote. Please continue this discussion as it is interesting, but I'll probably move it to another forum in a day or two.

JAK - Sorry for the delay. I have started up a thread on Schrödinger's quote.

Regards,
--Robert

[AntonioLao]

These 3 passages are Einstein’s profound thoughts of what is called the principle of equivalence leading to the general theory of relativity.

we [...] assume the complete physical equivalence of a gravitational field and a corresponding acceleration of the reference system. (Einstein, 1907)

We arrive at a very satisfactory interpretation of this law of experience, if we assume that the systems K and K' are physically exactly equivalent, that is, if we assume that we may just as well regard the system K as being in a space free from gravitational fields, if we then regard K as uniformly accelerated. This assumption of exact physical equivalence makes it impossible for us to speak of the absolute acceleration of the system of reference, just as the usual theory of relativity forbids us to talk of the absolute velocity of a system; and it makes the equal falling of all bodies in a gravitational field seem a matter of course. (Einstein, 1911)

As long as we restrict ourselves to purely mechanical processes in the realm where Newton's mechanics holds sway, we are certain of the equivalence of the systems K and K'. But this view of ours will not have any deeper significance unless the systems K and K' are equivalent with respect to all physical processes, that is, unless the laws of nature with respect to K are in entire agreement with those with respect to K'. By assuming this to be so, we arrive at a principle which, if it is really true, has great heuristic importance. For by theoretical consideration of processes which take place relatively to a system of reference with uniform acceleration, we obtain information as to the career of processes in a homogeneous gravitational field. (Einstein, 1911)

[michellemfry]

Antonia, will you tell me more about K and K'?

[AntonioLao]

Originally Posted by michellemfry Antonia, will you tell me more about K and K'?

Tentatively, the systems of K and K' can be compared to two points of spacetime and how they interact with each other. This interaction is described both by quantum mechanics and general relativity but so far these descriptions are contradictory. One of the objectives of a theory of everything is to remove this serious contradiction. Please investigate the research paper I did sometime ago. http://www.freefileupload.net/file.php?file=files/161205/1134755989/ac.pdf

[MJA]

Hi Robert,

I think this quote from Albert Einstein would make a great new thread in profound thoughts.

"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions."

Thanks,

MJA