Energy
A human body contains within it the same amount of energy as 100,000 nuclear bombs. In Einstein’s famous equation, E=MC^2, he directly relates the mass of physical matter to a corrosponding quantity of energy. The constant which relates the two is the speed of light, an already incomprehensibly large number, multiplied by itself. This means that 70 kg of matter (an average human being) contains around 6,300,000,000,000,000,000 joules of energy (take 5 zeros off of that to get the energy in the Hiroshima bomb).
This equation from the special theory of relativity taught us something very important about our universe - that the whole thing is made up of different forms of the same thing. We can rearrange it into matter, into light, into heat, or various other forms, but it can always be converted back to a quantifiable amount energy through this simple mathematical law. Science has therefore circled back to the same perspective that many mystics and religions have taken on the universe, that it is all one.
I was inspired to speak about energy after reading about sensory receptors in my neuroscience textbook. I was intruiged by the language the author chose: “Sensory receptors are morphologically specialized to transduce specific forms of energy...” This was the most accurate way in which he could describe our translation of the external world into our internal nervous system because the outside world at its most reduced description is energy.
He goes on to describe the various forms of energy which are converted into the language of the brain: “For example, photoreceptors in the retina encode the hue, brightness, and duration of light striking the retina from a specific location in the visual field. Hair cell receptors in the cochlea encode the tonal frequency, loudness, and duration of sound-pressure waves hitting the ear…” These various energetic interactions at the boundary between the nervous system and the environment are what translate the infinitely related universe of energy into the bips and bobs of the dualistic mind.
There is a lot of confusing language around energy. It is often spoken about in a felt sense, which is distinct from the measurable energy I’ve discussed so far. The felt sense can come when we feel good or bad about a situation, a person, or a decision. It is a feeling that results from a deeper intelligence of the nervous system, but this is ultimately rooted in organization of the physical energy, not in the sense of quantifiable physical energy. This confusion produces conflict between the mystic and the scientist, who confuse eachothers changed language for lack of understanding.
I myself jump between uses of energy in language. The energy in the words I type is sensed initially through my fingers, which conduct electrical energy up my arms and into my brain where the meaning of patterned key punches are being organized heirarchically into words, sentances, and paragraphs. Somewhere in my mind the felt energy is quantified and used to determine the value of each possible conveyence of idea. These are compared sensitively and messily against one another until I settle on the production which you read here. A density of good felt energy which I have strung out through kinetic activation of fingertips by physical energy. Perhaps at the very bottom of all of it there is no true difference. This would be the ideal both scientist and mystic could strive for. Perhaps they can both aim together.
With Love,
Michael
