Energy, Physical vs. Metaphysical

energy (n.) 1590s, "force of expression," from Middle French énergie (16c.), from Late Latin energia, from Greek energeia "activity, operation," from energos "active, working," from en "at" + ergon "work, that which is wrought; business; action" (see urge (v.))

Used by Aristotle with a sense of "force of expression;" broader meaning of "power" is first recorded in English 1660s. Scientific use is from 1807.

- Etymonline

Since 1807, then, energy has been the name given to the underlying power of all known forces: magnetism, heat, electricity, the mechanism of movement, even the mass of solid physical objects—all these are forms of energy.

With this understanding, the way that modern practitioners of metaphysics use the word “energy” strike me as not quite right. Although, experiences that I categorize as metaphysical, do bear a resemblance to what I understand and experience of energies in the mundane: I feel something like heat that isn’t being sensed by my skin, hear something like music that obviously isn’t coming through my ears, and perceive that I am being moved by something like magnetism even though I’m not all that metal.

But, I don't believe that the metaphysical term is precise or accurate. In metaphysics, there's a lot that the word “energy” doesn’t encompass.

Physically, thoughts and emotions are the result of generating biochemical energy. The emotional effect of another physical substance on a person, is not considered an innate part of that substance’s physical properties. An observer can make sense of consistent patterns of the behavior of physical energy: the transfer of it (to the point that every pulse and aspect exclusive of the metaphysical will be accounted for*), conditions of radiation and material decay, the limit of its speed in a vacuum...

The metaphysical use of the word “energy” implies that thoughts and emotions both generate and be a reliable method by which to attribute properties to an energy. That, to feel fear (for example) means sensing a darkness that is darker than the absence of light. This metaphysical non-privative darkness has very little to do with physical darkness (because physical darkness is privative,) except perhaps to take the physical experience of darkness and to use its poetic associations to describe a metaphysical experience. This may apply to the metaphysical energy of all classical elements, that is, the properties attributed to a classical element that... is also what is referred to when using the word energy. Which I personally find confusing and frustrating, that metaphysical energy includes so much more information than physical energy does but the same word is used.

So, I consider physical energies and metaphysical energies entirely different things. I don't like to use the same word for them. I don’t know the properties of metaphysical forces, not really, and I want to be able to help jumping to the conclusion that those rules are identically applicable as the physical-- just because the similes I use to describe the experience of them, come from my physical experiences.




* until we get to quantum, maybe

Recommended links:

Einstein's Big Idea. By David Boudanis. Dir. Gary Johnstone. Nova, 2005. This got me to realize that there are centuries of testing and research done to define the word energy, so I shouldn't just take the word and use it on something that it isn't, just because it's a pretty-sounding word with marvelous cosmic connotations. All the calculations mentioned suggest that nature is a closed system: were metaphysical energy an aspect of nature in the way it is popularly used by occultists, then something would be missing in all these centuries of observations and calculations of nature on a macroscopic level-- as metaphysicists do speak of energies functioning on a macroscopic, even cosmic, level.

Also, I made a drinking game for the above documentary: sip for every slow-motion strut, sip for any mathematics provided (like, when the proof or aspects of a proof is dictated; speaking of the mathematics or about the mathematics doesn't count,) take a gulp whenever somebody laughs at or ridicules an idea that's obviously going to turn out to be true, clink glasses with someone else and take a gulp whenever scientific talk is used as flirtatious sexy talk, finish your drink and slam the glass angrily on the table whenever politics interferes with scientific progress (and this can be office politics or gender politics, as well as national politics.) Better played when watching this on DVD, because the link above cuts some stuff out.

Parallel Universes. By Malcolm Clark. Prod. Barbara Altounyan. BBC Horizon, 2002. This doesn't have as much to do with what I'm saying as the first link, but Planck's constant kept on coming up throughout the interview, in its relation to the singularity of the creation of this universe... until they showed how they broke it at the end. To my understanding, Planck's constant is another part of making sense of physical energy, because it was the smallest unit by which to determine an energy's existence in physical spacetime-- but I might have that wrong. For the sake of laypeople like me, though, I'm sure there's a lot of poetic metaphors in the way the colliding ripples of subtle membranes were explained.

Cosmos. Perf. Carl Sagan. Bright Vision Entertainment, 1980. Episode 7, "The Backbone of Night". There's an interesting part about Empedocles' discovery of the invisible. So, it didn't seem to be some arbitrary comfort zone of trusted scientific fact, that spurred Sagan's later unkindness to Plato in the same episode. ("They! Served! Tyrants!") Rather, it was the flaws in Plato's armchair approach. I'd consider Plato a key founder in modern metaphysics and especially modern ideas of the astral plane... so, it was actually refreshing to hear some blasphemy.

The True Nature of Psi by kobok