The Force as described by a physicist?

Simply put..when we die our energy is dispersed and transferred and captured by the living things that surround us. Great article I thought. What do you think?

http://www.iflscience.com/physics/ask-physicist-speak-your-funeral-0

I think that neither the author nor the source she cited actually know jack about thermodynamics.
Now, I'm all for consoling the grieving. I find it condescending to say that people generally need a notion of continuation of those passed away, and I find it sad that some do, but I'm not the kind of physicist who'd walk up at a funeral and tell everyone their loved one is dead in almost every sense of the word, eventhough that would be technically correct.
However, I would not go out of my way to twist science into making a claim that little to nothing of them is gone either. It supports the denial stage of grief which is by no means a healthy place to remain in, so there are some ethical objections to that. But it is also strictly false, so the person saying it is either deceiving their audience intentionally about the content, or about the extent of their knowledge of it or both. So even setting aside how unhelpful or potentially harmful the attempt can be, however well the intentions, it is at any rate going about it in an unrefined way.
There are better ways to help people through their grief and quite enough of them don't involve stretching reality into nonsense.

Well Gisteron, I can't quite thank you enough for your extrapolation and clarity.

In your opinion, when one passes away and our physical body ceases to be, does our 'energy' not disperse? Do we have an 'energy' to begin with?


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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqOITqLfnkc

I would argue that the physical body is actually what remains when we pass away. The difference between an alive animal and a corpse is really particular brain activity. I'm neither a medic nor a neuroscientist, so I shan't try and go into much detail at the risk of spewing nonsense. Suffice it to say that what makes me me is not my flesh but rather bioelectrical processes within that flesh, and in death all of that ceases.
In my opinion it is reductive to assert that the heat as our corpses give off the last they produce, and the mass that either goes up in flames or rots to feed bacteria and bugs is all we are. Sure, that continues to live on for pretty much all time, as far as we know, in one form or another, but by the same token it had been around long before we came to this world, so we as persons can under that view be said to never have existed. I do not think there is any such thing as a soul that was either there before a body took it to this earth nor that remains to float about in a meta-universe after said body perishes, but I do think that what makes us who we are is more than the sum of our parts, much like a computer is more than the silicon and metals that make up its hardware.
When physicists talk of the conservation of energy or energy in general, they are not talking about any sort of life force. Energy is a quantity we use to describe the capacity of a system to perform work on another, in much the same way that currency is a quantity economists use to describe the relationship between supply and demand of a good or service. Energy is a tool of math; it cannot be directly measured, only few interactions can.
I think if we are desperate to find something to latch on to that is left of our loved ones, we can rely on our memories of them and the feelings we produced together. We can remember their life work and their legacy and we can honour them for what they used to be. There is no need to stay attached to a pile of ashes or a hunk of meat wherein nothing of the person we loved remains preserved. The person is with us within us and within what else they left behind.

As long as one is so convinced they are merely what is inside their skin, the thought of death will be either a cold frightening fear of sudden nonexistence or a socially conditioned assumption based on widely misunderstood passed-down mythological stories attempting to treat and/or exploit that fear.

Keep digging.

Try as much as you want, the great mysteries of life will always evade you. Look as small as you want or as big as you want but it's about "feel" not science. Measure what u want but you can't measure everything. You can experience everything if you set your mind free.

I love Einstein.

That sir is the best!


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Rickie wrote: Try as much as you want, the great mysteries of life will always evade you. Look as small as you want or as big as you want but it's about "feel" not science. Measure what u want but you can't measure everything. You can experience everything if you set your mind free.

I love Einstein.

I doubt you even have an idea of what it is we can measure.

It also has bearing on Einstein, that, not only did he write a piece on people misunderstanding what he meant when he mentioned God, but also, that even he was wrong on some things. But your statement illustrates how people pick and choose from science, and scientists when it benefits them, but poo pooing it when it doesnt in the same quote...

He would be surprised, even mind blown, by what exactly we are doing today, compared to his time.

Now, we are doing things that at one time, people thought only Gods capable.

Science did that, not "feels", though I imagine they played a part in motivation.

Science does not exist in some void.

I hope we never stop trying to measure, discover, and uncover things in this universe.

As we would only be less for it.

I fail to see how those who measure have less free of a mind. In fact, those that do unlock doors because they seek the right key.

While the science may not be accurate, I think the sentiment is that the afterlife doesn't have to be Heaven, Hell or God. Death does not have to be mystical. It can be explained in scientific terms, and that science can bring as much comfort as a religious explanation. The speech isn't meant to be instruction. It is meant to offer an alternative view of where we go once the body is spent. People can take from it what they will.