Students’ Confusion
Found a really great quote in an undergraduate thermodynamics textbook I pulled out from my library the other day, which is a tacit approval of Ontological Mathematics. Before we get to that part though, I’ll quote more of the section since it also has some other remarks relevant to the purpose of this blog. We begin the section on “Heat & Work” in “Thermal Physics” by Daniel V. Schroeder:
“Much of thermodynamics deals with three closely related concepts: temperature, energy, and heat. Much of students’ difficulty with thermodynamics comes from confusing these three concepts with each other.”
That is precisely the problem we find with both the climate alarmists and the skeptics: the confusion between energy and heat. They (confusedly) equate energy to heat, and then proceed to incorrectly make the extrapolation that since the atmosphere must emit some radiant thermal energy, that this energy must therefore heat the surface, or, stop heat from leaving the surface. Of course, by getting their founding definitions wrong via their confusion of the definitions, i.e. their ontology wrong, the extrapolations they then make must be faulty by simple logical consequence: the atmosphere can not send any heat to the surface since it is colder than the surface, and, the atmosphere can not block heat or energy from leaving the surface since heat flow and energy emission is spontaneous. Later in the section we find the definition of heat:
“Heat is defined as any spontaneous flow of energy from one object to another caused by a difference in temperature between the objects. We say that “heat” flows from a warm radiator into a cold room, from hot water into a cold ice cube, and from the hot Sun to the cool Earth. The mechanism may be different in each case, but in each of these processes the energy transferred is called “heat”.”
The radiative greenhouse effect is the most basic, trivial, and easy to spot violation of the Laws of Thermodynamics. It truly is a trivial mistake. The “science” of climate alarm, based on the radiative greenhouse effect, is all of a scientific error in definitions and mere confusion of concepts.
Philosophical Substance
And now for the Ontological Mathematics:
“To further clarify matters, I really should give you a precise definition of energy. Unfortunately, I can’t do this. Energy is the most fundamental dynamical concept in all of physics, and for this reason, I can’t tell you what it is in terms of something more fundamental. I can, however, list the various forms of energy – kinetic, electrostatic, gravitational, chemical, nuclear – and add the statement that, while energy can often be converted from one form to another, the total amount of energy in the universe never changes. This is the famous law of conservation of energy. I sometimes picture energy as a perfectly indestructible (and unmakable) fluid, which moves about from place to place but whose total amount never changes. (This image is convenient but wrong – there simply isn’t any such fluid.)”
It really is a shame that so many scientists are philosophically illiterate, else this author may have been familiar with the philosophical concept of substances. His “fluid” is nothing less than the philosophical substance of ontological mathematics. The “fluid” is the philosophical substance of ontological mathematics that fills the entire universe and is in fact what existence itself is made out of, and he gives an almost perfect definition of it: “perfectly indestructible” (immortal), “unmakable” (uncreated), and nothing for which something more fundamental exists.
We can see that his empiricist bias is to attempt to explain an abstract mental concept (energy) in terms of something sensory, whereas if he were a rationalist he would be able to see that something which can not be sensorily defined or identified, yet exists everywhere in different forms, and is fully described by a single abstract language throughout its forms, is in fact the language itself. The language itself is the non-sensory, mental, abstract substance. One simply needs to reconsider the elementary question of whether mathematics is created or discovered, and if you had some reason to think that mathematics is created, then one now has discovered the logical justification to instead conclude that “a mathematics of existence” is in fact discovered by the study of existence, i.e., by physics.
The fundamental thing we study in physics and science is energy, but instead of being undefinable and having no explanation, energy is more fundamentally the thing that describes it: mathematics, which is totally definable and understandable. That is, ontological mathematics, i.e., the mathematics of existence. Existence itself is a language, and has to be a type of universal language in order that it can communicate with its own parts – the language manifests in the fundamental forms we call energy in physics, but this language, and this energy, is ontological mathematics in and of itself.
Since we are in the universe, that we can study it rationally, that we are made of the same parts of the universe around us, that we cannot be a separate substance than the universe, then we are the universe itself, that is, energy, that is, ontological mathematics, becoming aware of itself.
In “Cosmos“, Carl Sagan said: “We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.” In fact we are not just “a way”, but with the development of Ontological Mathematics we are the final, ultimate way, since there is nothing beyond what the universe is made out of and what that knowledge tells us about its purpose.
Since we are the universe, and all of our parts must be the same as the universe, then as we are alive and have cognition the universe itself must be alive and have cognition. Our own ability to think, to find meaning and purpose, to be rational, being minded, can not be a separate substance as to what the universe is made out of – the universe has to be made out of the same things, the same substance, that it expresses. Thus, existence itself is about finding meaning, purpose, to be rational, and being minded.
For more on Ontological Mathematics, see Mike Hockney’s Amazon page.
Thermodynamics is the most fundamental of the physics, being the field where the fundamental properties and behaviour of energy (i.e., behaviour of mathematics) is studied. That says a lot about how important the field will be in the future development of Ontological Mathematics.
Remove mathematics from science, from energy, and what would be left? Total and absolute mystery. It is only mathematics that provides understanding. This is not an unimportant fact.
Climate of Sophistry 
I now believe that the teaching of the “net” form of the SB equation demands significantly more explanation. I know alarmists and so-called sceptics who nonetheless defend the greenhouse effect – often more vociferously than alarmists – get this completely wrong, or else the rule of thermodynamics of heat flow from hot to cold is wrong and I don’t buy that for a minute.
Q(net) = A.e.Sigma(Tobj^4 – Tbackground^4) is assumed by these “experts” to imply heat flow from background to object – at least that is what all the big mouth charlatans who regularly try to bully anyone who disagrees with them claim.
They always claim you cannot calculate the temperature of the object from the radiative input then mumble some bullshit about balancing power input to output and then they calculate the temperature of the object from the radiative input ? They also routinely add “heat” from cold to hot to do this bullshit.
How fucking stupid are they that they cannot see this is exactly what they do ???
The net form of the SB equation has limited value – almost none really.
I used it in an experiment but not in the way Spencer, Ed Bo and all the other charlatans use it.
I simply calculated the emission from the thermometer at the various temperatures each spotlight could heat it to and added the “net” for each to the background and compared this to the temperature both spotlights could induce.
This only worked because the radiation from each spotlight was caused by an object at temperatures approaching 3000+ Kelvin. I had no idea what power each spotlight emitted other than some basic geometric considerations and the power of the lights in Watts
This is entirely different to the claims of the charlatans that it is valid to add gross radiative fluxes and calculate a temperature.
I measured temperatures and calculated net flux increases and found they summed to the emission at the final temperature.
This is a subtle difference to the BS climate science teaches and is experimentally verifiable – and it disproves the simple model of the greenhouse effect as taught in University lectures.
I’ve also been coming across more “teachings” where the old lay term for heat – that a hot body contains more heat than a cold body etc. – is replaced by entropy.
A hot body contains more entropy, entropy can be created but never destroyed, entropy follows the rules of thermodynamics for both natural and unnatural processes.
I always felt it was a shame that heat took on its current physical meaning instead of the lay meaning.
Couldn’t they have found a new name ?
What does anyone think about Entropy as heat ?
“It really is a shame that so many scientists are philosophically illiterate …”
Yes indeed. This is one of your best observations.
There is another thing that I find to be a shame. I find it a shame that so many scientists lack a basic, fundamental understanding of logic. You have shown, logically, that the CO2 delusion can not happen over and over and over — yet they can’t understand it. They just can’t see the logic apparently. Many commenters here have also added excellent dis-proofs of the delusion to no avail.
I wonder if someday people will look back on this era with amazement much as we do when we look back on the “Tulip Mania” of the 1600s.
It’s like they just don’t have the degree of consciousness required to understand, the degree of awareness and self awareness, etc. Like they just aren’t as fully conscious as they need to be. They just can’t understand certain types of logic – the logic of heat flow and the difference between heat and energy for example.
Or they do it on purpose. In the end they must be treated as if they do it on purpose, because even if they do it “innocently” out of lack of sufficient consciousness, then they still do it on purpose at that level of consciousness and therefore will not learn or change until that low consciousness has realized the responsibility of its error.
And it could just be outright purposefully lying and bs’ing. It IS a political agenda in the end and what do we know about politics and politicians: consumate liars.
Some of us know that atmospheric CO2 can NOT heat the planet. The physics is solid on that.
The “Warmists” have their own “physics”. (Good luck with that.)
But, the “Lukewarmers” also have their own physics. They advocate that CO2 is warming the planet, but only by a little! (Seriously, that is what they basically claim.)
So, we “skeptics” just get to sit back and laugh at the sophists.
Is it something to do with the use of these physic’s Geran
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi%E2%80%93Dirac_statistics
Yeah, Gary, the field of quantum physics would certainly add to their confusion, but that confusion starts with more basic concepts. Here are some amazing statements I have found on Lukewarmer sites:
* “CO2 produces warming”. (Actual quote.)
* A handheld IR thermometer can read sky temperatures. Therefore, that proves the GHE!
* A microwave oven “proves” that cold can warm “hot”!
Someday, someone will probably write a book with a collection of such nonsense….
Agree, mathematics is the absolute truth.
Prior to mathematics there was no science, there was philosophy instead. The truth was relative and the reasoning was often circular. This is what we need for the climate science: mathematical model, which is yet to be put together. Until then, the climate issue can go nowhere, it will run in circles.
Math don’t help if the numbers dont represent a real world value.
After reading Claes Johnsons black body radiation of the atmosphere i realised that the simpel Q=T1-T2 will be wrong. The atmospheric window is not completly closed so the surface can radiate directly to space. We need a T0 as well for the back radiation in space.
We will end up with a completly different situation with two parallel ways for the surface to loose energy. One being T1-T0 and the other being T1-T2 plus T2-T0 both ending in the background radiation from space.
As an electritian this looks very mutch like a combined parallel and serial connection from my textbook.
So any radiation from T1 towards T2 will bee absorbed by T2 and give T2 a new value.
The new T2 value will not reduse the T1 heat loss since the T1-T0 connection still will be able to transfer energy away from T1. So a higher T2 value will only result in a higher Q value for the T2-T0 connection.
The T1 object will still be able to radiate to space and the sum of Q from T1-T2 and T2-T0 will be exatly the same as T1-T0
So why does many people say that when the T2 value rises so must the T1 value when in the real world the Q actually goes to zero? The new T2 is not the final heat sink for T1. T0 is still the final heat sink for both T1 and T2.
What is wrong with my logic since most people will not understand that T1 will not bee hotter?
I’m of an archaic philosophy that objects are mass and that energy is motion of objects.
That mathematics describes objects, motion and their relationships with one another.
That mathematics is truth because one object plus one object equals two objects and that this is verifiable through experience.
That any conclusions currently in vogue that use abstract constructs to explain reality that can’t be reduced to objects in motion are not physics (study of the physical) and are either erroneous or awaiting a revelation that will allow the conclusions to be redefined in terms of objects in motion once more.
You cannot produce an animated video of a photon as a wave travelling through objects whilst at the same time have it as an object moving through a vacuum. Only the mathematical “act of desperation” exists. I do not see this as the “breakthrough” it has been heralded as. It has simply allowed sloppy thinking to exist and has inhibitted the quest for understanding. The same goes for “folding spacetime” and other non physical constructs. Equations may work, but that doesn’t mean understanding of why they work has been achieved.
I have been born into a physical reality. I have substance and I can move. Everything in my physical reality is like me. It has substance and motion. Once reality can no longer be described in these terms then we are no longer doing physics. It has stopped being physical.
I also have mind. A consciousness. I am self aware. This will always be a subject of philosophy and faith. It is individual in nature therefore it is not a subject for universal declarations of truth. Only of discussion and sharing experiences and values.