[ExI] Let's play What If.

[Tim Halterman]

2010/10/26 John Clark <jonkc at bellsouth.net>

>   On Oct 26, 2010, at 11:51 AM, Tim Halterman wrote:
>
>   I cannot see how you can somehow make one into two and then not have the
> same power to take two into one.
>
>
> It would take another step but you could merge the two together and create
> a third being that remembers doing two things at the same time. Odd but not
> paradoxical.
>
>
I have no problem with this but this third is different from the two and
different from the one the two came from.

>   Define this something
>
>
> No. Definitions are for wimps, examples rule.
>
>
>  It looks to me like this is breaking the laws of physics.
>
>
> And what law of physics would that be?
>
>
The law of conservation of mass.


>
> To me atoms do have individuality
>
>
> Well of course they do to you, most people think atoms have individuality
> but science doesn't think so, science thinks atoms have no scratches on them
> to tell one from the other. Even most people on this list say to hell with
> science and, although they try to find another word to sound scientific,
> insist that there must be some sort of atomic soul. As for me, I don't even
> think humans have a soul so I sure as hell don't think atoms do.
>
>
I could look at two atoms and say they look the same, it does not mean they
are the same atom.  I do not believe atoms have a soul but you still cannot
have two of the same.  Two atoms cannot exist in the same space at the same
time.


>    they have their own perspective or placement in the universe.
>
>
> And there is an experiment to test if this theory is true or false. If
> atoms have individuality then when you exchange two hydrogen atoms in the
> same quantum state you should observe something happening; but nothing
> happens, you can't even be certain a exchange actually took place. And by
> the way this is the idea behind Exchange Forces, one of the foundations of
> modern physics.
>
>   John K Clark
>

I would agree that there is nothing observable to us here, at least in our
current state of measurement and possibly never.  Just because you can't
perceive anything does not mean that the two atoms are the same.  One is
closer to x than the other, that is a difference.
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