This question has been hanging around my head for a while now and it took watching a movie about quantum mechanics to bring it up.
By conscious I mean that an arc (or individual electrons) have the capability to choose which direction they are going to flow.
I’ve seen the arc do some screwy thing when it wants to, especially AC on aluminum, and I’m wondering if anyone else has seen the arc do things that make it seem conscious.
For the sake of debate, I separate life from consciousness. A life is a complex system that enables an observer to interact with their environment. Consciousness is the ability to make a decision that may or may not effect an outcome or a given situation or event.
Ex: A person works in a machine shop with several computers that can discern between several different materials and parts and sort them according to operation and processing needed. The person is alive, the computers are conscious.
It’s early enough that my hands are working without my brains full consent, so if none of this makes sense or if someone has a different view on life/consciousness, please speak up.
-Clif
Maybe we should start a Metaphysics group.
No I don't think electricity is consciousness.
The perception you describe is similar to the experience wood workers, firemen, target shooters, etc describe when trying to verbalize why something is what it is when the words excape them for explaination.
firemen will describe as the fire having a "life".
wood workers will describe it as the "living grain"
target shooters/snipers will describe as being one with the firearm etc.
It's not uncommon to perceive something as being alive when your concious is focused to the nth degree on that object. It is in fact not alive or concious but an extension of your concious perception. It cannot make a decision of it's own, but rather will follow the laws of physics. (some of which are not understood, but it will never the less follow them)
Tunnel vision and time dilation are commonly describe at such times. seconds become minutes, and all else go's away. Some describe this as "being in the zone".
Your not the only one to state "I've seen the arc do some screwy things".
Consider this; It is a physical impossibility for any welder to see every angle when behind the hood. Their vision is limited by the hood, the arc further limits visibility and alters the peceived colors, spatial resolution is poor etc. There is therefore as much art to manual welding as science. If it was pure science, there would be no need for qualification.
A lot of terms are coined to describe it, "muscle memory" being one of the more common, however, all mean the same thing. "being in the zone". The non visible angular relations, spacial resolution concerns etc are answered by an unquantifiable quality of "feeling" or being in the zone.
At such times, it's not unusual to note things that most others who don't weld for a living would miss. "the arc doing something screwy". That event would be passed over by everyone else but an experienced welder.
It's not alive, but it can seem that way.
Regards,
Gerald
Many, many year ago, when I was an avid pot smoker, I could have MAYBE answered that one. Or at least said, "WO, dude". Good luck with that one. :-)
Hello Clif, I believe Gerald gave you some great examples of perception and I believe you may very well be referring to perception when you are listing things such as you have described with your post. There are so many variables and conditions present during the process of welding that the sum of any or all of them can have an effect on what is "seen". You will have physical conditions that will impact the process: material type(various grades of steel, aluminum, whatever type of material), material condition(clean, oxidized, contaminated by processing, etc.), Environmental condition(humidity level, particulate levels in the surrounding area, etc.), condition and type of electrode used to perform the welding(new, uncontaminated, old, contaminated and anywhere in between). Then you have the equipment used to perform the welding: old technology, new technology, good condition, poor condition, anywhere in between, properly serviced and adjusted, improperly serviced and adjusted, or somewhere in between, good electrical path, poor electrical path, or somewhere in between. Operator skill levels and understanding: is the welder performing as he/she should be? Do any 2 welders weld exactly the same, likely not, thus you have additional variables that can be introduced into the equation. Are there multiple welding operations taking place in the proximity, or is this being done in an environment where there is no other electrical equipment to interfere with what is being done? I believe you can get the general idea behind my examples above and as Gerald had mentioned, all of these will introduce specific scientific principles and laws and all of them in various forms of interaction can have different effects on what we "see" as we perform various welding tasks and the "results" that we end up with. Certainly an interesting topic. So now you have my $.02 in the "for what it's worth" department. Best regards, Allan
I believe I have a reasonable answer for this one ----Electrons are naturally always trying to re-balance themselves- For instance- a regular sa-200 welder has a 12 volt dc system for charging the battery etc. This system is grounded to the engine and frame.
This regular sa-200 also has a high voltage made by a disributor or magneto-shooting through the plug wires-to the spark plugs and Grounds to the engine
Now the Electrons (the 12 volt high current) and (the 10000+ volt low current) are sharing the same ground.
Which it would almost seem as though-the ground would be a pond and the electrons are fish of 2 different types
so in this case we would have 2 different types of fish swimming in the same pond-----the pond being the body of the welder(the entire metal assembly)
Fish type1(electron 12v) only swims back to the battery from the pond-he thinks he is a sammon and they swim up stream to mate-so hes going to the battery Fish type 2 (sparkly bass) (electrons 10000 v+) only return to the home where they were born at the magneto although they were swimming in the same stream-the whole engine and anything connected.
The big deal being is how did these guys(electrons) sort themselves out The 10000 low current high voltage should have destroyed the 12 volt battery and alternator because it was grounded to the 12 volt system itself.
electrons are drawn to their like kind as long as they are not forced through another electrical producer because 1 or the other will die. sometimes both die.
Electron flow is created by creating a difference in the amount of positive and negative electrons ------the electrons naturally want to be in state of balance and rest therefore they go back to where the deficit was created to rebalance.
this creates the appearance of being intelligent----but they probably think the same thing about us-cause those same electrons are the only reason we can think.LOL
The shortest answer is that yes-it makes choices-whether its smart or not.
No,
I don't think L'ectricity makes a choice at any time.
It will to things that surprise us from time to time, but there is always a reason. Sometimes it just takes us a while for us to figure it out.
L'ectricity obeys physical laws every time..
Arc blow, cathodic etching controls etc. can be pretty mysterious and often frustrating.. But in the end always explainable.... If X than Y.
Amit Gonswami -wonder if he smokes pot.lol
yea thats where most of his cats wind up-most of mine wind up in the bottom of the fridge lol
I don't know which is more disturbing. That I understand what it is he's saying, or what it is he's saying.
reality gets a little squishy when one accepts the quantum model indeed.
i also have reservations in accepting it not because i disagree quite the contrary but what do i do when i live in that reality and my paycheck lives in this one.
i think that we all are going to have to accept a new paradigm. this consciousness stuff is neat huh.
i just read about the dna structure being wrapped in photons, ie the light body.
Most of the things the guy was saying are based in the theory of relativity/special relativity. Subject vs Observer. It is the supposed reason there is a limit to the speed of light, and the travel to that limit. Atomic clocks traveling at varying degrees of the speed of light have been measured to be running slower than the observer frame of reference. (space born clocks vs stationary clocks on the ground). However, neither clock was wrong. So the alternative is that one clock is running faster, but in it's frame of reference, the subject is the clock running slower. Light travels in waves and particles or so says the "observed" evidence. Einstein called it wave particle duality.
This becomes important as it is the emission of ionizing radiation (ceasium133) and it’s fundamental frequency of a periodic signal which is the inverse of the period length is the basis time measurement. So either that period is getting shorter, or it’s getting longer. Therein is where the theory of relativity appears to fall apart. The same theory that predicts the effect, and is proven by the effect, is also disproven by the same. If light speed is the same for both clocks, but one clock is faster or slower than the other simply by someone observing the relative clock, then time itself is not a constant, nor is the speed of light as both have to be observed to be perceived as real or so says the quantum model. If time and the speed of light are not constant, then there is no upper limit to potential of speed as to the observer on the vehicle traveling at ½ c time is the same as it always is, but to the observer of that vehicle on the ground, time is slower. This gets back to the conscience of the observer. This is what gonswami is driving at. Without that perception of the conscience the event never occurred to that conscience. This is where gonswami goes off the reservation. He describes it as an “entanglement”. When the context is put up against Einstein’s “wave particle duality” they are effectively stating the same condition. The chicken before the egg, or the egg before the chicken, entanglement vs. wave particle duality, both statements are physicist double speak for “I don’t know what the hell is going on here, and can’t explain it”. A careful reader/observer obeying the law of logic is going to note that both arguments fall apart at the junction where such arguments are made.
Regards,
Gerald
I figure this thought would go along with the rest of the debate...
Isn’t one of the ideas that E=mc2 allows for is that all matter is energy? An object is solid because it vibrates slower (less "heat") than a gas or liquid (more "heat") or even an ionized substance (lots of "heat"). This is where I might lose the logic check, but isn’t all energy a plasma? Given that both classical and quantum physics are stumped at the juncture that "everything is connected" because they can’t observe a connection through gravity or other forces, what if you started looking at everything from an electrical view point? Isn't everything electrically connected, even if their isn’t visible "arc"?
Basically, what would happen if you took plasma physics and "recalibrated" the energy scales it works with to apply it to a much broader view, instead of just the sun or our welding arcs.
I’m probably not wording this one entirely right.
I enjoy all of the views and concepts brought up by everyone, and I keep coming back and re-reading all of the responses.
Thank you for everyone who contributed :)
"Given that both classical and quantum physics are stumped at the juncture that "everything is connected" because they can't observe a connection through gravity or other forces".
That pretty much nails the problem with modern physics on the head. Dark matter, dark energy, all things used to describe items that modern science is clueless on.
How does E=mc2 fit into that? Especially in light
http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast123/lectures/lec16.html Dark matter.
Light is not the only portion of the formula that is in question. Mass and light both are effectively unknown.
From the Uoregon site
"Dark Energy:
With the convergence of our measurement of Hubble's constant and M, the end appeared in site for the determination of the geometry and age of our Universe. However, all was throw into turmoil recently with the discovery of dark energy. Dark energy is implied by the fact that the Universe appears to be accelerating, rather than decelerating, as measured by distant supernovae."
That poses another problem that is not really addressed. In accordance with modern physics, your not susposed to get an energy boost from nothing. Law of conservation.
So how then can a known universe be a moving faster?
For that matter, why does light slow down after Jupiter within our own solar system? (As measured by the voyager program)
There has been some theories surface in England that suggest time is actually slowing down, and therefore from our persective, (point of reference) the universe is speeding up.
Either way you look at it, no one really knows what "energy" or "matter" truely is. This is utterly obvious when by modern physics standards.
Your question about plasma and all matter being energy would apply if in fact we had a clue what "all" matter really was.
If what You mean is: "Does the arc have a mind of it's own?" I think it does not, but some times it may seem like it does, or at leas it doesn't do what YOU WANT it to.
The arc, and therefore all its constitute components, are subject to Murphy's Law. If it can go wrong, it will go wrong. :)
Best answer yet!!! :) :) :)
Respectfully,
Henry
If your definition of consciousness is based upon making 'decisions' you can easily mislead yourself. Conciousness is far more, and less, than decisions. And before you even go arguing that computers are concious based upon this definition perhaps you might define 'decision'.
Web search John Searles Chinese Box Argument.
Considering that we haven't even come close to deciding what consciousness is, it seems a little premature to impose consciousness upon somehting we have no internal experience of. We attribute consciousness to ourselves based upon our internal experiential intuition, but to impose it upon anything else is mere extrapolation without justification since, again, we don't even know what it is. Or even IF it is.
In relating to the welding process and the metals involved, my dad always told me that I was dealing with an inanimate object and it (the material) could not out think me. He convinced me that there is a solution to all situations with when joining metals and the idea of electricity having a consiousness is foreign to me. I believe that it reacts to a given set of circumstances and that reaction is as random as a lightning strike, and would never be a repeated or predictable movement and therefore could not be a conscious act. Hmmm...just my thoughts.
Alumtig
Sorry about missing all the fun, I’ve been busy...
I realized my terms and definitions weren’t quite up to par and that I wasn’t wording the question quite right.
i was really trying to get people to think about and discuss something other than politics or the economy or religion, and i knew this would get some kind of response. ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpkfCZPblgg This is a short segment from the movie that got me thinking. It’s an experiment that a Japanese researcher carried out on water. If it doesn’t make you wonder just a little bit, then I don’t know what would :);):)
By Cumminsguy71 
Date 06-13-2009 23:51
Edited 06-13-2009 23:58
That was pretty interesting and could see how that would make your mind start to think.
I vote for Chao's Theory on the behavior of the arc. So many different factors to figure into the equation, etc, etc.
Very well put Gerald, I remember reading about the effects on time in Kip Thornes book on black holes where he was talking about the speed of light, the gravitational forces and how it would look as an outsider looking in. I think one model he described dealt with you as the reader being on a spaceship outside a black hole as one of your fellow space jocks was floating towards the event horizon and how it would look from your point of view on the ship and what your not so fortunate counterpart would experience. I think I'll have to dig that book out and read it again, really cool stuff.
