ZM's Philosophy Thread

[Slavic]

Thats why in my previous posting I stated that I was limiting the state of "being" to just matter to examine the situation. I could have just used the term photon in the same place. A photon is just matter at light speeds, it is still in the state of "being" and still exists in this reality. If we can find someway to completely destroy something in a state of "being" whether it be photons or particles, then I would accept the ability to destroy God.

 

Mind you all, when ever I say God, I mean it in a pantheistic sense. I find it impossible for God to be in any lesser reality than a pantheistic one, even the monotheistic schools seem to portray God as some kind of divine human entity which seems absurd to me.

[Captain Colon]

anything that has mass and takes up space is defined as matter...and a photon has a mass...

No it doesn't...

[Italian Jew]

yes it could have a mass, it just has a zero rest mass... (also to note, it is considered impossibe to accurately measure the rest mass and the best we have done is put a limit on it, with the limit coming so close to zero that scientists have just used zero)

 

remember, E=mc^2

 

since it has energy, it would indeed need to have a mass, but if a photon has no energy it would have no mass.

 

But if you don't believe in E=mc^2 than you can find some way to prove it has no mass.

 

One photon is considered to have no mass because it is so very close to zero, but why then has it been recorded that two photons have a mass?

 

If you don't accept E=mc^2, then the photon does not need to have a mass and does not make you wrong, but not right. Until there is a definite scientific discovery on the true mass, people could argue for both instances because there remains evidence for both.

[Captain Colon]

The most accepted theories put the mass of a photon at zero at all times.

 

Either way, you can still destroy photons thanks to their wave-like properties :thumbup1:

[Italian Jew]

Photons have both wave like and particle like properties...wave-particle duality. Since it is energy, and in turn matter, it cannot be destroyed, only transferred.

 

No experiments have shown the exact mass to be at zero. The best they have done is come up with limits for the mass, with the limits being well above zero.

 

To say that a photon has no mass can be proven by disproving E=mc^2....which nobody has really done.

 

Nothing can be done to determine if it has mass or it doesn't because it cannot be measured. The theory stands and it may or may not exist so it would be wrong to say that it doesn't because some science says so. Gravity is a theory, yet we widely accept it because the results of it are easier to see than the effects of mass on a photon.