What free energy means to me

[nleseul]

(Note: I originally posted this in the SPDC some months ago. Seems worth reposting to kick things off in this community. No secret SPDC info here, I'm afraid. Note that this was written pre-July, and as such may take a more optimistic tone than I would presently take.)

---

I met a traveller from an antique land Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.¹

I don't remember when I first learned about the second law of thermodynamics. I know I probably first heard the word "entropy" in the Doctor Who episode "Logopolis," in which entropy was a major theme. I know the novelization of that episode stated the second law as simply "Entropy increases," and those words stayed with me.

But I expect I didn't really understand the meaning of the words until we studied thermodynamics in my high school chemistry class. I know it was around that time that phrases like "cruel entropy" and "all-destroying entropy" started to crop up in the bad emo poetry I wrote at that age. Because it didn't take long after understanding the concept for me to realize that, if a law of nature can be regarded as evil, the second law is the most evil principle imaginable. Entropy is the force that causes flowers to fade and love to die and memories to disappear and empires to crumble and worlds to end and the entire universe to one day cease to exist. It is the essence of loss, of endings.

The laws of thermodynamics, taken together, represent everything that is small and empty and depressing and meaningless in life. They are the reason why all living things, from bacteria to men, are bound in an endless cycle of battling over scarce resources. They are the reason why simply being requires a tremendous effort—why a living organism must struggle, day after day after day, lest it cease to exist. They are the reason why humans—thinking, feeling, loving, dreaming beings who surely deserve a better kind of life—must eat, must work so they can eat, must forego the pursuit of pleasure so they can work—why priests and patriarchs throughout the ages must crush the free spirit of the child and leave the empty shell of the adult to "grow up" and accept the inevitable necessity of labor and suffering as a matter of survival. For nothing, by the laws of thermodynamics, can come for free; it is only at the price of blood, sweat, and tears that we can wrest a share of that finite and dwindling supply of energy from the universe and keep ourselves alive for another day.

The laws of thermodynamics may be true. All our observations of the universe seem to confirm them. But, true though they might be, I don't think anyone could argue that they are wrong. The universe simply should not be that way. That, I think, is why nearly every culture has its myth of paradise—there is something in the human spirit that recognizes that the universe could be better—that there is another kind of life than a futile struggle to survive until entropy consumes us and returns us to the dust. Every human alive has experienced that kind of effortless existence for at least nine months. Most have another decade or two in which they can live it, before they are forced out into the "real world" to struggle, to decay, and to have only breeding as a means to forestall entropy and have some part of themselves survive. But humans are creatures of memory. We retain the knowledge that we once existed without effort. And we dream, we hope, we pray that that kind of existence is not lost to us forever. We hope that we will one day return to paradise.

And, unlike any other species that has ever lived on planet Earth, we have found ways of defying the laws of nature and creating paradise for ourselves. The laws of nature made us hunter-gatherers, dependent on the land, the luck of the hunt, and the whims of the weather—and so we invented agriculture. The laws of nature then made us laborers, required to work the fields from dawn to dusk—and so we invented mechanization. The laws of nature made bound us by scarcity—and so we invented mass production. The laws of nature made us geographically dispersed and divided against one another—and so we invented the Internet. Generation and generation of scientific miracles, large and small, wrought by the hands of men with the memory of a better kind of life retained by their spirits, have brought we who are alive today closer than any living thing that has ever existed on this planet to truly living in paradise. And yet, we are told, our victory over nature is hollow and temporary. One day, the oil will run out, the sun will burn up, the very protons that compose us will disintegrate. Despite all we have gained, we remain trapped, confined by the insurmountable barrier of the laws of thermodynamics.

At some level, I've always understood the implications of the laws of thermodynamics to be so. So I've never wanted to accept them as real. I've been hoping for a long time that we've missed something, that our understanding of the universe is incomplete, that there's some loophole that makes the dream of paradise possible. And that's why Steorn got my attention. Beyond the importance of the Orbo technology in addressing the current oil crisis, beyond the effects of free energy on geopolitics, beyond the promise of an unpolluted biosphere and a thousand technologies like warp drive and matter replication out of science fiction, if Steorn can show that the laws of thermodynamics are not so absolute as we have always been taught, then the possibility is open that a different kind of life will be possible. Free energy is, ultimately, the promise of a universe in which people can spend their lives at play instead of at work, not forced to accept suffering as the price of survival; no longer warring over scarce resources, but able to love and respect one another, each able to pursue our own bliss without needing to wrest it from another. It will enable us to exist at last as human beings, and not as hamsters bound all our lives in wheels.

And that view obviously makes me emotionally invested in the hope of free energy. And I know that it is that hope of paradise that scammers throughout history—whether they be priests who promise paradise in some other life or pseudoscientists who promise paradise after enough donations to their research—have relied upon. So I have to try not to put more hope in Steorn than is justified by the facts. I have to remain rationally skeptical. The facts that are known thus far seem to be reason to remain optimistic, but, as Sean himself is the first to remind people, nothing that has been divulged comes anywhere close to constituting proof. And so, I wait.

Sean, please have what you say you have. Please be the one to give the human race the keys to paradise.

It's not a fantasy, another mystery;

It's just what I can feel, and something I can see.
It's like a memory, and in a melody
It's just what we all know, and we all hear.



I was blind, I was closed down...
Could not feel or set it free...



Energize me with a simple touch, or with an open heart.
Energize me, fire up this flame that's burning between us.



It lies in everyone, this swirling energy.
It's all around us too, electrifying you.
So can't you set it free? This virtue is the key.
Just something we all know, and we all use.



I can feel, it's inside me...
Open up, enlighten me...



Energize me with a simple touch, or with an open heart.
Energize me, fire up this flame that's burning between us.
Energize me with a simple smile; open up your mind.
Energize me, activate that light that's given and taken.



Can you believe in the power that's burning between us?
Would you believe if you open up your mind?
Open up your mind...<sup>2

1</sup> Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Ozymandias"



² After Forever, "Energize Me"

[Citizen Wolf]

I say we go with Ping's idea and start up an OU company of our own. Of course, to avoid accusations of scam and fraud we'd have to believe in what we were doing.

I'm now an ardent believing fanatic. $10 a share. 10 million shares up for grabs.Who's first, who wants to invest?

[maryyugo]

Hi 007. Is that hysterical laughter? You seem quite hysterical about free energy (as well as highly delusional).

[007]

ROFLMAO

[maryyugo]

@Ping1400

Well... I just don't see how this adds anything to anything. As we all know by now, even the densest of "believers" know, *nobody* has ever seen any working OU device from Steorn and lived to tell about it much less present evidence, test data, corroboration, or a demo. The Kinetica fiasco including the ridiculous inability of Sean and company to demonstrate anything whatever to people who came thousands of miles like Scott Little and Dr. Mike -- that speaks volumes.

I understand what you're thinking but I don't believe that this statement has any meaning beyond what we already know. IMO, It doesn't suggest in any way that Steorn has admitted anything to its auditors. Maybe the auditors asked to see a device (is that really likely that bean counters would do that?) or talk to an independent consultant who's seen the device working but I'm sure if that happened, Sean did his usual accomplished and well rehearsed evasion act.

My point was that I don't think the auditor's statements add anything substantive other than to show that Steorn treats its auditors the same as everyone else -- with evasion and deception and a flagrant contempt which seems to assume that everyone is an incompetent idiot. Well, news for youse Sean, not everyone is. I suspect believers can now be counted on one's hands... maybe just one hand.

(some typos edited but I bet there are more)

[maryyugo]

@Ping1400
Weird. But it doesn't matter if it's the same as what you posted yesterday. Does it specifically something to the effect that "there is no prototype"? I doubt it. If so, please quote the item here.

[maryyugo]

@aber0der
@Ping1400

Sorry but I could not find a statement that "Steorn does does not have an OU machine" or that "Steorn has only a concept and not a device" anywhere in the links you provided. The TIF file download was only a cover sheet-- no info at all.

Aber0der's Sunday Busines Post story link says in the main:

"‘‘The company is dependent upon the successful outcome of its prototype development to generate future income,” the auditors’ report in the accounts stated.” In the event that the company is unsuccessful, the going concern principle may cease to apply, with consequent impact on the future viability of activities.”

Now I'm as sure that Steorn doesn't have any OU device as I am of just about anything but it does NOT say that, nor that the auditors said it, ANYWHERE in the links you two provided.

So if you really saw that statement somewhere, I'd like to know where -- THE STATEMENT itself please. Thanks.

[maryyugo]

@ping1400
I'd love to see a link or reference to that actual report. And I think your information should be posted on the Steorn forum but of course, *only* if it can be verified.

[ForgetAboutIt]

Nleseul, thanks for the brilliant muse. You mention "free energy is, ultimately, the promise of a universe in which people can spend their lives at play instead of at work". While free energy would be a great development I think technological advancements as a whole will eventually realize work free lives and life spans that are exponentially longer than they are today.

[maryyugo]

The only important "secrets of the SPDC" is that they have never been given any device or definitive plan for a device to test nor seen any working sample of an overunity machine. There is no other reasonable explanation for why after all this time not a single leak about such a device has emerged, none has been seen by anyone, anywhere that has made it to the public. The CIA, FBI and National Security Council can't keep secrets like that-- it'd be like keeping the atomic bomb a secret after it had been tested.

[Grant Hodges]

I had similar feelings about Entropy.
Entropy depressed me from the first day it was explained to me.

GH