Subj:  Time based concept...                 95-09-03 20:00:47 PDT
From:  Joe Uhrig

One thing to remember in discussions about "power" is that power itself according to our best scientific understanding of it is inherently a function of time.  In fact reduced to it's most elementary form, time occurs three times in the equation.

Power = (Force x Distance)/Time                      P = (F*D)/T

Force = Mass * Acceleration                               F = M*A

Acceleration = Distance/Time squared           A = D/(T*T)    

So substituting and reducing the equation to it's fundamental measurable variables (at least as we deal with them in our normal lives)  gives:

P = (M * D * D / ( T * T * T)

or

Power = Mass * Distance squared/Time cubed

There you have it.  Space, time, and matter.  Power is temporal.  It is part of the reason that I'm not too impressed with appeals to "omnipotent power " particularily when they are of the fearful variety.  In college I made some limited progress in matching these concepts with the psychological and social aspects of power in a paper I unfortunately no longer have called "Towards a Definition of Powerlessness".

Love however on the other hand alludes our attempts to define it. And in the playing out of suffering there have been both some incredibly beautiful and incredibly ugly attempts at defining it (for example children being told that abuse is love).

Nevertheless it is this elusive quality of love which is the surest indicator in my mind that it is eternal.  It  cannot be defined.

 



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