Can you measure the [effect of the] Force in newtons?

[Soontir C'boath]

Specifically, can we compute the amount of force a Jedi must be applying to a very massive object and assume he can apply the same force to a much less massive object?

He applies the same amount of force to the lesser massed object then its velocity will increase.

Example: Yoda, an X-Wing and a pebble. Now, since believe it or not I am a physicist-in-training, on vacation no less, we are going to simplify the problem as much as possible. Assume Yoda can apply the Force equally to an X-Wing (treated as a point mass) and a pebble. Since I have no idea how much an X-Wing masses, let's underestimate it and say it's a metric ton. Yoda can obviously levitate the X-Wing against 1 G, or about 10 m/s^2, for at least 10 seconds. That's 10 thousand Newtons. Let's assume the pebble is 1 gram. Yoda applies the same force to the pebble for ten seconds. That pebble is going to be moving at about 1/3 the speed of light! Neglecting air resistance and special relativity, of course. Now, does it really make sense that Yoda could do this?

If he decidedly used the same amount of force then yes. It's not as if its velocity will disapear.

I say no. The Force cannot be "measured in newtons." Instead, we could theorize that the Jedi's telekinesis is not limited by force but rather by power. This would explain the relativistic pebble, since Yoda does no work on the X-Wing but one hell of a lot of work on the pebble (5 terajoules if my back-of-the-envelope calculations are right).

There is always work in everything we do. That's why its called work. If Yoda does nothing that's no work being done. Even waving my hand is work.

If Yoda is limited by how much power he can draw from the Force, it would explain why he wasn't smashing Federation starships with ball bearings in AOTC. But I suspect that any attempt to quantify the Jedi's abilities is futile. The Jedi vary in TK strength from paperclip-pushing (Corran Horn) to starbusting (What's-His-Face in Golden Age of the Sith. Marka Ragnos's successor. He had a meditation sphere. Naga Sadow or something) The Force is exercised nonlocally and metaphysically. We can qualitatively assess what various Jedi can do at certain times in their careers, but quantitative analysis veers too far into the speculative realm with too many unknown variables to yield any meaningful results.

Federation starships are in the orders of 2 km diameter and for the spheres even less. Being larger, they would have more mass then your petty pebble or X-Wing.

Consider this, there is a limit on the amount of mass that a force user can
apply force to move it.

Are you in your first month of "training"?

Cyaround,
Jason

[Eframepilot]

No, you retarded monkey. I'm pointing out if your method can show no predictions, it is absolutely worthless. You know, where you said 'I object to the expectation that quantitative predictions of Jedi's abilities can be made.', or are you denying that now?

Do you have any evidence to assume the Jedi's use of the Force is governed by external physical considerations and not internal mental considerations, besides wishful thinking? Do you have any specific reasons to ignore my evidence?The use of the Force is a mental phenomenon that produces a great variety of physical results. It is not unscientific to acknowledge that there are processes which we do not (yet) have enough information to make accurate predictions.

Analogy: You're a solar physicist in the early 20th century predicting the expected lifespan of the Sun. Unfortunately for you, quantum mechanics has not advanced to the point where nuclear fusion is predicted. You know that the current model of the Sun, the GPE-to-heat model, is wrong because it doesn't account for quantum mechanics. But you don't know enough about nuclear physics to construct a better one. You are not justified in using the GPE model to make predictions of the Sun's lifespan; using such a prediction in a debate and claiming its validity because no better model exists would be dishonest.

This is a flawed analogy only because quantum mechanics is not subjective and turned out to be fully quantifiable while the Jedi's influence on the Force is very possibly subjective and we will never know more than what we can observe from the limited sample of canon media. Thus the situation for the Force may be even worse, and claiming that it is quantifiably predictable just so that we can make quantitative predictions is dishonest.

And speaking of dishonesty, SirNitwit, you never retracted or apologized for your moronic accusation about my trying to "prove" no work was done on the X-Wing.

[Soontir C'boath]

Do you have any evidence to assume the Jedi's use of the Force is governed by external physical considerations and not internal mental considerations, besides wishful thinking? Do you have any specific reasons to ignore my evidence?The use of the Force is a mental phenomenon that produces a great variety of physical results. It is not unscientific to acknowledge that there are processes which we do not (yet) have enough information to make accurate predictions.

That is not a valid observation. We see them using the force to move objects and that's our basic premise. To go further is to pull things out of your ass in which is what you are doing now.

Analogy: You're a solar physicist in the early 20th century predicting the expected lifespan of the Sun. Unfortunately for you, quantum mechanics has not advanced to the point where nuclear fusion is predicted. You know that the current model of the Sun, the GPE-to-heat model, is wrong because it doesn't account for quantum mechanics. But you don't know enough about nuclear physics to construct a better one. You are not justified in using the GPE model to make predictions of the Sun's lifespan; using such a prediction in a debate and claiming its validity because no better model exists would be dishonest.

It is HONEST, because it is the BEST conclusion offered thus far. Science is not EXACT remember? We just had a thread on solipsism too.

This is a flawed analogy only because quantum mechanics is not subjective and turned out to be fully quantifiable while the Jedi's influence on the Force is very possibly subjective and we will never know more than what we can observe from the limited sample of canon media. Thus the situation for the Force may be even worse, and claiming that it is quantifiably predictable just so that we can make quantitative predictions is dishonest.

You are making unsupported assumptions.

And speaking of dishonesty, SirNitwit, you never retracted or apologized for your moronic accusation about my trying to "prove" no work was done on the X-Wing.

What's so moronic?
There is work being done you took!

Cyaround,
Jason

[Eframepilot]

Specifically, can we compute the amount of force a Jedi must be applying to a very massive object and assume he can apply the same force to a much less massive object?

He applies the same amount of force to the lesser massed object then its velocity will increase.

Well yes, but are we right to assume these simple calculations will be of merit?

If he decidedly used the same amount of force then yes. It's not as if its velocity will disapear.

Of course, but is it plausible that Yoda is really capable of accelerating pebbles to relativistic speeds? Does this result make sense, or is there a flaw somewhere?

There is always work in everything we do. That's why its called work. If Yoda does nothing that's no work being done. Even waving my hand is work.

In my specific example Yoda is causing just enough force to be applied to the 1 metric ton object to keep it motionless against gravity. That's not doing any work. But it's not important to the problem if only a little work is done anyway.

Federation starships are in the orders of 2 km diameter and for the spheres even less. Being larger, they would have more mass then your petty pebble or X-Wing.

Yes, but they will feel it if they get hit by a relativistic pebble, which is what I meant.

Consider this, there is a limit on the amount of mass that a force user can
apply force to move it.

Probably, but what determines the limit? Is it a physical consideration or a mental one?

Are you in your first month of "training"?

2nd semester of graduate "training".

[SirNitram]

No, you retarded monkey. I'm pointing out if your method can show no predictions, it is absolutely worthless. You know, where you said 'I object to the expectation that quantitative predictions of Jedi's abilities can be made.', or are you denying that now?

Do you have any evidence to assume the Jedi's use of the Force is governed by external physical considerations and not internal mental considerations, besides wishful thinking? Do you have any specific reasons to ignore my evidence?The use of the Force is a mental phenomenon that produces a great variety of physical results. It is not unscientific to acknowledge that there are processes which we do not (yet) have enough information to make accurate predictions.

And why should any of this reduce the fact that we can measure the effects? You are attempting to construct a mechanism to handwave away what we observe, but have given no evidence for why we should handwave this away. So it's based on mental discipline, so what? The outcome remains the same.

Analogy: You're a solar physicist in the early 20th century predicting the expected lifespan of the Sun. Unfortunately for you, quantum mechanics has not advanced to the point where nuclear fusion is predicted. You know that the current model of the Sun, the GPE-to-heat model, is wrong because it doesn't account for quantum mechanics. But you don't know enough about nuclear physics to construct a better one. You are not justified in using the GPE model to make predictions of the Sun's lifespan; using such a prediction in a debate and claiming its validity because no better model exists would be dishonest.

And where does this enter into the fact I'm presenting no model, merely measuring the results and saying 'What you see is what you get: Thousands of newtons of force are beign exerted'? Oh yes, it doesn't.

This is a flawed analogy only because quantum mechanics is not subjective and turned out to be fully quantifiable while the Jedi's influence on the Force is very possibly subjective and we will never know more than what we can observe from the limited sample of canon media. Thus the situation for the Force may be even worse, and claiming that it is quantifiably predictable just so that we can make quantitative predictions is dishonest.

'Being scientific is dishonest! WAH!' That was the biggest waste of time to read in a long time. We can measure the outcomes, and you have shown no compelling evidence to discard those outcomes.

And speaking of dishonesty, SirNitwit, you never retracted or apologized for your moronic accusation about my trying to "prove" no work was done on the X-Wing.

Blow me, hatfucker. You made the claim. Don't whine because it's utter stupidity.

[SirNitram]

I'll put this in simple terms for you, Eframe.

All Jedi TK can be approximated in Newtons of force used.

No gross inconsistancies have been shown to our measurements.

While we lack an exact mechanism, we do, therefore, have a nice layout of what they can do.

What you have brought to the table:

Whining that you don't think Jedi TK should be capable of what it's observed to do.

Useless pontification.. Sans proof.. That the entire thing is subjective.

General whining against the evils of objectivity.

Solipism was thrown out twelve thousand years ago because it's bullshit. I suggest you learn from that lesson.

[Soontir C'boath]

Well yes, but are we right to assume these simple calculations will be of merit?

They will be merit until disproven.

Of course, but is it plausible that Yoda is really capable of accelerating pebbles to relativistic speeds? Does this result make sense, or is there a flaw somewhere?

If what you did with your results is what it shows and there is no screwed numbers then yes your results is what is given.

In my specific example Yoda is causing just enough force to be applied to the 1 metric ton object to keep it motionless against gravity. That's not doing any work. But it's not important to the problem if only a little work is done anyway.

If you mean Fnet equals zero and there is no work that's wrong. You are still applying force upward against the object and there is work by keeping it in the air. If there wasn't work, the object would fall right back down to the floor as the object's weight has overcome you.

Federation starships are in the orders of 2 km diameter and for the spheres even less. Being larger, they would have more mass then your petty pebble or X-Wing.

Yes, but they will feel it if they get hit by a relativistic pebble, which is what I meant.

I am stating that the higher the mass the harder it is to move it. I have no percieve notion of what you're saying is related.

Probably, but what determines the limit? Is it a physical consideration or a mental one?

Physical, the amount of observed force they can use is the only quantifiable unit. Note the word: observed. To go beyond that is not viable.

Cyaround,
Jason

[The Silence and I]

Let me see if I understand what's going on here.
Eframepilot has proposed that if we see a Jedi do something, like apply thousands of Newtons to a large object, we can measure it, but we cannot always use this information to predict what else a Jedi can do. His reasoning is that the Force is mental in nature, and a Jedi is limited by subjective qualities (i.e. the Jedi's mind) that cannot be readily accounted for.
Others have claimed the Force is physical in nature and can be fully predicted, although this argument is mainly based off of making Eframe's look bad, as opposed to actually bringing anything to the table.
As I see it the Force is controlled by a Jedi's mind (it isn't a TV remote, or wrist watch or other piece of technology, it must be mental) so there must logically be a degree of subjectivity to predictions of a Jedi's abilities. This also jives with basically everything any Jedi has said about the Force, so really, what's so hard to grasp here?

[Soontir C'boath]

Others have claimed the Force is physical in nature and can be fully predicted, although this argument is mainly based off of making Eframe's look bad, as opposed to actually bringing anything to the table.

If you mean bringing nothing into the table as in explaining the physics of doing said thing you are downright wrong. AND what is "fully predicted?"
There was no place where we have attack Eframe"s "look bad" whatever that means.

As I see it the Force is controlled by a Jedi's mind (it isn't a TV remote, or wrist watch or other piece of technology, it must be mental) so there must logically be a degree of subjectivity to predictions of a Jedi's abilities. This also jives with basically everything any Jedi has said about the Force, so really, what's so hard to grasp here?

We are not disputing that it is not mental but of what is done to said objects.

Cyaround,
Jason

[SirNitram]

"It's mental in nature, so we can't make any conclusions!"

You know, this pile of horseshit is irritable. Perhaps the assclowns reciting this mantra were asleep while Yoda lifted the X-wing. You know, where he makes it clear that belief has nothing to do with it, except as a limiter.

Even if the control of the Force is subjective, we can objectively measure the results, because the universe remains objective. The power that results has not shown enough variation to conclude that a fully trained Knight will have vastly different results from another.

[Darth Wong]

Let me see if I understand what's going on here. Eframepilot has proposed that if we see a Jedi do something, like apply thousands of Newtons to a large object, we can measure it, but we cannot always use this information to predict what else a Jedi can do.

We can, however, conclude that the Jedi can do the same fucking thing again, can't we?

His reasoning is that the Force is mental in nature, and a Jedi is limited by subjective qualities (i.e. the Jedi's mind) that cannot be readily accounted for.

So? There are days when I'm stronger or weaker too; does this mean that human muscles are exempt from physics, dumb-ass? The fact that the power flows from a Jedi's mind does not mean that it's totally random, any more than my ability to lift weights is totally random.

Others have claimed the Force is physical in nature and can be fully predicted, although this argument is mainly based off of making Eframe's look bad, as opposed to actually bringing anything to the table.

Nice strawman, asshole.

As I see it the Force is controlled by a Jedi's mind (it isn't a TV remote, or wrist watch or other piece of technology, it must be mental) so there must logically be a degree of subjectivity to predictions of a Jedi's abilities.

Non sequitur. The fact that something is caused by your mind does not mean it is subjective. Do you even know what "subjective" means?

I can do math calculations in my head. Does this mean that the resulting numbers are "subjective?"

In fact, let us carry this analogy further. You can perform mathematical addition and subtraction in your head, can you not? There are days when this ability is lessened, are there not? There are times when you feel like shit, or you're drunk, or you didn't get enough sleep, or you're agitated, and you have trouble doing this, correct? But does any of this change the fact that it is a capability of your mind? And that, unless there is some MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCE, you could do it again?

This also jives with basically everything any Jedi has said about the Force, so really, what's so hard to grasp here?

What's hard to grasp is why you think that anything which is caused by one particular organ of your body (the brain) must "logically" be immune to logic.

[Eframepilot]

"It's mental in nature, so we can't make any conclusions!"

You know, this pile of horseshit is irritable. Perhaps the assclowns reciting this mantra were asleep while Yoda lifted the X-wing. You know, where he makes it clear that belief has nothing to do with it, except as a limiter.

Bullshit. Yoda emphasized that belief was critical. The fact that Luke's preconceptions limited his abilities at all proves that there are subjective limitations.

Even if the control of the Force is subjective, we can objectively measure the results, because the universe remains objective. The power that results has not shown enough variation to conclude that a fully trained Knight will have vastly different results from another.

I agree completely. The problem, as The Silence and I summarized very well, is extrapolating from these results to other situations that may be physically equivalent but are not "mentally" equivalent. We can measure the Force's results but we cannot quantify the Jedi's abilities, since the Jedi's interaction with the Force is a black box. We can still assume that Jedi can repeat previous stunts and even speculate on what their limitations are, but we cannot assume that their limitations are physical.

[Eframepilot]

Let me see if I understand what's going on here. Eframepilot has proposed that if we see a Jedi do something, like apply thousands of Newtons to a large object, we can measure it, but we cannot always use this information to predict what else a Jedi can do.

We can, however, conclude that the Jedi can do the same fucking thing again, can't we?

Of course, but that's not "what else a Jedi can do," that's the same fucking thing again.

His reasoning is that the Force is mental in nature, and a Jedi is limited by subjective qualities (i.e. the Jedi's mind) that cannot be readily accounted for.

So? There are days when I'm stronger or weaker too; does this mean that human muscles are exempt from physics, dumb-ass? The fact that the power flows from a Jedi's mind does not mean that it's totally random, any more than my ability to lift weights is totally random.

The strength of your muscles are governed by physics; the strength of a Jedi's mind in the Force is not.

As I see it the Force is controlled by a Jedi's mind (it isn't a TV remote, or wrist watch or other piece of technology, it must be mental) so there must logically be a degree of subjectivity to predictions of a Jedi's abilities.

Non sequitur. The fact that something is caused by your mind does not mean it is subjective. Do you even know what "subjective" means?

I can do math calculations in my head. Does this mean that the resulting numbers are "subjective?"

Math calculations and other strictly logical processes are not subjective, but many other mental phenomena are. Emotions, for one. And emotions are closely tied to the exercising of the Force. "Your anger has made you powerful," etc. We cannot assume that the exercising of the Force is not subjective just because it makes for nicer results.

In fact, let us carry this analogy further. You can perform mathematical addition and subtraction in your head, can you not? There are days when this ability is lessened, are there not? There are times when you feel like shit, or you're drunk, or you didn't get enough sleep, or you're agitated, and you have trouble doing this, correct? But does any of this change the fact that it is a capability of your mind? And that, unless there is some MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCE, you could do it again?

No one is disputing that Jedi can repeat their demonstrated feats. The problem is assuming they can also accomplish different feats which are physically equivalent but subjectively different. An example: Multiply 173 by 23 in your head. An easy if tedious problem. Now do the same calculation in base 17. Not so easy, eh? You are performing the same mathematical calculation, but your subjective mental methods have changed and so has the difficulty of the problem.

This also jives with basically everything any Jedi has said about the Force, so really, what's so hard to grasp here?

What's hard to grasp is why you think that anything which is caused by one particular organ of your body (the brain) must "logically" be immune to logic.

You seem not to have grasped the argument. The Jedi's ability to use the Force is not necessarily immune to logic, but extensions of it may not be predictable by extrapolating from physical measurements of the results the Jedi influence the Force to create.

[Soontir C'boath]

"It's mental in nature, so we can't make any conclusions!"You know, this pile of horseshit is irritable. Perhaps the assclowns reciting this mantra were asleep while Yoda lifted the X-wing. You know, where he makes it clear that belief has nothing to do with it, except as a limiter

Bullshit. Yoda emphasized that belief was critical. The fact that Luke's preconceptions limited his abilities at all proves that there are subjective limitations.

Please look at the bolded part in Nitram's quote and it still doesn't effect the basis that we can measure said limits. In other words, you are agreeing with him.

I agree completely. The problem, as The Silence and I summarized very well, is extrapolating from these results to other situations that may be physically equivalent but are not "mentally" equivalent. We can measure the Force's results but we cannot quantify the Jedi's abilities,

Bolded mine. The result coming from a force IS the Jedi's ability to perform in any state he is in. If you are trying to say, that this Jedi is tired, light-headed, and etc and that effects his use of the force, I don't quite see the problem. You can measure the results of the Jedi in different conditions and you will still quantify what he is able to do in the various mental states.

Cyaround,
Jason

[Eframepilot]

In my specific example Yoda is causing just enough force to be applied to the 1 metric ton object to keep it motionless against gravity. That's not doing any work. But it's not important to the problem if only a little work is done anyway.

If you mean Fnet equals zero and there is no work that's wrong. You are still applying force upward against the object and there is work by keeping it in the air. If there wasn't work, the object would fall right back down to the floor as the object's weight has overcome you.

You are wrong. If the object is not moving, there is no work being done upon it. Constant force in resistance to gravity requires no power to maintain. Right now you are probably sitting in a chair. The chair is applying 9.8 meters per second squared times your mass of force on you in opposition to gravity but it is doing no work on you. Mike actually mentions this somewhere on his website when describing how a stationary floating repulsorlift does no work.

Federation starships are in the orders of 2 km diameter and for the spheres even less. Being larger, they would have more mass then your petty pebble or X-Wing.

Yes, but they will feel it if they get hit by a relativistic pebble, which is what I meant.

I am stating that the higher the mass the harder it is to move it. I have no percieve notion of what you're saying is related.

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear enough. I suggested (jokingly) that Yoda could cause damage to Federation starships with ball bearings if he could throw the ball bearings at them at relativistic speeds. I did not mean to imply that Yoda could apply the Force to the Trade Fed. ships enough to damage them.

[Eframepilot]

"It's mental in nature, so we can't make any conclusions!"You know, this pile of horseshit is irritable. Perhaps the assclowns reciting this mantra were asleep while Yoda lifted the X-wing. You know, where he makes it clear that belief has nothing to do with it, except as a limiter

Bullshit. Yoda emphasized that belief was critical. The fact that Luke's preconceptions limited his abilities at all proves that there are subjective limitations.

Please look at the bolded part in Nitram's quote and it still doesn't effect the basis that we can measure said limits. In other words, you are agreeing with him.

How exactly do we measure the limiter of belief?

I agree completely. The problem, as The Silence and I summarized very well, is extrapolating from these results to other situations that may be physically equivalent but are not "mentally" equivalent. We can measure the Force's results but we cannot quantify the Jedi's abilities,

Bolded mine. The result coming from a force IS the Jedi's ability to perform in any state he is in. If you are trying to say, that this Jedi is tired, light-headed, and etc and that effects his use of the force, I don't quite see the problem. You can measure the results of the Jedi in different conditions and you will still quantify what he is able to do in the various mental states.

You can quantify what the Jedi can do in different mental states, yes. But I am saying that you cannot claim that a Jedi can throw a baseball into orbit just because the Jedi has caused the Force to apply the same amount of force necessary to a larger object, such as an X-Wing. In other words, it may be easier for a Jedi to believe he can levitate an X-Wing a few meters off the ground than to believe he can toss a fastball into geosynchronous orbit, even though the two feats may be physically equivalent, and the Jedi's belief will influence his capabilities.

[Soontir C'boath]

You are wrong. If the object is not moving, there is no work being done upon it. Constant force in resistance to gravity requires no power to maintain. Right now you are probably sitting in a chair. The chair is applying 9.8 meters per second squared times your mass of force on you in opposition to gravity but it is doing no work on you. Mike actually mentions this somewhere on his website when describing how a stationary floating repulsorlift does no work.

Hold a 100 pound weight in the air for say 10 minutes and get back to me. There is a reason you get tired after all. Perhaps you mean an unbalance force done upon it.~Jason

[Eframepilot]

You are wrong. If the object is not moving, there is no work being done upon it. Constant force in resistance to gravity requires no power to maintain. Right now you are probably sitting in a chair. The chair is applying 9.8 meters per second squared times your mass of force on you in opposition to gravity but it is doing no work on you. Mike actually mentions this somewhere on his website when describing how a stationary floating repulsorlift does no work.

Hold a 100 pound weight in the air for say 10 minutes and get back to me. There is a reason you get tired after all.~Jason

Okay, this is getting dumb. You haven't done any work on the weight (except for lifting it, of course). You have expended energy, but none of it has been work done on the weight. You are tired because your muscles cannot remain in a position of contraction indefinitely; they use up all available ATP and build up lactic acid. The energy they have used has become waste heat. Please ask someone else if you don't believe me on this.

[Soontir C'boath]

How exactly do we measure the limiter of belief?

By observing what Luke can do at the particular time. If Luke could lift his X-Wing for a couple seconds then there is your measurement for that particular moment of belief.

But I am saying that you cannot claim that a Jedi can throw a baseball into orbit just because the Jedi has caused the Force to apply the same amount of force necessary to a larger object, such as an X-Wing. In other words, it may be easier for a Jedi to believe he can levitate an X-Wing a few meters off the ground than to believe he can toss a fastball into geosynchronous orbit, even though the two feats may be physically equivalent, and the Jedi's belief will influence his capabilities.

IIRC, Mike has already covered this in the first page.

Since the grain of sand (sorry, 1g is a grain of sand) will be far out of sight long before it reaches that kind of speed, his ability to apply force to it would have greatly diminished by then.

[Soontir C'boath]

*snip

You just got my point. You are using energy from your muscles to hold it at that position in which lifted the damn object in the first place at a timeframe or work. Work is wattage J/s.~Jason

[Eframepilot]

*snip

You just got my point. You are using energy from your muscles to hold it at that position in which lifted the damn object in the first place at a timeframe or work. Work is wattage J/s.~Jason

You have not done work ON THE OBJECT! It has not moved! Work on an object is defined as force applied to the object times the distance the object moves under the influence of the force. An object that does not move has no work done on it, by definition. You are confusing work with energy. Work of some nature is done biochemically in your arms, but it is not correct to say that the work is done on the motionless weight.

[Eframepilot]

How exactly do we measure the limiter of belief?

By observing what Luke can do at the particular time. If Luke could lift his X-Wing for a couple seconds then there is your measurement for that particular moment of belief.

Okay, then. Good. We know that Luke can do this with so much belief. Suppose there is another starfighter, the X2-Wing, in the swamp that is physically larger than the X-Wing but masses less. Luke is unaware of the ships' respective masses. Can Luke lift the X2-Wing more or less than the X-Wing? Is physical mass or Luke's perception of the X2-Wing's size more important? It may be harder for Luke to believe he can lift the X2-Wing, even though it weighs less than the X-Wing. Plus, since we can't directly measure or quantify belief, we can't make predictions of what Luke could do at other levels of belief.

[Soontir C'boath]

You have not done work ON THE OBJECT! It has not moved! Work on an object is defined as force applied to the object times the distance the object moves under the influence of the force. An object that does not move has no work done on it, by definition. You are confusing work with energy. Work of some nature is done biochemically in your arms, but it is not correct to say that the work is done on the motionless weight.

I was not talking about the weight but the arms in which you have stated yourself that it does work.

I am relating to this.

How exactly do we measure the limiter of belief?

That in meaning the person's state of mind or how much he can do. Never was it in my intention was I speaking of said object.

Okay, then. Good. We know that Luke can do this with so much belief. Suppose there is another starfighter, the X2-Wing, in the swamp that is physically larger than the X-Wing but masses less. Luke is unaware of the ships' respective masses. Can Luke lift the X2-Wing more or less than the X-Wing? Is physical mass or Luke's perception of the X2-Wing's size more important? It may be harder for Luke to believe he can lift the X2-Wing, even though it weighs less than the X-Wing. Plus, since we can't directly measure or quantify belief, we can't make predictions of what Luke could do at other levels of belief.

Except we never spoke of mass in the first place so your scenario is a useless basis for your arguement. It is the amount of force applied by the Jedi is what is being accounted for.

Cyaround,
Jason

[Eframepilot]

You have not done work ON THE OBJECT! It has not moved! Work on an object is defined as force applied to the object times the distance the object moves under the influence of the force. An object that does not move has no work done on it, by definition. You are confusing work with energy. Work of some nature is done biochemically in your arms, but it is not correct to say that the work is done on the motionless weight.

I was not talking about the weight but the arms in which you have stated yourself that it does work.

I am relating to this.

How exactly do we measure the limiter of belief?

That in meaning the person's state of mind or how much he can do. Never was it in my intention was I speaking of said object.

Okay then. In this case you could say that Yoda is doing work on the neurons in his brain by telling the Force to keep levitating the X-Wing and hold it motionless; the Force itself may be using whatever amount of energy is necessary to generate the counterforce to gravity.

Okay, then. Good. We know that Luke can do this with so much belief. Suppose there is another starfighter, the X2-Wing, in the swamp that is physically larger than the X-Wing but masses less. Luke is unaware of the ships' respective masses. Can Luke lift the X2-Wing more or less than the X-Wing? Is physical mass or Luke's perception of the X2-Wing's size more important? It may be harder for Luke to believe he can lift the X2-Wing, even though it weighs less than the X-Wing. Plus, since we can't directly measure or quantify belief, we can't make predictions of what Luke could do at other levels of belief.

Except we never spoke of mass in the first place so your scenario is a useless basis for your arguement. It is the amount of force applied by the Jedi is what is being accounted for.

But the Jedi isn't applying the force directly or the Jedi's brain and/or body would go splat! under 100,000 newtons. The Force is applying the force. The Jedi does not think, "I want to apply so-and-so many newtons upward to the starfighter." The Jedi thinks, "Up, X-Wing, up!" And the Force complies by applying the necessary force to follow the Jedi's mental command. It is thus possible that a Jedi would have more trouble lifting a larger object than the X-Wing even if it were less massive, because the object would be bigger and appear subjectively more difficult to move. Thus the Jedi could not command the Force to move the larger, less massive object as effectively as to move the smaller, more massive object.

[SirNitram]

"It's mental in nature, so we can't make any conclusions!"

You know, this pile of horseshit is irritable. Perhaps the assclowns reciting this mantra were asleep while Yoda lifted the X-wing. You know, where he makes it clear that belief has nothing to do with it, except as a limiter.

Bullshit. Yoda emphasized that belief was critical. The fact that Luke's preconceptions limited his abilities at all proves that there are subjective limitations.

Lie.

"Do or do not. There is no try." I don't see much in the way of 'It's all in your head' there.

Even if the control of the Force is subjective, we can objectively measure the results, because the universe remains objective. The power that results has not shown enough variation to conclude that a fully trained Knight will have vastly different results from another.

I agree completely. The problem, as The Silence and I summarized very well, is extrapolating from these results to other situations that may be physically equivalent but are not "mentally" equivalent. We can measure the Force's results but we cannot quantify the Jedi's abilities, since the Jedi's interaction with the Force is a black box. We can still assume that Jedi can repeat previous stunts and even speculate on what their limitations are, but we cannot assume that their limitations are physical.

Ah yes, someone whose too stupid to realize that the existance of a black box does not remove the ability to perform objective, analytical work and perform predictions.