Science and Education 9: 457-41, 2000, (©2000 Kltaver Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands Energy: Between Physics and Metaphysics MARIO BUNGE Foundations and Philosophy of Science Unit, Monreal, H3A IW?, Canada ABSTRACT. The general concept of energy is somavhat unclear as long sit is confined to physics, since every chapter of it defines ts own particular concept of energy. The genera concept can be elucidated in terms of the bypergeneral (philosophical) concepts of concrete ‘hing and changeabilty, In this way one succeeds ia ctafting & minitheory thar idemines energy with mutability, and that repardsit, aswell ais conservation, 28a universal property lot concrete things. The moral is that physicists and philosophers can learn from one another. The word energy designates of course a key concept in modern physics, particularly since mid-nineteenth century. And yet, in the famed Feynman Lectures on Physics we read that present-day physics does not know what energy is. True or false? Let us see. cis well known that there are various kinds of energy: kinetic, elastic, thermal, gravitational, electric, magnetic, nuclear, chemical, ete. More precisely, there are as many kinds of energy as kinds of process, Unlike other species, the various kinds of energy are equivalent in that they can be transformed into one another. For example, when we tense ‘a bow we store potential elastic energy in it; and when we release the bow, that energy is transformed into the arrow’s kinetic energy. In this two-phase process, the type or quality of energy changes, but its quantity remains the same. Such quantitative conservation is the reason that we regard all the kinds of energy as mutually equivalent. In other words, the introduction of the general concept of energy is justified by the general principle of conser- vation of energy. But both the concept and the principle, though rooted in physics, overflow physics. Let me explain Every particular concept of energy is defined in a given chapter of physics. For example, kinetic energy is defined in dynamics; thermal en- ergy in thermodynamics; electromagnetic energy in electrodynamics; and nuclear energy in nuclear physics. Every one of these fields has its own concept of energy. Moreover, in all of these fields, save thermodynamics, theorem of conservation of energy is provable from the corresponding equations of motion or field equations. To add energies of two or more types we need to join the corresponding disciplines. For example, the total energy of a jet of an electrically charged uid can only be calculated in the hybrid science of electro-magneto- thermo-hydrodynamics. To be sure, one may postulate the canonical equations for an unspecified physical thing, But one cannot claim that the hamiltonian function or operator occurring in them represents the energy of the thing unless he458 MARIO BUNGE terprets in physical terms the generalized momenta and the generalized coordinates. And in turn this requires specifying the kind of thing that is being referred to — which restricts the type of energy, ‘All the sciences that study concrete or material things, from physics to biology to social science, use one or more concepts of energy. For example, cognitive neuroscientists want to measure the metabolic cast (in calories) of a bit of information transmitted across a synapse: anthropol- ogists, sociologists and economists are interested in finding out the energy consumption per capita, and whether people work so as to optimize their efficiency, or ratio of energy output to energy input. Because it is ubiquitous, the concept of energy must be philosophical and, in particular, metaphysical (ontological). That is, it belongs in the same league as the concepts of thing and property, event and process, space and time, causation and chance, law and trend, and many others. ‘Assuming that the general concept of energy is indeed philosophical, let us proceed to analyzing it in philosophical terms. And, since the best analysis is synthesis. or the embedding into @ theory, let us construct a minitheory centered in the concept of energy. ‘We start by identifying energy with changeability. That is, we propose the following DEFINITION: Energy = changeability. This convention may be rewritten as follows: For all x: (x has energy =q: x is changeable). Let us now put this definition 10 work. We begin by assuming, POSTULATE 1. All concrete (material) objects, and only they, are changeable. That is, For all x: x is concrete (material) if and only if x is changeable. In logical symbols, Wx(Mx @ Cx). REMARK 1. We have equated “concrete” with “material”. This conven- tion is more common in philosophy than in physics. According to it, fields are just as material as bodies. For example, photons are material in the philosophical sense of the word although they lack mass, solidity and a shape of their own - the attributes of matter in pre-field physics. ‘The above Definition and Postulate 1 entail THEOREM. For all x: if x is a material object, then x has energy and Shorter: Vx(Mx 6 Ea). This theorem has two immediate consequences: COROLLARY 1. The abstract (non-concrete) objects lack energy,ENERGY: BETWEEN PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS 459 For example, the concept of energy has no energy. That is, the conceptual objects are not changeable, What do change are the brains that think them. For example, one may redefine to death the concept of energy. But every such concept is timeless. If preferred, one’s successive conceptual creations do not change by themselves. The same holds for the concept of matter: matter, as a concept, is immaterial. COROLLARY 2. Energy is a property, not a thing, state, or process. REMARK 2. Because energy is a property, it can be represented by either a function or an operator. In classical physics one may say that E(c, x, tf. u) is an arbitrary value of the energy of a thing ¢ situated at point x, and time ¢, relative to a frame f, and reckoned or measured in the energy unit a. The function in question has the general form E: CX E°x TX FX UR, where C is a set of concrete things, £® the euclidean space, T the set of instants, F a set of reference frames, U a set of energy units, and R that of real numbers. In the case of an interaction energy, C will be replaced the cartesian product Cx C. In quantum physics the energy is represented by the hamiltonian operator H. The corresponding property is the energy density YH, which has the same general form as the classical energy function. REMARK 3. The kinetic energy of a particle, relative to a reference frame bound to the latter, is nil. Similarly, the total energy of a thing embedded in a field becomes zero wien its kinetic energy equals its potential energy (as is the case with the outer electron of an atom at the time of ionization). However, null energy is not the same as lack of ‘energy, just as zero temperature (on some scale) is not the same a lack of temperature. In these cases, unlike the case of the photon mass, zero is just a special numerical value. REMARK 4. Corollary 2 entails that the concept of a conerete or material thing cannot be replaced with that of energy. There is no such thing as nergy in itself: every energy is the energy of some thing. In other words energetism, which a century ago was proposed as an alternative to materi- alism, was radically mistaken. However, the energetists, particularly the famous physical chemist Wilhelm Ostwald, were right in holding that energy is universal ~ a sort of eross-disciplinary currency. They would have been even more right had they proposed POSTULATE 2. Energy is the universal physical property: the only pro- perty common to all material things. REMARK 5. One might think that position in spacetime is another uni-