SUN GOD

      This posting is not free.

      I spent 4 hours of my extremely precious time this afternoon
writing this.

      If this posting benefits you, you owe me an act of personal
investment in my and your future by showing this posting to someone
else.

      Homer

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     SUN GOD

     Although the one true God of Adore is the God of J.E.M, (Joy in
Eternal Miracles), Adorians also worship the sun god Ra, as an emissary
of Jem.

     ADORE 
     http://www.adore.com
 
     This is about Ra.

     I can hear someone asking me,

     "Homer is money all Adorians care about?"

     Yes.

     But one has to take a look at what Adore's viewpoint really is.

     Life consists of consumption and production.  You can't take a
breath without consuming fuel and oxygen and producing exhaust and
carbon dioxide.

      The Sun/Earth system is like a gigantic rechargable battery.

     The primary chemicals involved is the cycle that converts carbon
and oxygen into CO2 via the breathing of animals, and then converts CO2
back again into carbone and oxygen via the photosynthesis of plants.

     All chemical reactions both absorb energy and release energy at the
same time.

     Endothermic reactions are those that absorb more energy than they
release.

     Exothermic reactions are those that release more energy than they
absorb.

     It takes a tremendous amount of energy for the plant to tear apart
the CO2 molecule into Carbon and Oxygen.  When they finally fly apart
they release some energy so you get some of it back, but it takes much
more to pull them apart than you get back, so this is endothermic.

     In the plant, this extra energy is absorbed directly from the sun,
via the process of photosynthesis.

     In other words carbon and oxygen are in a higher stored energy
state when they are apart than when they are together as CO2.

     On the other hand it doesn't take a lot of energy to bring carbon
and oxygen back together again, and when they do they release a lot more
energy back into the world than it took to start them combining.  This
is exothermic.

     This process of combining carbon and oxygen back into CO2 is done
in the lungs of the animal as it breathes.

     Thus what the plant does by splitting CO2 into carbon and oxygen,
the animal undoes by recombining that carbon and oxygen backinto CO2.

     The amount of energy released by rejoining carbon and oxygen is so
much more than the energy necessary to start the reaction in the first
place, that the reaction is self sustaining.  If you put a match to wood
(carbon), it will burn under its own heat.

     Endothermic reactions in general will not do this.

     BUT YOU HAD TO HAVE AN ENDOTHERMIC REACTION BEFORE YOU COULD HAVE
AN EXOTHERMIC REACTION!

     You have to store energy in an endothermic reaction before you can
release it in an exothermic reaction.

     The two processes exactly balance.  What is stored during the
endothermic part is released during the exothermic part.

     When carbon and oxygen burn and rejoin into CO2, they release just
as much energy as they absorbed when they were split!

     In this sense the carbon oxygen cycle acts like a rechargable
battery.  You pump energy into CO2 splitting it up into carbon and
oxygen, and later you come along and release that energy by setting fire
to the carbon in an oxygen atmosphere, recombining them into CO2.

     The Sun/Earth system acts like a huge rechargable battery based on
this carbon oxygen cycle.

     The recharging/production cycle of carbon and oxygen from CO2 by
the plant is driven by the Sun, and the decharging/consumption cycle of
of carbon and oxygen back into CO2 is driven by fire of one kind or
another, otherwise known as oxidation, whether fast or slow, as in rust
or breathing.

     In a highly simplified view, energy from the Sun hits the free CO2
in the ground and the air, splitting it into carbon and oxygen, and thus
'pushing' plants up out of the ground.

     The body of the plant is the carbon that has been freed from the
oxygen, and the atmosphere around the plant is the oxygen that was freed
from the carbon.

     A tremendous amount of potential sun energy is stored in this
SEPARATION of carbon and oxygen.

     The energy thus stored is released again when fire burns the plants
or animals eat them.

     As plants are pushed into existence by the Sun, oxygen fills the
atmosphere.

     When the oxygen content of the air gets too great, the slightest
lightening strike will create a forest fire the likes of which you have
never seen.  When the oxygen content drops down, the fires go out, and
so the cycle repeats itself.

     This is in part why the oxygen concentration in the atmosphere has
stabilized at around 30 percent, lightning and forest fires keep it so.

     Animals do the same thing to plants that fire does.

     By eating plants, animals bring oxygen in the air together with the
carbon in the plants, igniting them with an internal chemical match so
to speak, and the result is CO2 released back into the atmosphere and
the ground, releasing the stored heat and usable sun energy which the
animal can then use to do useful work.

     The animal kingdom is a slow fire to the plant kingdom.

     This cycle of
 
     Sun -> Plants -> Animals -> entropy into free space
 
     happens over and over again, pumped by the Sun.

     OK, so what does money have to do with this?

     In this model, value is defined as stored energy tempered by the
usefulness of that stored energy.

     In general there is no value where there is no energy, for where
there is no energy there is nothing.

     Sometimes however some forms of energy can be more harmful than
helpful, in which case the absence of harmful energy can be of greater
value than its presence.

     Thus a little helpful energy is of more value than a lot of harmful
energy.

     Helpful energy has positive value, and harmful energy has negative
value.

     Energy from the Sun is stored in many objects on the planet, in
general it starts with plants, and heat in the oceans and the land, but
ends up in many different forms afterwards.

     The form of energy is as important as the amount of energy stored.
For example there is energy stored in both a battery and a stick of
dynamite.  However the energy in a stick of dynamite would be totally
useless and even counterproductive to someone wanting to light a
flashlight.

     Forms of energy can be converted into each other, but usually at
some expense and expenditure of the energy to be converted.

     This is called conversion inefficiency.

     For example, the energy in the dynamite might be converted to
energy in a battery but that might take more energy in time, trouble and
materials to do the conversion than it was worth.

     Energy that is fully expended is called entropy, it is essentially
energy that is no longer stored in any useful way.

     (Entropy has many different definitions in physics, this is
just one of them pertinent to this posting.)

     Anti-entropy is energy that is stored in a useful manner ready to
go on notice to produce useful work.

     Both Entropy and Anti-entropy, in this definition, is relative to
the user who values the energy.

     Energy that is totally dispersed and energy that is stored in
useless forms are both forms of entropy.

     In this sense, entropy is defined relative to a person's need and
use for energy and relative to their ability to convert it into a useful
form.  A stick of dynamite would be a form of entropy to someone in
desperate need of a flashlight.

     However if he goes at it just right, he might get some useful light
out of the stick of dynamite!  :)

     Sun light starts off highly concentrated, ends up on earth as
plants, gets eaten by animals which do useful work, unless they are
liberals, and finally gets radiated as heat which goes off into the
cosmos where it is not generally locally useful again.

     Notice however that even this radiated energy might one day hit
another planet and help push a plant into existence thus becoming
locally useful again on that planet.

     But the vast majority of expended energy simply goes off into space
and becomes part of the background radiation which does little easily observable good to
anyone.

     This process is the River of Light.

     Once the Sun burns out entirely, the cycle of plant and animal ends
for the time being.

     Presumably all the entropic energy radiated into space at the end
of the cycle gets collected back together again during the next
contraction phase of the universe leading to the next Big Bang.
 
     However, maybe that never happens, and the universe continues to
expand into darkness forever and ever amen.

     Recent evidence indicates there may never be a contraction phase,
in which case the expended energy will simply spread out and become
thinner and thinner for the rest of time, unless some other thing pumps
new energy and anti entropy into the universe.

     Within this conceptual matrix, animals form a very particular kind
of game.  They are not 'pushed' into existence by the Sun, the way
plants are.  Animals must consume fuel that has already been pushed into
storage in order to survive.  In this sense animals are miners (or
harvesters) for they need to mine fuel in order to have fuel.

     But they need to have fuel in order to mine fuel!

     Every effort an animal uses to mine fuel, consumes fuel.

     Therefore an animal must be given an initial alotment of fuel to
begin his foraging day.  This is done at the beginning of life through
investment by the mother or father in feeding and growing the child.

     If an animal consumes more fuel than it mines, it eventually runs
out of fuel and dies.

     (Some animals think they are plants by the way, they go out in the
sun, and expect it to push them into existence.  They usually end up
living off of other's assets.)

     Mining has to do with exothermic reactions.  The action of mining
is the action of investing a small amount of energy in the vast sea of
stored energy in the Sun/Earth system, and getting a return out of it.
One then has more fuel to live another day, plus some excess.  In this
way the animal increases its net worth.

     Material Net Worth consists of four things to an animal.

     1.) Fuel on hand which it owns and can consume in sow/reap
investment cycles.  Ownership means rights of control.

     2.) Capital equipment in working order that the animal can power
with that fuel in order to indulge in sow/reap investment cycles.  The
primary capital mining equipment owned by an animal is its body, and its
fuel storage facilities.

     3.) The mining field or fertile valleys that the animal has access
to in which to sow and reap endothermic and exothermic reactions.

     "Dear God, we thank you for this fertile valley we live in, and for
the bounteous harvest of which we partake."

     4.) Knowledge, talent and honed skill born of experience, to engage
in sow/reap cycles.  This may seem non material in nature, but a book
with knowledge in it has a greater positive value than a book with
nothing in it, so the arrangement of matter that encods hard won
knowledge in a decodable way is definitely a form of anti-entropy
asset.

     The animal plants a seed of corn.  Through endothermicity the Sun
pushes it into an ear of corn with 6000 seeds.  The animal reaps the
corn, puts some away in his fuel house, resows some of it, and eats the
rest of it and thus through exothermicity releases the stored sunlight
into useful energy which it can use to do more useful work, the next
day.

     Useful work is defined as succesful mining, successful sow and reap
cycles.

     The animal must burn some fuel already in his system to ignite the
newly eaten corn in his stomach, but he gets much more out of it than
the small amount he needs to start the fire.

     The animal in fact must burn some fuel just to take in a breath in
order to sweep in the components of his next combustion cycle (oxygen).
If he doesn't have the energy left to take in that breath or to ignite
the combustion cycle, he becomes dead.

     The animal that has a lot of fuel in his warehouse, but no capital
equipment to mine with or mine field to ply his trade to, is a sinking
ship.  He may be very wealthy, have a high net worth, but he will be
eating his assets and producing nothing, and the rats on his ship of
life will be packing their bags shortly, and looking for the nearest
rope.

     This is because the absence of or inability to buy capital mining
equipment, renders his net worth zero or of negative value to himself,
as he can't use it himself to survive.

     The animal that has a lot of capital equipment to work with, but no
fuel, is out of luck from the word go because he can't make a move
without an initial alotment of fuel to drive the capital equipment.

     The animal that has a lot of stored fuel and capital equipment but
no mine field to get more, is also a sinking ship, for he will spin his
wheels all day long, with no return.  This is the guy planting his seeds
in a toxic waste dump.

     Thus true 'wealth' to an animal is to have a vast mining field that
is easily minable, working equipment and enough fuel to turn an
exothermic profit by the end of the day.  By far and away the mine field
is the most important of the three.  You can always get loans or
investments of fuel and capital equipment from others if you find a good
mine field, but without the mine field you might as well give it up now.

     Thus if an animal is not doing well, the first thing you want to do
is see what kind of mine field he is trying to mine.

     It is pretty clear from this model that the animal is sort of on a
rat race wheel.  Every breath he takes consumes some of his precious
joules (a unit of energy) that he has stored in his fuel house.  If,
after eating, he does not put those released joules to useful work,
meaning sowing or reaping more fuel, he will eventually run out of fuel
and die.  Thus any animal that is not doing useful work is headed for
the grave.

     Useful work by the way doesn't necessarily mean going out and
running around doing things, it can mean sleeping and digesting your
food or taking a rest to allow regeneration or indulging in play to
increase one's skills.  Even art is a form of useful energy.

     This is all useful work.  But if the amount of useful work done
during a day is less than the amount of fuel consumed, then the fuel
tanks will be just that much lower at the end of the day.

     That's called negative Return On Investment.

     Total Net Worth lower at the end of the day.

     Thus for an animal, sow/reap investment cycles in the natural
exothermicity of the Sun/Earth system is the order of the day, they are
in fact an ethical mandate, as the wages of sin are death.

     So yes, all Adorians care about is 'money' or net worth.  Money is
merely a statement of personal net worth, which includes personal fuel
in the silos, markers in the bank (money), extant useful capital
equipment on hand and vast mining fields that are easily accessible and
provide a large return on investment for every sow/reap engaged upon.

     That is a moral mandate you see.  God gave you verdant fields to
mine, a healthy body and mind, and loving parents to stuff you full of
fuel when you couldn't do it yourself.

     The only sin then is profligation, not maximizing returns on
investments.

     Profligation means, in this context, consuming more than you
produce, which uses up your own stores and then other's stores who are
foolish enough to invest in you.

     There is a place for charity, but only AFTER you have produced a
return on investment, you never give part of your principle away unless
it is someone who is going to also produce a return on investment, with
you, a co investor.

     Certainly never give part of your principle away to first in liners
who will merely consume it and produce nothing.

     It has little to do with ownership per se, and more to do with
successful living in the long term, of which ownership is a small part.

     Ownership is merely rights to control, namely who makes the
decision, how much to invest and what to invest it in.

     Although it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that money in
the bank, a personal tractor outside in the yard and 3 acres of land is
some kind of affluence, one has to remember the over all scene.

     The ultimate congolmerate of fuel stores, capital machinery and
viable mine fields is civilization itself.  Thus investing in a kid, who
will invest in his kids, who will invest in his kids, may not produce an
immediate return the way selling a loaf of bread for 2 drachmas will,
but it is never the less an investment in your own future, as one day
the benefits of that tree will bear fruit and you will eat thereof or
someone you care about will.

     And anyhow we don't live but once, no matter what the book made of
toilet paper tells us.

     When looked at this way, one's net worth is a much grander thing
than what your present holdings are or what you report to the tax
department.

     Net worth includes your PROSPECTS on the Goal to Create a Future.

     Learning to invest in the grander scheme is a sign of a true
investor and a real winner in life.

     That includes investment of fuel, equipment, and mine fields, along
with time, skill and knowledge.

     The Sun God Ra smiles upon those who invest in the grand scheme of
things to produce the greatest return for the greatest number without
sacrificing self to starvation which produces nothing for anyone.

     His smile, in affluence, is the return you get.

     You can count on it.

     Homer