Therefore, both Energy and Causation convert something that is not-yet-Real, but only conceptually Possible, into a Real perceptible Effect. — Gnomon

:zip: wtf

The reason why I objected to your use of the physical concept of 'energy' in this discussion is because I believe that, by doing so, there is a danger of equivocation. While it might be true that scientists in the modern era developed the concept while inspired by something like the Aristotelian concept of 'potency', the way it is actually used in physics is different.

I'm not really sure why many scientists* see in 'energy' something more than a concept that is useful to make predictions, applications and so on. However, if one wants to go with a 'realist' interpretation of 'energy', you end up with considering it as a quantifiable property of physical objects or systems the value of which varies or stays the same according to precise 'regularities'.

Perhaps, the recent insistence on seeing 'energy' as a sort of metaphysical 'entity' that somehow is foundational of 'reality' is due to what, in my opinion, is a misinterpretation of Einstein's mass-equivalence that rests on a further misinterpretation of what 'mass' is.

Of course, 'mass' is often introduced as 'the quantity of matter'. But even in high school physics, such a definition is gradually replaced by subtler defintions like 'inertial mass', i.e. the resistance of an object to change its state of motion, and 'gravitational mass', i.e. the 'degree' of how much an object interacts gravitationally (i.e. it has an analogous role of the electric charge in electromagnetic interaction).

It would be very odd to me to attribute such a foundational role to something like the above descriptions of mass or something like energy one form of which is 'kinetic energy' which depends on the speed of an object (and the speed depends on the reference frame).

*At least when they seem to present energy as the 'stuff' that in some sense 'makes up the universe'.