Free Lunch

I was raised by working class grandparents who lived through the great depression, my grandfather lived through both world wars.  One of the blessings that comes from growing up among old people, especially those who worked hard all their lives, is exposure to time tested common sense.

One expression I heard a lot growing up is “There is no such thing as a free lunch”.  I would usually hear this expression deployed in the context of anything that sounded even remotely socialist (welfare, free health care, and even the “free lunch” offered in public schools).  Without getting into my opinions about the “welfare state” I can affirm, without reservation, the truth of the expression.  I would add to this another, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”.

Why am a writing about this? 

I want to address a topic I often hear among folks interested in witchy or occult topics – the concept of “free energy”.  Many people who are inclined to read a blog like this one might be interested in this topic.  Whether you are or not, whether you view the concept with enthusiasm or skepticism, you might not be surprised to know that this is not a new topic among folks interested in “fringe science”.  When I was growing up among aging hippies, talk of Tesla, toroidal vortices, and zero-point energy were nearly as common in late night, marijuana driven bull sessions as UFOs, astrology and astral travel.  Although the sociopolitical demographic of many of the people I hear from today regarding this topic has moved a bit to the “right” the rhetoric around it is nearly identical.

Most people who are inclined to dismiss the possibility do so by reference to “mainstream science”, usually by reference to the laws of thermo dynamics.  Free energy enthusiasts are likely to respond to such skepticism by claiming that mainstream science is too dogmatic in its adherence to received doctrine, that researchers are pressured by the university system and corporate interests to ignore and suppress the evidence. I have heard and been on both sides of this argument since I was like 12 years old.  It hasn’t really changed much.

Some readers might be surprised and possibly disappointed that I tend to come down on the side of mainstream science on this issue.  I am reasonably confident that the laws of thermodynamics or something very like them represent an accurate picture of material reality.  But I am not going to argue against the possibility of free energy from anything like a scientific perspective.  I understand that science is seldom “pure”, beholden as it is to funding sources and “special interests”.  I also understand that even when pure research can proceed unimpeded by these forces, revolutionary breakthroughs do happen.  My objection is more aesthetic and, although I hesitate to say it, ethical.

When the old folks would scoff at the notion of a free lunch, they were usually suggesting that the cost of such a lunch was hidden.  As I said, many of these old folks grew up under the fear of communism.  What they meant was that when someone (like the poor kids at my school, or their parents) received this “free” lunch it meant that THEY (my grandfather for example) were paying for it.  But I think their objection to the notion of free anything came from a deeper place than some proto culture wars rhetoric about creeping socialism.  My grandfather worked on The Pennsylvania Railroad as a “common laborer”.  This meant that he was the guy who got to crawl around in the guts of locomotives in the steam and coal dust keeping things clean (he used to tell me about being blasted with high pressure steam when hoses would break).  People like him, who worked long hours for low pay and little in the way of safety precautions believed, literally EMBODIED the truth that people earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow.  This was the price one had to pay for a roof over their children’s heads and shoes on their feet.  The notion that anyone would have comfort and ease without making such sacrifices was a moral affront to their very lives. 

Of course, I grew up wanting no part of such a world.  I watched Star Trek and the moon landing and The Jetsons.  I also worked hard in school to learn about how things worked.  I was, at least until I discovered sex, drugs and rock and roll, a pretty typical science nerd.  I learned about the planets and how dry cell batteries worked, made electromagnets out of batteries wire and old screws from my grandfather’s tool cabinet.  I read all sorts of books about physics, chemistry and biology.  Even after I started smoking pot and talking Tesla with old heads and greenhorns like myself, I read a lot of physics.  Not just straight stuff either.  I read The Tao of Physics and The Self-Aware Universe and Deepak Chopra.  I read about morphic resonance and the early theories about zero-point energy.  But I read these things through the lens of poetry and mysticism.  I came to accept the law of entropy because it spoke to the grandeur and futility of Sisyphus.  I became interested in ecology, population and resource depletion because it gave empirical weight to the spiritual value of harmony, sharing and universal brotherhood. 

One of the things that free energy promises is freedom from government and corporate control.  The idea being that if everyone had access to as much energy as they could ever need, they wouldn’t need to be beholden to these institutions.  But isn’t it also true that these institutions would ALSO have access to infinite energy.  I could just as easily see an unending escalation of rebellion and oppression as both sides ramped up their literally unstoppable war machines.  That is just one hidden cost of the “free lunch” of unlimited energy.  There are other costs.  Machines: cars, phones, lights, vacuum cleaners, ovens and refrigerators all produce HEAT.  With unlimited energy we would be able to have as many of these machines as we could ever want with no energy cost for operation or production.  But we’d need to build a lot of machines to dissipate all of the heat that these machines would produce.  There would also be the solid waste problem of even more easily disposable devices.  Free energy doesn’t necessarily help us dispose of all the MATTER that we would use all this energy to energize.

Although the above concerns might be seen as purely technical, for me the ethical considerations are both more interesting and less easily resolved with more technology.  When I was a kid, the hippies who loved to talk free energy dreamed of a world where we would no longer have to fight over limited resources.  This notion was both sweet and naïve.  Energy is only half of the issue, there is still the matter of MATTER.  Infinite energy does not imply infinite material resources.  There is only so much metal, wood, plastic, glass, ceramic, silicone, lithium, copper, etc.  There is only so much SPACE.  These are resources that no amount of energy would increase.  There would still be plenty to fight about. 

Darker still are the threats to social reality and to reality AS SUCH.  One way we might resolve the above sighted issues is by dispensing with the need for so much matter by building incredibly powerful computers that would be able to deliver perfectly rendered, immersive virtual reality worlds customized to the needs and whims of everyone on earth.  This would undoubtedly be a much more efficient use of all that free energy.  Living in virtual reality we wouldn’t need refrigerators to keep our food cold, ovens in which to cook it.  We could just call up the food program and have all the pleasure of cooking and eating any kind of food while our bodies sat in a chair with an IV feeding tube.  Sounds wonderful.  No need for greed or hunger – no need for other PEOPLE.  This line of thinking might seem hyperbolic until one realistically assesses the way we already interact with technology.  Free energy could easily end up costing us our HUMANITY.  Oh, and who, exactly would oversee the massive computer networks that would deliver us this infinitely powered virtual utopia?

I am nearly as old now as my grandfather was when he was teaching me about the true cost of free lunch.  He had neither the education, imagination nor silly humanitarian and artistic pretentions as I.  Nevertheless, I have come to the same conclusion about ANYTHING free as I think he would.  In my last essay I talked about Saturn and aging.  Saturn is the lord of old gray men but also the teacher of limitations, their value and the humility and maturity to live well within them. 

I hope I haven’t yucked anyone’s yum with all I have said here.  Perhaps I am wrong about all of it.  Perhaps my view itself suffers the very limitation that Saturn imposes on us all.  Perhaps.  But I don’t think so.  I am claiming my old man prerogative of being set in my ways.  Since I have no interest in fighting anyone or proving anything it will not be hurt by disagreement.  

My purpose here has almost nothing to do with energy, free or otherwise.  Nor am I particularly concerned or even interested in technology.  My purpose is to share something I think I have learned, something that might pass for wisdom given the generations of philosophers and sages who make the claim I make here.  Living in the material world is necessarily living within limitations.  Saturn is the historical guardian who stands as a hard limit between the world of mortals who must learn to live within the limits he sets and the world of the Gods who live without them.  He has told me, and I believe, that it is only by learning the lessons of a limited, material, mortal existence that we become worthy of passing beyond Saturn’s bounding ring and entering the world of the immortals.