The written or spoken word is a poor communicator, but it’s what we have so it has to do.  Words are only sign posts that point to an idea.  My definition or idea of faith is probably different from most. 

What is the difference between belief and faith?  When does belief stop and faith take over? Where does one draw this line?

The Bible for the most part is incomprehensible.  To penetrate the hidden meanings of all the metaphors, parables and symbolisms one must be somewhat enlightened. If your enlightened then you don’t need books such as the Bible, one can perceive wisdom straight from to the source.  How’s that for a catch 22?

Nevertheless, I perceive this passage from the Bible on faith as being literal:

“If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘move from here to there’ and it will move; nothing will be impossible for you.”

If this is the case then faith is of the Soul and belief is of the ego.  Everyone has wisdom and faith, wisdom being another attribute of the Soul.  It may be relatively dormant, but it’s there.

In this context, faith is never bad, quite the opposite.  It’s moral, virtuous and wholesome. 

In contrast, a close minded belief can have dire consequences.

SteveG wrote: Agnostic means to be without knowledge. Gnostic means knowledge. Agnostic means sans knowledge, if I remember my Greek correctly, so what knowledge does an atheist present that there is no God?

I can make a statement that no one (except me) can prove or disprove, such as "There is a banana on my desk" and you can either believe that or you can doubt it - the choice is yours, but you cannot disbelieve it. This is because the question is not about the existence of the banana on my desk, but whether I have made a truthful statement. It is an equation with two unknowns - 1: the existence of the banana and 2: the truth of the statement, but since there is no proof of the banana we can only question the truthfulness of the statement itself.

a) If you have faith that I have made a truthful statement then you will believe that there is a banana on my desk. You can state "I believe there is a banana on Dean's desk" but you cannot state "I know there is a banana on Dean's desk"

b) If you doubt I have made a truthful statement then you can say there may be a banana on my desk but unless there is proof you aren't going to state "I believe there is a banana on Dean's desk" nor can you say "I don't believe there is a banana on Dean's desk"

There is no "atheist" position on the existence of the banana because even a consummate liar can sometimes tell the truth so no one can say "I don't believe there is a banana on Dean's desk", nor can they say "I believe there is no banana on Dean's desk"

... that is the point most agnostics make when they rally against atheists. But as Todd and I have said, it's not like that.

Now supposing the only source we have of the statement is from the believers in (a) above. Now the statement becomes: "We believe there is a banana on Dean's desk". So now not only can you believe or doubt that there is a banana on Dean's desk, but you also have the option of doubting that the believers (a) are correct and therefore you can make the statement "I don't believe there is a banana on Dean's desk". However, this still does not refute the existence of the banana. So now we have:

c) because you believe that the believers (a) believe there is a banana on my desk you can also say "I believe there is a banana on Dean's desk" 

d) if you doubt the existence of the banana you can say there may be a banana on my desk but unless there is proof you aren't going to state "I believe there is a banana on Dean's desk" nor can you say "I don't believe there is a banana on Dean's desk" ... i.e the "agnostic" position is unchanged but now it is the existence of the banana that is in doubt, not whether I was making a truthful statement (since there is no evidence I ever made the claim in the first place).

e) if you doubt the existence of the banana [from (d)] AND doubt the belief that there is one [from (c)] then you can say "I don't believe there is a banana on Dean's desk". So now we have an "atheist" position without having to prove that there isn't a banana on my desk.

At this stage we now have an "atheist" position but he is not refuting the existence of the banana, but only the believers (c) belief that there is one on my table.

Now repeat using (c) as the source of the statement:

f) because you believe that the believers (c) believed that the believers (a) believed there is a banana you can also say "I believe there is a banana on Dean's desk" 

g) if you believe most of what (c) believes but believe the banana is not on my desk but on my table, you say "I believe there is a banana on Dean's table"

d) the "agnostic" position is unchanged since he still needs proof of the banana to believe anything.

h) the "atheist" position now has an extra level of doubt introduced by believers (f) and believers (g) since their beliefs were not based upon the original source of the statement "There is a banana on my desk", but on believers (c) statement "We believe there is a banana on Dean's desk/table", so you can continue to say "I don't believe there is a banana on Dean's desk or table" without having to refute the existence of the banana.

However, now the "atheist" position has become stronger because the existence of the banana is becoming more tenuous, though still not refutable.

A few generations later we could arrive at another set of positions:

f) believers (f) are unchanged.

g) believers (g) are unchanged.

i) if you believe most of what (f) believes but believe the banana is not on my desk but on Dan's desk, you say "I believe there is a banana on Dan's desk"

j) if you believe most of what (g) believes but believe the banana is not on my table but on Don's table, you say "I believe there is a banana on Don's table"

k) if you believe some of what (g) and (i) believes but believe the banana is not on my desk or table but on Dan's table, you say "I believe there is a banana on Dan's table"

... then at some time in the future those denominations of believers split even further (to the extent that some even doubt the banana and claim it was an pomegranate instead - needless to say no one else believes the pomegranate exists).

d) the "agnostic" position is unchanged since he still needs proof of the banana (or the pomegranate) to believe anything. .

l) the "atheist" position now has an extra level of doubt introduced by believers (i), (j) and (k) since their beliefs were again not based upon the original source of the statement "There is a banana on my desk" either, nor were they based upon the first indirect statement "I believe the banana is on Dean's desk", so you can now say "I don't believe there is a banana on Dean/Dan/Don's desk/table or any combination thereof". (He doesn't need any convincing that the entire pomegranate idea was anything other than a complete fabrication so he ignores it). 

Now the "atheist" is in a position to say, "Do you know what guys? Maybe there never was a banana." 

Dean wrote: CosmicVibration wrote: Nevertheless, I perceive this passage from the Bible on faith as being literal: “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘move from here to there’ and it will move; nothing will be impossible for you.” Okay, my curiosity is piqued... If that quotation is to be taken literally then literally what does it mean (to you)?

I should have probably elaborated a bit on the Soul in that post.  The Soul is individualized Spirit.  Spirit or God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient.  The Soul, made in the perfect image of God also possesses those same attributes.  Moving or creating a mountain for an omnipotent Soul is mere child’s play.

The more one tunes in to their true nature as an Omnipotent Being, the more so called miracles one can perform.

“If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘move from here to there’ and it will move.”  To me this means that just a tiny fraction of self-realization can move mountains.

Sort of analogous to extracting just a tiny fraction of energy from the vacuum can supply enough power for the entire planet.

I can expand much more on any of this when I get home from work…

timothy leary wrote: ^Now put a foundation under these statements. It would seem the realization there is no "true" self and that all boundaries can be equated to that imaginary state line between Ohio and Indiana.

Except there are no boundaries for the “true” self.   True Being is boundless; it is not bound by space nor time. Its true abode is beyond that of matter, energy and even thought / imagination.  Beyond the material, astral and causal planes of existence.

According to Albert Einstein,” reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”  Maybe because the mountain is over 99% empty space, the rest called atoms are not material but energy fluctuations.

All matter is composed of condensed energy; condensed energy is composed of condensed thought.  Tuning in to the universal consciousness (Christ Consciousness) one can easily make changes to any landscape by the power of his will and thought.

condor wrote: Although most examples of faith seem suspicious, can you not have faith in your calculations? If we need to have evidence for everything, we will need to have simulations for myriads of things to the extent it will become impractical.

However if you knew from a previous proven calculation that it only took ½ litre of paint to cover a single wall in a similar room (i.e. 'evidence from experience') then you could have instantly told that you were in the wrong ball-park without having to prove your calculation empirically.

The calculation for working out how much paint you require is simply area x coverage. To check that your equation is correct there is a technique called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimensional_analysis" rel="nofollow - dimensional analysis where you check that the units on the left side of an equation equals the dimensions on the right, for example: quantity of paint in litres = area in square metres x coverage in litres/square metre.  quantity of paint in litres = area in square metres x coverage in litres/square metre. correct so here you can see that the square metres/square metre cancel each other and both sides are in litres. Now if the calculation you actually used was: quantity of paint in litres = area in square metres x coverage in litres/square foot. wrong you can quickly see that the square feet/square metre does not cancel so an extra term is required to convert the coverage in litres/square foot into litres/square metre, (or alternatively the area in square metres to the area in square feet) and that is simply a matter of finding out how many square feet there are in 1 square metre: quantity of paint in litres = area in square metres x coverage in litres/square foot x (10.764 square feet / square metre).  quantity of paint in litres = area in square metres x coverage in litres/square foot x (10.764 square feet / square metre).  quantity of paint in litres = area  x coverage in litres/square foot x (10.764 square feet ) quantity of paint in litres = area  x coverage in litres x 10.764). correct and now the square metres/square metre cancel and square feet/square foot also cancel so both sides are in litres and your equation is now correct

Dean wrote: CosmicVibration wrote: Dean wrote: CosmicVibration wrote: Nevertheless, I perceive this passage from the Bible on faith as being literal: “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘move from here to there’ and it will move; nothing will be impossible for you.” Okay, my curiosity is piqued... If that quotation is to be taken literally then literally what does it mean (to you)?  I should have probably elaborated a bit on the Soul in that post.  The Soul is individualized Spirit.  Spirit or God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient.  The Soul, made in the perfect image of God also possesses those same attributes.  Moving or creating a mountain for an omnipotent Soul is mere child’s play. The more one tunes in to their true nature as an Omnipotent Being, the more so called miracles one can perform. “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘move from here to there’ and it will move.”  To me this means that just a tiny fraction of self-realization can move mountains. Sort of analogous to extracting just a tiny fraction of energy from the vacuum can supply enough power for the entire planet. I can expand much more on any of this when I get home from work… CosmicVibration wrote: According to Albert Einstein,” reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”  Maybe because the mountain is over 99% empty space, the rest called atoms are not material but energy fluctuations. All matter is composed of condensed energy; condensed energy is composed of condensed thought.  Tuning in to the universal consciousness (Christ Consciousness) one can easily make changes to any landscape by the power of his will and thought. Ah right. Unfortunately you cannot switch between quantum mechanics and newtonian mechanics as you are doing here, the terminology used in one is not interchangeable with the similarly named terminology in the other. You also cannot interchange these terms with similarly named terms used in the non-physics world.  For example: the quantum vacuum is a quantum state of lowest possible energy and therefore can also be called the vacuum state, that is: it is purely an energy state that is found, for example, inside a proton (or neutron). Fluctuations in this quantum vacuum are believed to the force that binds the quarks together that make-up each proton (or neutron) and account for 99% of their mass. Since this is a state of the lowest possible energy and quarks are ridiculously small then fluctuations in this energy state is exactly enough energy to bind the quarks together and no more so a fraction of this energy would not power the whole planet. A physical vacuum is a 3-dimensional volume that is devoid of particles, therefore contains no [quantum] energy. A physical vacuum (such as the vacuum of space) is not the same thing as a quantum vacuum.

Empty space is actually a misnomer.  Space is not empty, all space, including the physical 3d vacuum that is devoid of particles.  Every cubic centimeter of space contains more energy than all the stars in the known universe combined. And this is after physicists “renormalized” the calculation.  The answer actually comes out to be infinite before “renormalization”.

I don’t understand why when physicists get infinity as answer to one of their equations it’s “a total disaster?”  I’ve heard this from Michio Kaku…  I on the other hand see infinities everywhere…

Anyway, it’s not just a theory anymore; it’s been verified in laboratory experiments such as the Casimir effect.   Call it vacuum energy, call it vacuum fluctuation, call it zero point energy, call it free energy, call it what you want, I don’t think it really matters all that much. 

There’s an inconceivable amount of energy all around us and some day we will be able to extract just a tiny fraction of it for an endless supply.

(i.e., the faithful person's will is at one with god's).

 This is exactly right… but not only the person’s will, his entire Being is at one with God.  “I and my Father are One.” At this stage of the game you are no longer mortal, you are one with Spirit. So in essence yes, God is the doer.

 You can apply this analogy. God is an ocean and we are waves upon that ocean.  Playing and crashing with the storm of delusion.  We do not realize we are part of a vast ocean and think ourselves as separate.  When we calm (get rid of ego) we sink and merge back into the ocean.

 The ocean can exist without the waves but the waves cannot exist without the ocean.

BTW… I like your other post but you are stereotyping there a bit aren’t you?  I don’t belong to any organized religion but I wouldn’t conclude that all followers don’t seek or require proof.  What you wrote not only could but should apply to one’s spiritual path.  Without evidence or experience how does one know their progressing? 

“...as opposed to religious faith, which can be summarised as "Strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof"

 So faith means "complete trust or confidence" and it would be both imprudent and arrogant to have complete trust in your calculations without some form of evidence because, as the old adage says: pride goes before a fall.

 Even with trust or confidence in your calculations you will need some level of evidence that the calculation is correct. However, with experience you will build-up confidence in your ability to make those calculations and gradually require less evidence that they are correct to the point where you will trust that they are with the minimum of evidence.”

HackettFan wrote: CosmicVibration wrote: BTW… I like your other post but you are stereotyping there a bit aren’t you? I don’t belong to any organized religion but I wouldn’t conclude that all followers don’t seek or require proof. What you wrote not only could but should apply to one’s spiritual path. Without evidence or experience how does one know their progressing? There is no proof to be had in religious faith. It's a fool's errand. You are replying to Dean, but the point of my last post was that there were some religious scientists who understand the difference. They do not require religious faith to figure out the blueprint, but they have a belief system about the source of the blueprint. I do not, so fine and dandy, and I am not interested in converting anyone, but this apparent trend of religionists seeking proof for their beliefs leads only to pseudo-science and, I might suggest, pseudo-faith. The two things are altogether different. There is no relationship. CosmicVibration wrote: Dean wrote: ...as opposed to religious faith, which can be summarised as "Strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof So faith means "complete trust or confidence" and it would be both imprudent and arrogant to have complete trust in your calculations without some form of evidence because, as the old adage says: pride goes before a fall. The point is that, like 'believe', there are different senses or two different meanings of faith. The one Dean was talking about there was not the 'religious faith' you're talking about.

I understand and agree about the concept of blind faith and closed minded belief that seems to be the topic under discussion here.  I was just trying to offer a different perspective that can be subjected to experimentation and concrete results.

I’m not sure what you mean by the “blueprint.”  The blueprint of creation? The mechanics of the universe? 

Maybe one day, before this universe expires, man will figure out the mechanics of the universe.  Current science however, just like religion, really doesn’t know as to what the hell is truly going on. 

What exactly is pseudo- science? There are numerous apposing mainstream scientific theories, which ones are right?  Which ones should be classified as pseudo-science? String theory has been around for over 60 years and as far as I’m aware there still isn’t a shred of proof for it.

I actually like string theory, at least the very foundation of it.  However, it does go off into some very complex tangents that I’m unsure of.

Dean made a comment about my username, well, I was going to pick SoundChaser but that was taken.  When I came up with CosmicVibration I was actually thinking about the basis of string theory.

CosmicVibration wrote: dean, originally wrote: The non-literal interpretation is that with faith you can achieve anything and here the mountain is just a metaphor. It should be noted that Jesus said this to his disciples after they had failed to drive a demon out of a small child, he chastised them of having too little faith before speaking the words in the quote. Moving the mountain is a measure of faith, not an indication the power of thought. So the classical literal interpretation of the quote is not that the faithful can move the mountain just by the power of their thoughts, that would be capricious, heretical magic and even a sign of hubris. The only way for the mountain to literally move is for god to move it, but since god does not do things on the whim of mere mortals then, no matter how faithful they are, it will only move if god wants it moving. So if a person of sufficient faith (which Jesus states is as small as a mustard seed) commands the mountain to move then it is because of god's will (i.e., the faithful person's will is at one with god's). (i.e., the faithful person's will is at one with god's).  This is exactly right… but not only the person’s will, his entire Being is at one with God.  “I and my Father are One.” At this stage of the game you are no longer mortal, you are one with Spirit. So in essence yes, God is the doer.

I hope you appreciate that I am an atheist and was only giving the classical literal interpretation of the quote that I remember from being a christian in my youth. 

In that interpretation god is not only the doer, god is also the instigator.A faithful person would ask the mountain to move because of god's will, not their own (free) will and the mountain would move. Conversely if a non-believer asked the mountain to move it would be their will not god's and the mountain would not move.

So when the mountain does not move on the command of a person it is an indication that they have insufficient faith, they are not "at one with god". Jesus's message to the disciples was: you don't have enough faith {since in the part of the biblical verse that you omitted from the quote he called them 'unbelievers'}.

Since mountains do not move this can mean one of three things:

1. that no mortal has ever achieved the right level of oneness with god; {i.e., what Jesus said}
2. that god simply likes the mountains to remain exactly where he put them so anyone who is "at one with god" has never commanded the mountain to move; {an apologists view perhaps}
3. that there [probably] is no god. {an atheistic conclusion}

CosmicVibration wrote:  You can apply this analogy. God is an ocean and we are waves upon that ocean.  Playing and crashing with the storm of delusion.  We do not realize we are part of a vast ocean and think ourselves as separate.  When we calm (get rid of ego) we sink and merge back into the ocean.  The ocean can exist without the waves but the waves cannot exist without the ocean.

Gnh, the problem with analogies is that if you stretch them they break, and breaking an analogy does not affect the original premise they were chosen to illustrate. But you are already stretching this one with the addition of the storm of delusion metaphor so I shall continue - the waves are created by the wind and storms, not by the ocean. The wind is caused by the sun's action on the ocean and land surfaces creating a temperature differential that results in an atmospheric pressure differential. The heat of the sun that creates the wind is infra-red electromagnetic radiation that propagates through space as waves. We could keep stretching this analogy until it is so thin you could read a book through it: and look at the wave/particle duality within each water molecule in the ocean and conclude that the ocean is made up of waves; and that the ocean cannot exist without all these little waves singing hosanna. Moreover, ocean waves propagate across the surface of the ocean whereas water molecules and anything floating on the surface just aimlessly bob up and down and don't go anywhere.... like religion.

CosmicVibration wrote: BTW… I like your other post but you are stereotyping there a bit aren’t you?  I don’t belong to any organized religion but I wouldn’t conclude that all followers don’t seek or require proof.  What you wrote not only could but should apply to one’s spiritual path.  Without evidence or experience how does one know their progressing?  dean, originally wrote: “...as opposed to religious faith, which can be summarised as "Strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof"  So faith means "complete trust or confidence" and it would be both imprudent and arrogant to have complete trust in your calculations without some form of evidence because, as the old adage says: pride goes before a fall.  Even with trust or confidence in your calculations you will need some level of evidence that the calculation is correct. However, with experience you will build-up confidence in your ability to make those calculations and gradually require less evidence that they are correct to the point where you will trust that they are with the minimum of evidence.

I really couldn't care less. That post was yet another failed attempt to pull this tread discussion back to the OP and away from religious debate on the meaning of religious faith. There is no stereotyping involved there because OP talked of calculations and there are no calculations in spiritual belief. Spiritual 'proof' is of no concern to me, if believers want evidence that they're progressing (or of their progress) then they are not going to find that in science or the calculation of the amount of paint needed to cover four walls in a room. If I were to stereotype I could say that religious types, and supporters of pseudo-science, lack the rigour to use evidence because they are too selective, latching on to all the evidence that supports their philosophy and rejecting all that does not - but that would be a gross caricature. 

rogerthat wrote: CosmicVibration wrote:  Current science however, just like religion, really doesn’t know as to what the hell is truly going on.  However, science acknowledges what it doesn't know.  Whereas religion makes unsubstantiated claims and demands we accept them to be the truth.  Some Hindu right wing activists are unhappy with rationalists saying Hanuman was a myth.  They go so far as to say there is definite proof of Hanuman's existence.  Yeah, Hanuman...a monkey God, if you will, who lifted a mountain on his palm.  Some rationalists have been killed for trying to fight the efforts of the right wing to spread blind faith.  So, as much as I sometimes really get off on rationalist smugness, the smugness appears to be far less malignant than religion as such and what it encompasses.   I am beyond the point where I have any sympathy with claims that such extremists do not represent the religion.  If that is so, why don't ordinary peace loving believers take out protest marches against such extremists.  After all, if they really believed in God, they wouldn't fear for their life so much as to let such extremists go uncontested.   This is an even greater travesty in so far as it applies to Hinduism some of whose strands had advanced far enough to, indeed, question the notion of God and consider if God was basically a necessary metaphysical assumption.  I would have no compunctions about renouncing my faith if the attempts of the right wing to turn it into a militant religion succeed.

I agree, there’s a lot of crazy sh*t that goes on in the name of religion.  Yesterday i viewed the Church of Latter Day Saints documentary on TV, holy crap, the sh*t was as bad as the sh*t in the Scientology documentary.

At present, probably the most horrific crazy intolerant bullsh*t that goes on in the name of god is in a lot of parts of the Middle East.

But can the craziness of religious fanatics be blamed on a book?

Dean wrote: CosmicVibration wrote: What exactly is pseudo- science? There are numerous apposing mainstream scientific theories, which ones are right?  Which ones should be classified as pseudo-science? String theory has been around for over 60 years and as far as I’m aware there still isn’t a shred of proof for it. I actually like string theory, at least the very foundation of it.  However, it does go off into some very complex tangents that I’m unsure of. Dean made a comment about my username, well, I was going to pick SoundChaser but that was taken.  When I came up with CosmicVibration I was actually thinking about the basis of string theory. Pseudo-science is defined as "a collection of beliefs that are mistakenly regarded to be based upon the scientific method." In that respect string-theory and all other unproven scientific hypothesises are not pseudo scientific since they adhere to the scientific method and will be discarded and/or modified when conflicting evidence is found. Where such scientific theories enter into the realm of pseudo-science is when they are subsequently used in a ways that do not involve the scientific method and are used as the basis for beliefs (ideas) that violate some physical law or limit. Your example of extracting energy from zero-point energy is generally regarded as pseudo-scientific because zero-point energy is the state of lowest possible energy so extracting energy from it would create a new state that has less energy than the zero-point energy (which would be, by definition, not possible). [edit: another point, though I still lack the energy to argue with pseudoscience: the vacuum state that exists within the physical vacuum of space {yes, I admit I made an error there earlier but not a gross one} also exists (as I said before) in all matter, (whereas a physical vacuum does not), so is not the same thing as a physical vacuum and cannot be treated as such. In that respect you can regard it as the substrate, baseline or floor of the universe. We cannot measure this, we can only detect fluctuations in it - to borrow your ocean analogy: we cannot know the depth of the ocean just by measuring the height of the waves - we normalise "sea-level" as the baseline for all measurements therefore a vacuum has zero energy in relation to itself {but that is probably as far as that analogy goes}.]

It’s foolish to argue and this was never my intent.  I appreciate an honest discussion but if it’s going to zap some of your vital energy I’d rather just let it go.

I get most of my scientific information from TV shows.  I know what you’re thinking but let me finish.  Or at this point you may not be thinking but laughing…   I tried reading science journals but they tend to get too complex and over my head.  Or else they seem to go round in circles using big words but not saying much of anything.  Still laughing huh?

Some of the programs I’m referring to are Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman.  I’ve seen most if not all the episodes, if I’m not mistaken there were 6 seasons already.  I like the way scientific topics are discussed from many different angles and opposing viewpoints.

Others include but are not limited to:

How the Universe Works

Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking

Cosmos - both old and new generation, Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson

Wonders of the Universe and Wonders of the Solar System with Brian Cox

On more than one occasion I’ve heard from prominent scientists that every inch of space contains more energy than all the stars in the known or observable universe.  There was one episode of Through the Wormhole where a scientist worked for over 15 years in his spare time and was able to dimly illuminate a LED using zero point energy.  Maybe I can dig up that episode… Besides, aren’t the plates that are being pushed together in the Casimir effect evidence of zero point energy? I realize that it would take a lot more energy to push the plates back apart so any application would be useless but this experiment just verifies the existence of said energy.

From Wiki:

In https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_field_theory" rel="nofollow - quantum field theory , the fabric of space is visualized as consisting of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_%28physics%29" rel="nofollow - fields , with the field at every point in space and time being a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_harmonic_oscillator" rel="nofollow - quantum harmonic oscillator , with neighboring oscillators interacting. In this case, one has a contribution of E=ħω/2 from every point in space, resulting in a calculation of infinite zero-point energy in any finite volume; this is one reason https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renormalization" rel="nofollow - renormalization is needed to make sense of quantum field theories. The zero-point energy is again the expectation value of the Hamiltonian; here, however, the phrase https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_expectation_value" rel="nofollow - vacuum expectation value is more commonly used, and the energy is called the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_energy" rel="nofollow - vacuum energy .

Correct me if I’m wrong but the main question there is just how small can a wavelength get?  Or how far can you keep on dividing it?  The answer comes out to be infinity, so a cutoff point was made.  This cutoff point is what’s referred to as renormalization.   Am I correct with my assertion or out in left field somewhere?