physics

Incorporeality

Incorporeality is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Incorporeality rather than just read about it. In short: Incorporeality is "the state or quality of being incorporeal or bodiless; immateriality; incorporealism." Incorporeal (Greek: ἀσώματος) means "Not composed of matter; having no material existence." Incorporeality is a quality of souls, spirits, and God in many religions, including the currently major denominations and schools of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the Baháʼí Faith. In ancient philosophy, any attenuate…

Key takeaways

Incorporeality belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Incorporeality to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Incorporeality from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Incorporeality is "the state or quality of being incorporeal or bodiless; immateriality; incorporealism." Incorporeal (Greek: ἀσώματος) means "Not composed of matter; having no material existence." Incorporeality is a quality of souls, spirits, and God in many religions, including the currently major denominations and schools of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the Baháʼí Faith. In ancient philosophy, any attenuated "thin" matter such as air, aether, fire or light was considered incorporeal. The ancient Greeks believed air, as opposed to solid earth, to be incorporeal, insofar as it is less resistant to movement; and the ancient Persians believed fire to be incorporeal in that every soul was said to be produced from it. In modern philosophy, a distinction between the incorporeal and immaterial is not necessarily maintained: a body is described as incorporeal if it is not made out of matter. In the problem of universals, universals are separable from any particular embodiment in one sense, while in another, they seem inherent nonetheless. Aristotle offered a hylomorphic account of abstraction in contrast to Plato's world of Forms. Aristotle used the Greek terms soma (body) and hyle (matter, literally "wood"). The notion that a causally effective incorporeal body is even coherent requires the belief that something can affect what's material, without physically existing at the point of effect. A ball can directly affect another ball by coming in direct contact with it, and is visible because it reflects the light that directly reaches it. An incorporeal field of influence, or immaterial body could not perform these functions because they have no physical construction with which to perform these functions. Following Newton, it became customary to accept action at a distance as brute fact, and to overlook the philosophical problems involved in so doing.

Theology

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (see also Mormonism) believe that both God the Father, and Jesus Christ have physical bodies "of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s". They view the mainstream Christian belief in God's incorporeality as being founded upon a post-Apostolic departure from this doctrine of an anthropomorphic, corporeal God, a doctrine which they claim better aligns with the traditional Judeo-Christian belief. Mainstream Christianity has always interpreted anthropomorphic references to God in Scripture as non-literal, poetic, and symbolic.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Incorporeality

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Incorporeality claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Incorporeality before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Incorporeality ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Incorporeality

In research: Incorporeality appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Incorporeality in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Incorporeality is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Attributes of God in Christian theology, Concepts in ancient Greek metaphysics, Dualism in cosmology, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Incorporeality outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Incorporeality in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Incorporeality means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Incorporeality out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Incorporeality in simple terms?

Why does Incorporeality matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Incorporeality?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Incorporeality.