Energy
Does energy dissipate and go away with increased entropy?
Or does the amount of energy stay consistent in the local universe eternally?
In physics, energy is defined as the ability to do work. Energy divided by time is power
Entropy is a statistical measure of state density. Concentrations dissipate, but the total is constant (AFAWK).
We can fight entropy, but nobody's won yet!
And all life fights entropy the same way we do (locally, with an energy input).
Black hole
In one sense antimatter is the most powerful destructive force (at least as far as matters concerned). But after a given amount of antimatter destroys an equal amount of matter, the antimatter is gone; a blackhole, in contrast, can destroy matter and keep on eating more and more matter without limit.
The exact effects of a black hole depend on its mass. Much of the matter that a black hole attracts forms an accretion disk of matter rotating around the black hole. The matter in this accretion disk gets heated-up due to friction between all of the matter in the disk, which ultimately results in the release of energy. As matter enters the event horizon of the black hole, we can only speculate as to what happens to it. Most scenarios involve much of the matter that enters a black hole being converted to energy or absorbed by and merged with the singularity at the center of the black hole.
Hawking radiation is not emitted from the black hole, its origin is somewhat outside of it. It still draws energy from the black hole and contributes to the evaporation of black holes. Stephen Hawking calculated that eventually a black hole evaporates. This goes faster and faster as they get smaller and smaller until they go out at the end with quite a bang. Black holes do inevitably dissipate, though over mind boggling timescales. But they do fizzle out into radiation.
I can't see a limit on the size of a black hole – the entire universe might be a black hole when viewed from the outside (Even something low-density can turn into a black hole if it is big enough…). As for the maximum size of a star, from what I've read the first stars were absolutely monstrous and could have been as big as a hundred thousand suns (mass).
I have been aware of loop quantum gravity for many years, but have not had a chance to study it in detail. Without having enough knowledge to make an informed judgment, I like it better than string theory because it has produced a comparable level of results with less than 1% of the effort.
The quantum foam also fits better with my view of how mass/energy interacts with space/time to produce gravity. I view space-time as something that is under compressive stress – it is trying to expand, and, based on supernova observations, is expanding at an accelerating rate. Mass/energy basically softens space-time, and thus light travels slower in the softer space-time of a gravitational field. Mass is also gravitationally attracted to the softer space-time because it takes less energy to occupy softer space-time. A black hole is then basically where space-time has become so soft that it has melted at the event horizon. Figuring out what is inside the event horizon may be meaningless because time dilation means that everything slows to a stop as it approaches the event horizon, so there really is nothing "inside" in any finite amount of our time and eventually the black hole evaporates.
However, this viewpoint produces the same results as general relativity until the event horizon, so I see no way to determine whether this is the explanation for general relativity. But perhaps the loop quantum gravity people will find some way to tell
why general relativity works the way it does, and perhaps my viewpoint will be right (or perhaps it will be wrong).
Our energy
When we die our energy dissipates as heat and the body begins to decompose from bacteria, fungus and oxidation.
A soul is not something that you possess, it is something that you emit. When you die, you stop emitting more soul, but the soul that you have already emitted still bounces around.
Is heat the only form of energy or is it simply a byproduct of it?
The most dissipated is averaging the same amount per degree of freedom, with the amount per degree of freedom being proportional to temperature. Individual molecules each have several degrees of freedom, and are so numerous that they dominate dissipated energy*, and we call their energy "heat". * at low enough energy and low enough density the microwave background becomes significant.
Consciousness
Consciousness appears to be at least partly an emergent property. Consciousness is not all-or-nothing. Genomes and RNA/protein) networks already exhibit as much consciousness as networks of ~200 neurons, and it is likely that computers soon will, too.
The molecules that make up a neuron aren't conscious. It's the DNA that allows the neurons to configure themselves in a way that promotes consciousness. Sponges and
Trichoplax don't have neurons, but research has found that sponges have cells that behave similarly to neurons i.e. the precursor for the evolution of neurons (
source), likewise with
Trichoplax (
source).
