A difficult puzzle..

All this is resolved by "more than the sum of it's parts". Certain parts of the brain are more than the sum of their parts (neuronal firings etc.), otherwise they'd be nothing but..neuronal firings, etc., and would never generate intangible things such as feelings and consciousness.

 

Multiplication is just adding a group of identical quantities together a certain number of times, say, 12 x 6 <=> 12 + 12 + 12 + 12 + 12 + 12.

Synergy goes beyond mathematics.

 

Neither is it logically unexpected. You have made exactly no point with that clarification.

Again, it is what it is. We don't get a vote.

Bald assertion. I will not address it again until it becomes more.

What does that even mean?

 

The argument is that since independent beings can observe that something is blue, that blueness is objective. Which doesn't address my point.

Robots could sense that something has the wavelength of blue. They could not sense that it was "blue" ("blue" as in, the intangible sensation that I'm experiencing right now by looking at certain areas of this screen). Big, hugeee difference.

 

That mathematical things exist within reality (i.e. they are real), but not everything that exists within reality, is a mathematical thing. I.e. mathematical things are a subcategory of real things.

 

Again, this is a bald assertion. I will not address it again until it becomes more.

None of this appears to be based on any familiarity whatsoever with actual research. I again point to the recent research where scientists were able to use computers to translate neural patterns into images of what the brain was experiencing. And this is not merely a mechanical recognition of the physical images... it also allows direct visibility into imagination.

Pay attention, for example to the video clip showing the elephant. It walks across a landscape that is (sky and land) a uniform earthy rust color. Yet the image perceived by the individual watching adds details that do not exist, specifically a blue sky and green earth.

This technology proves that the neuronal patterns in the brain and the perception of those patterns is the same single thing. A third party, in this instance the computer, with access to the the same patterns the same way. The pattern is the experience, not some gateway between the experience and some supernatural dimension.

Brace yourself as this research advances. It's only going to get better.

 

Okay.

What evidence have you to this point provided that these are not identical sets?

 

So what about my ring of stones? If a bunch of stones are in a ring (a pattern), the ring exists, right? If you place them in another pattern, does the ring go away? Will they have a different mass?

I haven't heard of this that everything must occupy space or that everything must have mass or dimension. If the ring is a pattern, then the thoughts are patterns. If you want to say that a ring isn't physical, isn't there, then we're working with different words and definitions. If the ring does exist, then so can thoughts.

 

Then perhaps you shouldn't have brought up "qualia."

Again, different actors, different perspectives, different experiences... but all of the identical thing.

 

There's evidence that reality itself isn't a set, for instance. If reality itself is not a set, then how could it be mathematical? Anything in mathematics is theoretically a set.

 

A robot cannot experience the intangible sensation of "blueness" that I'm experiencing right now. Therefore it is not at all identical.

 

Well, feelings for example, do not have these traits, so this would make sense.

 

That isn't surprising, or relevant to my point. In the least.

 

Actually. No. It's not. You have demonstrated here that different operations can lead to identical solutions. They are stil different operations.

Not really. No.

But while you are at it, perhaps you should brush up on "emergent properties." I think that's actually more of what you have in mind than synergy.

 

It pretty effectively eviscerates your point, actually.

If what you believe was true, such an experiment should not have the results it has.

 

Again... different actors, different perspectives, different experiences.

They are still all experiencing the identical actual thing.

 

Can you show that to us?

 

Wouldn't that be by definition an example of synergy?

The overall point is that sometimes if you have two or more things, and you put them together, you get results which include things which are not the same as any combination of the initial ingredients. Like, feelings for example. It would be an example of synergy.

 

How could that not be possible according to the idea that feelings are not mathematical intrinsically?

 

For a computer (which performs only mathematical operations) to be able to translate neural patterns into images proves that the relationship between those patterns and the perception is completely mathematical.

 

Actually. No.

And this is a perfectly ordinary physical process.

 

It's related to Russel's paradox and the fact that "a set" would have to be infinite to include all of reality (leading to other paradoxes), as well as ignore synergy. But I have to look some of that up again.

 

Umm..since when is matter and energy not conserved in physical interactions, other than for brief moments of temporary energy being "borrowed from the future" (and then immediately returned), according to quantum field theory?

That's what would have to happen if you could put together a group of anything physical, according to currently accepted physical laws, and get something greater than the inputs: violation of the law of conservation of matter-energy.

 

If the computer actually felt these intangible feelings, then that would make sense.

 

It does not appear that you actually understand Russel's paradox.