Why conversational equations and emergence (General)

by romansh , Thursday, March 27, 2014, 01:30 (3684 days ago)

ROMANSH: So very simply what I am saying is (trying to say): The left hand side of the equation equals the right hand side. so if: The whole is greater and does not equal the sum of the parts
> Fix the equation.
> 
> dhw ... Why must you have an equation? I've tried to explain what people mean by consciousness being an emergent property. If the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, obviously the two are not equal so there can be no "equation". What does that prove?-I don't have to have equations. There is no must see no equations ...-Now emergence a scientific concept ... why not an equation to try and understand it?-Yes I understand what you mean by emergence and emergent. And I gave an example when explaining synergy why I thought your definition was wrong in an absolute sense. In a colloquial vernacular rabbits emerge from rabbit holes. There is nothing surprising about this so it is not emergence. Two up quarks and a down quark give rise to a proton and lo and behold we have emergence ... the proton is greater than the three quarks.-Why equations? ... They define our axioms for conversation we can apply logical operators to the axioms. Or we can pull rabbits out of hat and claim we don't know for sure it is not really magic.-For example the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. This in a literal sense defies the first law of thermodynamics. On a day to day basis I rely heavily on this law. If it is not true, then I will require some pretty good evidence to give up this axiom. Not some hand waving and saying it is possible that the first law need not apply in my day to day life. -If you mean emergence in some vernacular sense as I suspect you do then I have no problem. But if you mean it literally, and your arguments seem to go in that direction, then I will apply logic and my equations if that is OK?-How can we check the veracity of a proposition without clearly stated axioms and accepted logic?