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Politics : Evolution -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Greg or e who wrote (27735)6/29/2012 1:21:18 AM
From: Solon1 Recommendation  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 69300
 
"How much does Pi weigh?"

It does not weigh a damn thing! It is a conceptual relationship. It weighs nothing at all.

Thinking about Pi, however, would involve the use of brain tissue. Brains have weight--generally speaking. For a dead brain there is no relationship of Pi. There is no cake. There are no cookies.

In the same way, it is silly to ask how much a smile weighs--or how much drag or friction hope has. Every concept or idea weighs nothing in and of itself. Thinking is a complex operation in which the brain utilises sensory impressions and stored data to interact with the world. The act of thinking involves the transfer of energy through matter (and of matter through energy).

When a computer speaks a word or displays a picture or performs any other act (such as writing) it is utilizing energy to do so. All of those "displays" have weight. But if the computer defines a conceptual relationship (say Pi)--that does not give the relationship any weight. It is the display which has mass and energy. And the display can present in infinite variety without changing the actual integrity or nature of the pixels. Just so our brains express ideas developed through billions of years of adaptation

Of course, a brain with very few pixels (to enjoy an analogy) is extremely limited in concept formation and other internal displays of imagination.

No matter what sort of Pi is on the computer screen. When the off switch is activated...the Pi disappears and has no attributes--not color, not dimension, and not weight.



To: Greg or e who wrote (27735)6/29/2012 2:10:05 AM
From: 2MAR$  Read Replies (3) | Respond to of 69300
 
LOL! The question was: How much does Pi weigh?

Aside from the "LOLs"...

Curious to see you follow up and explain the point your making here , assume there's some association with the idea of immaterial immortal soul & ideal states in mathematics and what you believe exists beyond the the limits of naturalist explanations ? Really , if your going to keep asking the question it is for you to tell us where you are leading since by asking it you seem to be making a statement of fact?
So enlighten us ...

Do people have immortal individual souls , immaterial, endowed by their creator ? Freed only by belief in one faith or is it a suffused idealized interpretation that all human beings have in their individuation & "personalties" ? How much does the soul weigh and what is that entity apart from the vast realm of all that we are already in the natural state of complexity of 4 bil yrs of evolution ?

When one asks the question "what would the master do" isn't the main theme here being what it is that you would do as an "individual" . You can add the idealism of the " soul " & attribute a reality to that or can just stick with "you the individual" which is about exactly equal & approximate , just the latter does have mass, definable quality & substance . In this universe there is only one like you and as the Roman's said , what you do here today echos in eternity . And that is true from even from strictly naturalist pov & physics .

But what are you trying to say here ? Lets hear it ...