If what they do is "well described by a bunch of math", they're making calculations.

Unless the substrate is essential and irreducible to get the output (whic is not if what they do is "well described by a bunch of math"), then the material or process (neurons or water pipes or billiard balls or 0s and 1s in a cpu) doesn't matter.

>You've got the direction of the arrow backwards. Map, territory, etc.

The whole point is that at the level we're interested in regarding "what is the process that creates thought/consciousness", the territory is not important: the mechanism is, not the material of the mechanism.