ChatGPT vs. Claude on ColorMatrix conversion - which answer is correct?

[Frank62]

There are low-level mechanisms for everything anything living does. But this does not answer the question.

[GeoffreyA]

You're right: I answered how, but not why. I admit it's a challenging one. If we deny that the cell has any rudimentary agency, it boils down to the mechanism; there is a mechanism and it moves. We then ask, where does the mechanism come from? And this takes us to the ultimate riddle on the origin of life.

On the other hand, if we imagine there is some form of "agency"---and as we see elsewhere in our bodies, various cells have scripted behaviour quite apart from "us"---then we could say that it "knows" it must get the food and does so, according to some script. But this leads us back to the earlier question on the origin.

[microchip8]

This thread has gotten wayyyy off-track!

[filler56789]

Originally Posted by microchip8

This thread has gotten wayyyy off-track!

Yes, but at least it became far more interesting than the A.I. chats themselves.

[Frank62]

Originally Posted by GeoffreyA

...
then we could say that it "knows" it must get the food and does so, according to some script.
...

If it were a script, you could make predictions. But you can't do that with living organisms. Not even the smallest movement of an organism can be predicted. There are theories according to which the fruit fly flies to the food source and is possibly diverted from it by air currents or an obstacle, and so on...
I am of the opinion that even with the most precise knowledge of the circumstances, it is NOT possible to predict exactly where the next movement of a living being will be directed, and this - I believe - has nothing to do with quantum phenomena (although on a smaller scale all life has a lot to do with it), but with something that still awaits a more precise explanation.
This difference to non-living material makes a lot of difference, but at first glance it doesn't have that much to do with the difference between biologically based intelligence and A. I. But ultimately it does (I think), but this is really twice off topic, sorry.
(Translated with DeepL)

[Z2697]

Originally Posted by Frank62

If it were a script, you could make predictions. But you can't do that with living organisms. Not even the smallest movement of an organism can be predicted. There are theories according to which the fruit fly flies to the food source and is possibly diverted from it by air currents or an obstacle, and so on...
I am of the opinion that even with the most precise knowledge of the circumstances, it is NOT possible to predict exactly where the next movement of a living being will be directed, and this - I believe - has nothing to do with quantum phenomena (although on a smaller scale all life has a lot to do with it), but with something that still awaits a more precise explanation.
This difference to non-living material makes a lot of difference, but at first glance it doesn't have that much to do with the difference between biologically based intelligence and A. I. But ultimately it does (I think), but this is really twice off topic, sorry.
(Translated with DeepL)

You can't even reliably predict a real world double-rod pendulum. It's just how current science works.

[GeoffreyA]

Originally Posted by Frank62

If it were a script, you could make predictions. But you can't do that with living organisms. Not even the smallest movement of an organism can be predicted. There are theories according to which the fruit fly flies to the food source and is possibly diverted from it by air currents or an obstacle, and so on...
I am of the opinion that even with the most precise knowledge of the circumstances, it is NOT possible to predict exactly where the next movement of a living being will be directed, and this - I believe - has nothing to do with quantum phenomena (although on a smaller scale all life has a lot to do with it), but with something that still awaits a more precise explanation.
This difference to non-living material makes a lot of difference, but at first glance it doesn't have that much to do with the difference between biologically based intelligence and A. I. But ultimately it does (I think), but this is really twice off topic, sorry.
(Translated with DeepL)

At the risk of going further off-topic, I must respond to this thought-provoking comment. Your argument is that, in principle, and with full knowledge of an organism and its environment, it still can't be predicted and this is due to some quality other than quantum uncertainty. As Penrose pointed out, it is possible for a system to be deterministic and non-computable. Then, if we were to ascribe it to quantum processes, which I don't think it is either, the Schrödinger-equation side of things is deterministic, and it is only when collapse happens, during measurement, that there is probabilistic jumping to a classical configuration. Some piece is missing.

In the end, it could simply be that the overwhelming complexity of an organism and its environment renders prediction impractical. But if impossible in principle, it would be good to ask, where exactly does the impossibility come in? Is it non-computable; quantum probability; or something outside the universe, inaccessible from within? (Though the latter goes into the realms of metaphysics.)

[Frank62]

I am sorry too to keep somehow off-topic, but hope we will find mercy with our little discussion.

Originally Posted by Z2697

You can't even reliably predict a real world double-rod pendulum. It's just how current science works.

The unpredictability of a double-rod pendulum is due to the lack of accuracy with which the conditions can be known, because the slightest deviation due to the slightest influences leads to increasing changes.
It is a supposedly simple system, but due to the above property it is actually inaccurate, this is the chaos-theory-trick with it. In principle, however, the (inanimate) universe remains deterministic, even if there are double-bar pendulums in it.
The WILL of a living being is something completely different, located at a much higher level of complexity.
It is unpredictable for completely different reasons.

Originally Posted by GeoffreyA

Some piece is missing.

Yes, exactly.

In the end, it could simply be that the overwhelming complexity of an organism and its environment renders prediction impractical.

That's, what I don't think, but of course possible.

But if impossible in principle, it would be good to ask, where exactly does the impossibility come in? Is it non-computable; quantum probability; or something outside the universe, inaccessible from within? (Though the latter goes into the realms of metaphysics.)

I believe it is
- not computable
- not a phenomenon based on quantum mechanics, as it is located far above the level of any quantum decoherence
- nor is it something that requires metaphysics or even God

I simply believe that we are dealing here with something truly unexplored, but which is very much part of this world and can very well be explained in the future (although "explain" is a very difficult word...), and what in the end makes a huge difference between our biological kind of intelligence and A. I.

[Z2697]

Whatever WILL is, my point is actually not related to WILL itself.
You made it sounds like "being unpredictable == having will", I disgree with that.
I think single cell living is unpredictable because of the chaos theory, although it's probably trillions times more complex than a double-rod pendulum.
(OR DOES IT? Does double-rod pendulum have WILL? Can we even prove it not?)

Oh guys, please stop arguing around the (currently) UNKNOWABLE.

[Frank62]

Originally Posted by Z2697

Whatever WILL is, my point is actually not related to WILL itself.
You made it sounds like "being unpredictable == having will", I disgree with that.

I did not mean to "make anything sound like".
And I did really not say or mean: "being unpredictable == having will", rather
"having will == being unpredictable", but I didn't say that either.
I had said: A biological organism is unpredictable even if all known variables are known. And neither because of chaos theory nor for quantum mechanical reasons. I later used the term "will" as a possible reason for this. No more and no less.

I just wanted to give my opinion on a possible difference why A. I. might differ from biologically evolved intelligence, and what reasons there might be for this.

I think single cell living is unpredictable because of the chaos theory, although it's probably trillions times more complex than a double-rod pendulum.

I don't. I understand you well, but we are just of different opinion here.

(OR DOES IT? Does double-rod pendulum have WILL? Can we even prove it not?)

That would be philosophizing about something that is very likely nonsense. Fun for (some) philosophers, but (most likely) a waste of time for others who are interested in finding out what is really happening. I'm not interested in that kind of discussion any more than you are.
I just found Geoffrey's points very interesting and have tried to post a small part of mine here.

Oh guys, please stop arguing around the (currently) UNKNOWABLE.

We hadn't even started arguing yet. Just listed a few potentially interesting points.
And: why? A: I. is one of the most fascinating topics of our time and influences so many things also in the video sector that the discussion doesn't even seem very off-topic to me.

[VoodooFX]

Originally Posted by Frank62

The WILL of a living being is something completely different, located at a much higher level of complexity.
It is unpredictable for completely different reasons.

It's unpredictable for the same fundamental reasons - too many influences.
Your "WILL" is just various chemical reactions in your brain.

Originally Posted by Frank62

I had said: A biological organism is unpredictable even if all known variables are known.

If all variables are known it would be predictable like a clock.

[filler56789]

Originally Posted by VoodooFX

Your "WILL" is just various chemical reactions in your brain.

That's an assumption that shoud have been properly-killed in the 19th century.
Sadly it's still alive and well.

[Frank62]

Originally Posted by VoodooFX

It's unpredictable for the same fundamental reasons - too many influences.
Your "WILL" is just various chemical reactions in your brain.

Not in any way.
But I think that's really going too far here.

If all variables are known it would be predictable like a clock.

The question is which variables. I said if all KNOWN variables were known.
But there are - quite obviously to me - variables in living organisms that are NOT limited to (anyway Heisenberg fuzzy) particles and their movements, and these remain UNKNOWN as long as ... well... nothing exact is known about them.

[GeoffreyA]

Roger Penrose has maintained that there is a non-algorithmic or non-computable basis to consciousness. This seems similar, Frank, to what you are terming "will." If we were to boil it down to its essentials, this would mean that will causes the movement of particles that cannot be predicted from the previous state (but is, possibly, determined by it and leaving out quantum reasons). If this were true, especially the determinism part, it would mean that our will is an illusion, is determined, but cannot be predicted.

I am of the opinion that consciousness is mechanistic (or "materialistic") and doesn't require the exotic qualities we are describing here. However, we know so little and I am quite open to there being more than meets the eye. For one, consciousness seems intimately tied to time, the nature of which is still a mystery in physics. Understanding time may well resolve many of these questions.

It could well be that the missing, non-quantum, non-computable physics under discussion in this thread resolves the tension between quantum mechanics and general relativity.

Originally Posted by Frank62

But there are - quite obviously to me - variables in living organisms that are NOT limited to (anyway Heisenberg fuzzy) particles and their movements, and these remain UNKNOWN as long as ... well... nothing exact is known about them.

I think particles and waves are mere approximations, from the space-time point of view, of deeper entities. QM has partly hit on their rules but the picture is not complete. (The missing theory would solve the measurement problem and account for the domain where the crossing over from quantum to classical happens.)

[Frank62]

Originally Posted by GeoffreyA

...
If this were true, especially the determinism part, it would mean that our will is an illusion
...

I do not understand this part. Can you please explain?

...
Understanding time may well resolve many of these questions.

It could well be that the missing, non-quantum, non-computable physics under discussion in this thread resolves the tension between quantum mechanics and general relativity.
...

That would be of course wonderful and fascinating.
I think that if we really want to fundamentally broaden our horizons, we need a completely different view of what is, i.e. a different perspective, a different model.
Above all, this has to do with INFORMATION and an informational view and approach.

[GeoffreyA]

Originally Posted by Frank62

I do not understand this part. Can you please explain?

If everything is deterministic, free will is illusory. We are set on a course but have the perception that we choose. Similarly, if there is non-determinism because of a random quality in Nature, we still do not choose.

I think that if we really want to fundamentally broaden our horizons, we need a completely different view of what is, i.e. a different perspective, a different model. [...] Above all, this has to do with INFORMATION and an informational view and approach.

I agree with you. For a long time I've believed that reality, at some low level, is a non-spatial, non-temporal domain, the elements of which are perhaps information or something else. Wherever we look, information seems to hit us. It appears fundamental. I think what we see in our world is a high-level "rendering" from low-level data, according to various transformations, like that in a computer game or simulation. At an intermediate level, we've got the quantum regime where things are being calculated in the complex space according to the rules of QM. Lastly, it is mapped, as an approximation, to the space-time domain where other rules hold sway; this mapping isn't perfect, so we see strange quantum "oddities" at times (entanglement,* quantum eraser, etc.). We're going from BT.2020 to BT.709, a lossy operation!

* (The EPR phenomenon demonstrates, to me, that distance, or space, is not fundamental. Those entangled particles have their existence in a pre-spatial realm.)

[Frank62]

A pleasure to read this.

[VoodooFX]

Originally Posted by Frank62

A biological organism is unpredictable even if all known variables are known.

That sounds oxymoronic, no need to use "known" twice, from the first "known" we already know that they are known.

Here your sentence is un-oxymoroned:

A biological organism is unpredictable even if some variables are known.

[Frank62]

Could it be that you meant "pleonastic"? Oxymoronic requires opposites rather than overlapping doublings.
I had all this translated by DeepL (now again) so as not to be misunderstood once in this forum - unfortunately it didn't help. I should check the translation next time so that readers as accurate as you don't have any problems reading it.

The second "unknown" originally meant (in German) the value of the variable, the first "unknown" meant the variable itself.
In connection with "unknown", the "unknown value of variables" is often incorrectly (if you take it as accurately as you do) expressed as "unknown variables". So my point here was that:

1. not everything is known that could be variable in the context
2. of the variables that are known (researched), their value is also known
In context: Even if you know all THE conditions that ARE PHYSICALLY KNOWN AND RESEARCHED at a point in time before a thought, it is possible that other variables that ARE NOT KNOWN will throw a spanner in the works, and you can not predict.

However, since your friendly comment was meant purely destructive anyway, probably intended to express contempt, you are in a way right, in that your intention was successful. Thank you. These things always hurt exactly then, when you know that they come from intelligent people who really know something.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

[GeoffreyA]

Originally Posted by Frank62

A pleasure to read this.

Same. It's been a challenging and delightful conversation that got me thinking again about ideas that haven't been in my head much these days. Thanks, Frank.