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Wow, was everything you just said wrong on every account. Reasoning is the ability to follow logical rules to their conclusion; it is not a probabilistic endeav

Wow, was everything you just said wrong on every account. Reasoning is the ability to follow logical rules to their conclusion; it is not a probabilistic endeavour. We have 100% confidence that 1 + 1 is 2, 2 + 1 is 3, 3 + 1 is 4, following infinitely. Meanwhile an LLM cannot reliably sum two numbers because it is operating purely probabilistically. We invent symbolic systems to record and communicate the reasoning that occurs inside our heads. Externalization is in no way necessary to the actual reasoning. The "lossy" part is when humans die and lose the progress they had made on reasoning. Writing it down preserves and transfers the progress so that others can learn from and continue building on it. I don't understand why LLM consciousness-believers are so down on the brain's code. Why is it difficult for you to believe that we have code that is, in fact, more complicated than guessing the next token? It's weird that we develop this technology that is cool but pretty clearly nowhere near our capabilities, and then diminish our own capabilities in our eagerness to promote how cool the new tool is.

estearum 11mo ago
Oof. 1. I know what reasoning is theoretically. Humans do not do that though. Brains do not have the hardware to do anything other than probabilistic prediction. You've already acknowledged this, but now are in denial because the corollaries are awfully inconvenient for a conclusion you've already committed yourself to! 2. No one claimed externalization is necessary to reason. I am claiming that people use externalization (even in lieu of collaboration with others) because brains are in fact so unreliable at even basic logic, which you allege they have built-in hardware to do (they do not). 3. I'm not an LLM consciousness-believer. I'm not sure why you keep supposing that I am. > Why is it difficult for you to believe that we have code that is, in fact, more complicated than guessing the next token Because there is no evidence for anything going on in the brain other predicting sensory input and probabilistically transforming it into behavior and conscious experience. Show evidence for where in the brain any other process is occurring and I'd be excited to dig into it :)

estearum 11mo ago

Oof. 1. I know what reasoning is theoretically. Humans do not do that though. Brains do not have the hardware to do anything other than probabilistic prediction. You've already acknowledged this, but now are in denial because the corollaries are awfully inconvenient for a conclusion you've already committed yourself to! 2. No one claimed externalization is necessary to reason. I am claiming that people use externalization (even in lieu of collaboration with others) because brains are in fact so unreliable at even basic logic, which you allege they have built-in hardware to do (they do not). 3. I'm not an LLM consciousness-believer. I'm not sure why you keep supposing that I am. > Why is it difficult for you to believe that we have code that is, in fact, more complicated than guessing the next token Because there is no evidence for anything going on in the brain other predicting sensory input and probabilistically transforming it into behavior and conscious experience. Show evidence for where in the brain any other process is occurring and I'd be excited to dig into it :)