> LLMs are not brains and do not meaningfully share any of the mechanisms that animals or people use to reason or think
LLMs are a type of neural network. We know that’s how the human brain works, at least directionally. It’s going to be very upsetting to a lot of people when we figure out that the brain is just a neural network. Akin to when we found out that humans and apes evolved from a common ancestor.
Which I don’t understand—most of the people having this cognitive dissonance presumably do not have a theological worldview. And there’s not exactly a direct theological conflict here anyway. Nothing in any major religion I’m aware of ascribes any supernatural explanation to cognition. It’s a biological computational process, just like using ATP to power muscle fibers to move your limbs is a biological mechanical process.
"We know that’s how the human brain works, at least directionally."
That's an extreme misrepresentation. What happens inside a human neuron is still not properly understood, it's not as simple as a probability function. And the network itself is certainly not feed-forward. Of course LLMs draw inspiration from the brain, so there are some similarities. But because of the language-trick of using terms from medicine and cognitive science to describe LLM architecture, we see a lot of faulty reasoning from the so-called "rationalist movement".
Modern neuroscience knows quite a lot about what is happening inside neurons. Is it "properly" understood? I don't know what you mean by "properly", so I can't answer that. If an acceptable rephrasing would be "... inside a human neuron is still not completely understood" the I would agree. But just because we don't know everything does not imply that we don't know anything. And keep in mind the qualifier in the part you replied to:
at least directionally.
Taking that qualifier to heart, I'd have to say that I agree with @rayiner. We know the broad brush strokes, even if some details are missing.
rayiner · · focus · HN ↗
LLMs are a type of neural network. We know that’s how the human brain works, at least directionally. It’s going to be very upsetting to a lot of people when we figure out that the brain is just a neural network. Akin to when we found out that humans and apes evolved from a common ancestor.
Which I don’t understand—most of the people having this cognitive dissonance presumably do not have a theological worldview. And there’s not exactly a direct theological conflict here anyway. Nothing in any major religion I’m aware of ascribes any supernatural explanation to cognition. It’s a biological computational process, just like using ATP to power muscle fibers to move your limbs is a biological mechanical process.
lensecat · · focus · HN ↗
That's an extreme misrepresentation. What happens inside a human neuron is still not properly understood, it's not as simple as a probability function. And the network itself is certainly not feed-forward. Of course LLMs draw inspiration from the brain, so there are some similarities. But because of the language-trick of using terms from medicine and cognitive science to describe LLM architecture, we see a lot of faulty reasoning from the so-called "rationalist movement".
<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-72253-7" rel="nofollow">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-72253-7
mindcrime · · focus · HN ↗
at least directionally.
Taking that qualifier to heart, I'd have to say that I agree with @rayiner. We know the broad brush strokes, even if some details are missing.