> 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.
> Nothing in any major religion I’m aware of ascribes any supernatural explanation to cognition
Uh .. the Christian creation myth effectively assigns a supernatural explanation to everything as the literal creation of the divine. It's also very clear on the continuation of life after death in some form. It is not at all clear on how any of this is supposed to work or is connected to the physical universe, which has been a problem for Christian thinkers in the sciences.
> It’s a biological computational process
Like, I basically agree on this but it is not at all a given that millions of believers would agree that's the end of the question. Even within the Jawhist religions, before we get into whatever is going on with Shinto.
Most of Christianity puts some weight of "You" into the "soul". A machine can never have a soul. There are semi-explicit beliefs that what makes humans think "like us" is that soul and that things without a soul can never think "like us" and this belief survived even things like training animals.
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.
pjc50 · · focus · HN ↗
Uh .. the Christian creation myth effectively assigns a supernatural explanation to everything as the literal creation of the divine. It's also very clear on the continuation of life after death in some form. It is not at all clear on how any of this is supposed to work or is connected to the physical universe, which has been a problem for Christian thinkers in the sciences.
> It’s a biological computational process
Like, I basically agree on this but it is not at all a given that millions of believers would agree that's the end of the question. Even within the Jawhist religions, before we get into whatever is going on with Shinto.
mrguyorama · · focus · HN ↗