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Language is not essential for the cognitive processes that underlie thought

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Language is not essential for the cognitive processes that underlie thought

#201

Post by bbor »

nox101 wrote: post #175
CSMastermind wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you look at how humans play chess they employ several different cognitive strategies. Memorization, calculation, strategic thinking, heuristics, and learned experience. When the first chess engines came out they only employed one of these: calculation. It wasn't until relatively recently that we had computer programs that could perform all of them. But it turns out that if you scale that up with enough compute y…

It sounds like you think this research is wrong? (it claims llms can not reason) https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/10/llms-cant-perform-genuine... or do you maybe think no logical reasoning is needed to do everything a human can do? Tho humans seem to be able to do logical reasoning

I’ll pop in with a friendly “that research is definitely wrong”. If they want to prove that LLMs can’t reason, shouldn’t they stringently define that word somewhere in their paper? As it stands, they’re proving something small (some of today’s LLMs have XYZ weaknesses) and claiming something big (humans have an ineffable calculator-soul).

LLMs absolutely 100% can reason, if we take the dictionary definition; it’s trivial to show their ability to answer non-memorized questions, and the only way to do that is some sort of reasoning. I personally don’t think they’re the most efficient tool for deliberative derivation of concepts, but I also think any sort of categorical prohibition is anti-scientific. What is the brain other than a neural network?

Even if we accept the most fringe, anthropocentric theories like Penrose & Hammerhoff’s quantum tubules, that’s just a neural network with fancy weights. How could we possibly hope to forbid digital recreations of our brains from “truly” or “really” mimicking them?

Re: Language is not essential for the cognitive processes that underlie thought

#202

Post by calf »

jwarden wrote: post #39
Razengan wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you count without using a "language"? Try it now: Tap your hand on the desk randomly. Can you recall how many times you did it without "saying" a sequence in your head like "1, 2, 3" or "A, B, C" etc? If yes, how far can you count? With a language it's effectively infinite. You could theoretically go up to "1 million 5 hundred 43 thousand, 2 hundred and 10" and effortlessly know what comes next.

I can. But I do this by visualizing the taps as a group. I don't have to label them with a number. I can see them in my mind, thus recalling the taps. If I tap with any sort of rhythm I can see the rhythm in the way they are laid out in my mind and this helps with recollection. If I want to translate this knowledge into a number, I need to count the taps I am seeing in my head. At that point I do need to think of the…

But that's like how I memorize sheet music, visual groups and subgroups of notes, and yet sheet music is formally linguistic nevertheless. So in such debates I think a tricky pitfall to avoid is that all data structures are essentially linguistic as well.

Re: Language is not essential for the cognitive processes that underlie thought

#204

Post by slashdave »

Tagbert wrote: post #181

I’ve been hearing/reading about people who don’t have an inner monologue. Their experience of cognition is not verbally-based. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/inner-monologue-...

Honestly, for some of us the idea that all your thoughts have to filter through language sounds very tedious.

I want to remind everyone that your experiences are unique and do not necessarily translate to all other people.

Re: Language is not essential for the cognitive processes that underlie thought

#205

Post by HKH2 »

Razengan wrote: post #138

Those without, do you feel “jealous” of people with a “mind’s eye”? Or vice versa?

You seem to be conflating inner monologues and imagination.

I don't use an inner monologue but my imagination is fairly good at creating new images.

Re: Language is not essential for the cognitive processes that underlie thought

#206

Post by slashdave »

Razengan wrote: post #21
fnordpiglet wrote: post #2

For those who can’t and don’t think in words this is unsurprising.

Can you count without using a "language"? Try it now: Tap your hand on the desk randomly. Can you recall how many times you did it without "saying" a sequence in your head like "1, 2, 3" or "A, B, C" etc? If yes, how far can you count? With a language it's effectively infinite. You could theoretically go up to "1 million 5 hundred 43 thousand, 2 hundred and 10" and effortlessly know what comes next.

> Can you count without using a "language"?

Yes. Seriously, these kind of questions are so surprising. It tells you that everyone's experience is just a little different.

Re: Language is not essential for the cognitive processes that underlie thought

#207

Post by slashdave »

Razengan wrote: post #138

Those without, do you feel “jealous” of people with a “mind’s eye”? Or vice versa?

What? No. The idea that your thoughts have to be expressed in something as crude as language sounds very tedious and limiting.

Re: Language is not essential for the cognitive processes that underlie thought

#208

Post by slashdave »

farts_mckensy wrote: post #47

Stix's claim appears to be unfalsifiable. In scientific and philosophical discourse, a proposition must be falsifiable—there must be a conceivable empirical test that could potentially refute it. This criterion is fundamental for meaningful inquiry. Several factors contribute to the unfalsifiability of this claim: Subjectivity of Thought: Thought processes are inherently internal and subjective. There is no direct me…

You are just redefining symbols (language) as thought. This is semantic nonsense and purely circular reasoning.

Re: Language is not essential for the cognitive processes that underlie thought

#209

Post by slashdave »

nickelpro wrote: post #28

As always, barely anyone reads the actual claims in the article and we're left with people opining on the title. The claims here are exceptionally limited. You don't need spoken language to do well on cognitive tests, but that has never been a subject of debate. Obviously the deaf get on fine without spoken language. People suffering from aphasia, but still capable of communication via other mechanisms, still do well…

No, language's purpose is to communicate. Isn't this obvious?

Re: Language is not essential for the cognitive processes that underlie thought

#210

Post by slashdave »

yarg wrote: post #51

Is this not obvious? Language is a very poor substitute for freely flowing electrical information - it is evolved to compensate for the bottlenecks to external communication - bottlenecks that are lacking an internal analogue. It's also a highly advanced feature - something as heavily optiimised as evolved life would not allow something as vital as cognition to be hampered by a lack of means for high fidelity externa…

Perhaps. But one could argue that the development of language (as necessary for communication, its original purpose) was the seed that lead to evolutionary development of deeper thinking.
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