My take is more nuanced.
First, there is some evidence [1] that human language is neither necessary nor sufficient to enable what we experience as "thinking".
Second, our intuition, thinking etc are communicated via natural languages and imagery which form the basis for topics in the humanities.
Third, from communication via natural language - slowly emerges symbolism, and formalism which codifies intuitions in a manner which is operational, and useful.
As an example, socratic dialog was a precursor to euclidean geometry which operationally codifies our intuitions of space around us in a manner which becomes useful.
However, formalism is stale as there are always new worlds we experience which cannot be captured by any formalism. The genius of the human brain which is not yet captured in LLMs is to be able create symbolisms of these worlds almost on demand.
ie, if we were to order in terms of expressive power, it would be something like:
1) perception, cognition, thinking, imagination 2) human language 3) formal languages and computers codifying worlds experienced via 1) and 2)
Meanwhile, there is a provocative hypothesis [2] which argues that our "thinking" process lies outside computation as we know it.
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07522-w [2] https://www.amazon.com/Emperors-New-Mind-Concerning-Computer... [3] https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD06xx/EWD667...
My take is more nuanced.
First, there is some evidence [1] that human language is neither necessary nor sufficient to enable what we experience as "thinking".
Second, our intuition, thinking etc are communicated via natural languages and imagery which form the basis for topics in the humanities.
Third, from communication via natural language - slowly emerges symbolism, and formalism which codifies intuitions in a manner which is operational, and useful.
As an example, socratic dialog was a precursor to euclidean geometry which operationally codifies our intuitions of space around us in a manner which becomes useful.
However, formalism is stale as there are always new worlds we experience which cannot be captured by any formalism. The genius of the human brain which is not yet captured in LLMs is to be able create symbolisms of these worlds almost on demand.
ie, if we were to order in terms of expressive power, it would be something like:
1) perception, cognition, thinking, imagination 2) human language 3) formal languages and computers codifying worlds experienced via 1) and 2)
Meanwhile, there is a provocative hypothesis [2] which argues that our "thinking" process lies outside computation as we know it.
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07522-w [2] https://www.amazon.com/Emperors-New-Mind-Concerning-Computer... [3] https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD06xx/EWD667...
related notes that there is some evidence that "Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought" [1]. ie, that language is neither necessary nor sufficient for the so-called psychic thinking process. It serves as a communication mechanism. Meanwhile, there is a hypothesis that the psychic thinking process lies beyond computation as we know it [2] in the form of turing machines etc.
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07522-w [2] https://www.amazon.com/Emperors-New-Mind-Concerning-Computer...
If I were to guess, the missing building block is the ability to abstract - which is the ability to create a symbol to represent something. Concrete example of abstraction is seen in the axioms of lambda calculus. 1) ability to posit a variable, 2) ability to define a function using said variable, and 3) the ability to apply functions to things. Abstraction arises from a process in the brain which we have not understood yet and could be outside of computation as we know it per [1]
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Emperors-New-Mind-Concerning-Computer...