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Notes/do-people-think.md

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+---
+title: Do ~~Machines~~ People Think?
+date: 2026-04-02
+layout: column.njk
+tags: column
+permalink: /columns/2026/do-people-think/
+---
+
+## Rough Notes
+- Thinking:
+    - Can we flip this around, and define it by reduction? What isn't thinking?
+        1. Reaction
+        2. Reflex
+        3. Conditioned behavior
+    - But what part of thinking isn't grounded in some conditioned behavior? Some reflex triggered by a problem to solve?
+    - But thinking seems to involve "modeling," and for our purposes, we mean a mental model.
+    - This mental model gets tested, calibrated, exercised.
+        - So how is this different than a program?
+    - Digital vs. Analog?
+    - Inputs, the decisions, are much fuzzier for organic mental models (and thinking)
+    - Computers are (seemingly) deterministic
+        - But, if we shed this assumption, what happens to our distinction?
+    - If computers can "approximate" the fuzziness with digital values...
+        - same question, what happens to our distinction?
+    - Thinking as a survival skill
+        - Thinking as communication
+        - Socialization
+        - Connecting with neighbors and "vibing."
+        - Thinking as an emergent behavior, among a pool of people
+        - Maybe the mob mentality is the purest expression of thought.
+            - Without self, or ego.
+    - What does it map to, in the scheme of things?
+        - I keep thinking about connections
+        - And how stifling it is to exist in isolation
+        - But to become ingrained in something
+        - And to connect with the people, the pieces
+        - To have an exchange, that's the essence of thinking
+    - Some kind of transformation, born from the coordination and interaction of many players
+    - Bottling it within youself, just as senses, impressions without a voice, with no expression or transformation
+    - We form groups, we organize, and we process together. That's thinking
+
+## Quotes
+> "[he thinks] that the idealistic creations of his mind... also represent reality." - Claude Bernard
+
+> "Much thinking is done in completely personal, idiosyncratic terms, so much so that how it is done is incommunicable." - Gerald Weinberg
+
+
+## Questions
+
+- Who is Claude Bernard?
+    - Famous French Physiologist (1813-78).
+
+- How would I define "thinking?"
+
+- Is "thinking" in isolation really thinking? Or, is thinking in a social / anthropological sense a connector?
+
+
+## Links
+[1] - Hamming, R. (1997). The art of doing science and engineering: Learning to learn. CRC. <https://archive.org/details/artofdoingscienc0000rich>
+[2] - Weinberg, Gerald M. An Introduction to General Systems Thinking. Wiley, 1975. Internet Archive, <https://archive.org/details/introductiontoge00gera>.