---
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?

- Do machines Think?
    - Yes
        - True thought has structure, a sequence, clear logical steps.
        - It is neither random nor unpredictable. It follows clear, irrefutable logic.
        - Anything else is noise
    - No
        - Machines are bound by rules. They can only follow a pre-programmed sequence of steps
        - The sequence may have rich variety, but lacks in originality.
        - Thinking is about novelty. Making leaps of intuition and instinct.
        - If we can pave the way between with logic or reasoning, that's nice, but not essential.
    - I reject this approach as flawed, lacking both nuance and merit.
        - Total aside: the point shouldn't be to subscribe absolutely to one side or the other, and claim it the undeniable truth.
        - These are devices, anchor points around which we can scaffold our reasoning, and draw tighter bounds around the concept being examined.
        - They themselves are not to be confused with the subject at hand.
            - by extension, we won't say that one or the other, both or neither are the thing itself.
            - Like confusing the map for the terrain.
                - these are navigational aids
    - So probably not a single definition of thinking
        - there's the intuitive kind, that machines might struggle with
        - There's the expansive, logical kind, machines are better suited for.


## 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>.