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When a person uses the phrase "No true understanding" I can tell they don't know what they are talking about at all.

It can engage, use, explain, transform and apply highly sophisticated concepts, philosophies, styles, and models of the world in writing. If that isn't understanding...

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There's a distinct difference between asking somebody to write/copy/show a complex concept and understanding it. What I don't understand (get it?) is how people are still conflating LLM's behavior with true understanding of concepts when it's obviously not the same thing.

Please provide the definition of "true understanding." I think the only good argument here is that it lacks "lived experiences" and has synthetic understanding. That being said, have you been to a university? Profs seem to be entirely based on a synthetic understanding of the world anyways.

Indeed.

It can also write non-trivial code that works. There's a saying "if you can't code it, you don't know it". Conversely, if you can code it, you do understand it, at some functional level.

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