Comment by temporarely | Hacker News Reader

Comment by temporarely | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

The terminology is wrong but your point is valid. There is no internal criteria or mechanism for statement verification. As the mind likely is also in part a high dimensional construct and LLMs to an extent represent our collective jumble of 'notions' it is natural that their emits resonate with human users.

Q1: A ""correct" symbolic representation" of x. What is x? Your "Is there an intent to communicate, or" choice construct is problematic. Why would one require a "symbolic representation" of x, x likely being a 'meaningful thought'. So this is a hot debate whether semantics is primary or merely application. I believe it is primary in which case "symbolic representation" is 'an aid' to gaining a concrete sense of what is 'somehow' 'understood'. You observe a phenomena, and understand its dynamics. You may even anticipate it while observing. To formalize that understanding is the beginning of 'expression'.

Q2: because while there is a function LLM(encodings, q) that emits 'plausible' responses, an equivalent function for Pi does not exist outside of 'pure inexpressible realm of understanding' :)

>I believe it is primary in which case "symbolic representation" is 'an aid' to gaining a concrete sense of what is 'somehow' 'understood'.

There is nothing magic about perception to distinguish it meaningfully from symbolic representation; in point of fact, that which you experience is in and of itself a symbolic representation of the world around you. You do not sense the frequencies outside the physical transduction capabilities of the human ear, or the wavelengths similarly beyond the capability to transduce of the human eye, or feel distinct contact beyond the density of haptic transduction of somatic nerves. Nevertheless, those phenomena are still there, and despite their insensible nature, have an effect on you. Your entire perception is a map, which one would be well advised to not mistake for the territory. To dismiss symbolic representation as something that only occurs on communication after perception is to "lose sight" of the fact that all the data your mind integrates into a perception is itself, symbolic.

Communication, and symbolic representation is all there is, and it happens long before we even get to the partnof reality where I'm trying to select words to converse about it with you.

> There is nothing magic about perception to distinguish it meaningfully from symbolic representation; in point of fact, that which you experience is in and of itself a symbolic representation of the world around you.

You're right that there's nothing magic about it at all. The mind operates on symbolic representations, but whether those are symbolic representations of external sensory input or symbolic representations of purely endogenous stochastic processes makes for a night-and-day difference.

Perception is a map, but it's a map of real territory, which is what makes it useful. Trying to navigate reality with a map that doesn't represent real territory is not just not useless, it's dangerous.

> As the mind likely is also in part a high dimensional construct and LLMs to an extent represent our collective jumble of 'notions' it is natural that their emits resonate with human users.

But humans are equipped with sensory input, allowing us to formulate our notions by reference to external data, not just generate notions by internally extrapolating existing notions. When we fail do do this, and do formulate our notions entirely endogenously, that's when we say we are hallucinating.

Since LLMs are only capable of endogenous inference, and are not able formulate notions based on empirical observation, the are always hallucinating.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com