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I read and understand the code using my brain, by constructing a mental model and reasoning about it. An AI can't do this because they don't have mental models and don't do reasoning.

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I am out of my depth here and don’t know anything about how other people reason and construct mental models, but I mostly talk to myself about the problem and then do something at the end of that. There’s no point where I like have the whole solution in my minds eye (for programming topics, maybe for a drawing or a sculpture or removing a transmission or something I can do that).

Following the output of agent “thinking” simulation lines up pretty good with what I’ve been doing for 20ish years, but of course I may just be a moron who isn’t good at computers.

I don't think I would conclude you're a moron. I don't think you really "hold everything in your mind's eye" when you understand something. I don't know how I do it or how it really works (nobody does). But the fact that the agent logs resemble how I might talk while thinking doesn't really give me much confidence (since chatbots can resemble all kinds of behaviour they're not actually doing).

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