[GoLUG] LLMs can't reason

[Kyle Terrien]

On Fri, Jun 13, 2025 at 11:10:11AM -0700, Ron wrote:
> Kyle Terrien wrote on 2025-06-10 23:07:
> 
> > the human has a soul.
> 
> It shouldn't need to be pointed out that this is a philosophical or
> theological opinion, not a fact for which any evidence exists.

Oh really?  No evidence?

It shouldn’t need to be pointed out that the philosophies which argue
against the existence of a soul are much younger, much less developed,
and lead to dead ends; unlike the philosophy which does argue for (and
presents evidence) of the existence of the soul.  However, the myth
persists.

(Some of you who know me well probably knew this was coming.  😉)

There is a clear difference between a corpse and a person, even though
the physical composition is the same.  So, a soul can be defined as
that which makes an otherwise lifeless body alive.  [1]

If there is no soul, then we are merely spiritless automatons, and
there is no way I could be held accountable for the choices I make,
because I was always going to make that particular choice anyway, and
there is nothing I could do about it.

If there is no soul, than what animates a living being?  If it is a
chemical, then why can’t anyone isolate the chemical?  Injecting such
a chemical into a dead body could in theory reanimate it.  However,
that is still the subject of gothic fiction.

What gives us free will?  How can we love?

Regarding material versus immaterial, consider this experiment.  Think
of your best friend.  Think of an island paradise.  Now, think of your
best friend on an island paradise.  The very fact that you can take
two ideas and combine them, without the “best friend” and “island
paradise” parts of your brain moving inside your head (physically or
chemically) demonstrates that the ideas are immaterial, and that you
can interact and manipulate immaterial things.

Materialism and naturalism cannot explain these things.

Phenomenology (which travels hand-in-hand with materialism) denies the
existence of objective reality, but it somehow misses an obvious
contradiction: if the core rule of your worldview is that there are no
absolute rules, then you still have one absolute rule: the axiom that
there are no absolute rules.  In math terms, if A == B, then A != !B
in the same place at the same time in the same context.

Thus, the bottom line is this: if the soul exists, then it exists
regardless of how strongly you assert that it’s “just an opinion”.

--Kyle

[1]: https://www.radioreplies.info/radio-replies-vol-1.php?t=5

-- 
[*] Kyle Terrien
    Terrenus => from the Earth, to the Cloud
    https://terren.us/

Dilexisti justitiam, et odisti iniquitatem.  -- Psalmus 44:8