yup
extremely european voice: the llm vs world model debate is encapsulated & foreshadowed by the canonical texts of 18th century german aesthetic philosophy, specifically herder’s “treatise on the origin of language” and kant’s “conjectures on the beginning of human history.” both philosophers interrogated (and attempted to locate philosophically/temporally) the awakening of human reasoning/how we differ from animals. herder locates this quality in language and more specifically “besonnenheit” or the capacity to mark and stabilize experience in signs. meanwhile kant argues that the ability to visual and model future states (aka “conscious expectation of the future” itself the 3rd step in a 4 step process in which humans evolve out of animal instinct into reason/freedom…for those curious the 4 steps are 1) food 2) sex/modesty 3) future/anticipation 4) moral dominion and freedom) is THE thing that makes us human, the ability to have imagined futures. where you fall in the agi debate can largely be predicted by whose philosophy you align more with…herder’s or kant’s…
