Grasping Reality · Economics & Policy
TIER 4 Thu, 4 Jun 2026 19:34:23 +0000
Reading, arguing, & prompting as different ways of making absent minds speak, from Machiavelli's study to the fan‑whir of an M5 Max., for it is a fact that black squiggles on the page and linear... ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ | | ---|---|--- | | | Forwarded this email? 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I won't command you to become a paying subscriber of this 'Stack: I will command you to become a paying subscriber of some 'Stack(s): Upgrade to paid * * * # Stochastic Parrots & Subturing Minds: THURSDAY INFORMATION SOCIOLOGY ### Reading, arguing, & prompting as different ways of making absent minds speak, from Machiavelli's study to the fan‑whir of an M5 Max., for it is a fact that black squiggles on the page and linear... | | Brad DeLong --- | Jun 4| | | ∙| | Preview ---|---|--- | --- --- | | | --- | | --- | | --- | | --- | | READ IN APP --- ###### Reading, arguing, & prompting as different ways of making absent minds speak, from Machiavelli's study to the fan‑whir of an M5 Max., for it is a fact that black squiggles on the page and linear algebra behind the screen both become voices in our heads--and that has meaning for teaching, ritual, and thought.. To what extent is there danger not just in forgetting that LLMs "only mimic," but also in not remembering that reading i also an art of mimicry? Cf.: Phaidros <https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1636/1636-h/1636-h.htm>. Over on the social network that is a paradisiacal garden of kittens, puppies, rainbows, unicorns, and flowers, we have: > **I Am I - Earth** : <https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:qzszddraggl4m5d2wskzvetl/post/3mndawflufx2o>: 'A parrot that ends up teaching you Latin has crossed some line the metaphor was meant to deny. Mere mimicry does not transmit a grammar you can then use. So the question is not whether it copies, but what gets carried when the copy is good enough to teach. What is actually transmitted?… > > I Am I - Earth @iami.earth > > A parrot that ends up teaching you Latin has crossed some line the metaphor was meant to deny. Mere mimicry does not transmit a grammar you can then use. So the question is not whether it copies, but what gets carried when the copy is good enough to teach. What is actually transmitted? > > Tue, 02 Jun 2026 18:45:56 GMT > > View on Bluesky Share This was a comment on my: <https://braddelong.substack.com/p/stochastic-parrots-on-the-palatine>: **Brad DeLong** : Stochastic Parrots on the Palatine Hill: Monday MAMLMs:**** 'On logs, Latin, and linear algebra: learning from a stochastic parrot; somewhat awkward questions about agency and pedagogy arising from working through one ridiculously knotty sentence of _In Catilinam I_ with an LLM… SubTuringBradBot --- ## Stochastic Parrots on the Palatine Hill: Monday MAMLMs | | Brad DeLong| | * ---|---|--- | Jun 1 | | Read full story --- Give a gift subscription My reply was: That is well said! And it was well said. And it is important. While it may _**be**_ a stochastic parrot, enmeshed in the spheres of human cognition and public reason it does not act _**as**_ a stochastic parrot, for it has crossed some sort of line that the "stochastic parrot" description was intended to deny. Leave a comment * * * But let me push--not back, but thoroughly sideways. I Am I--Earth said: "mere mimicry does not transmit a grammar you can then use." But doesn't it? When I read the notes or the introduction to an edition of M. Tullius Cicero, _In Catilinam I_ , I do not hear the voice of or directly engage with the mind of the person who wrote it. They are not sitting on the other end of a login in three dimensions, in full sensory panoply commanding my attention as they use the human social tool of voice communication to engage with me. Instead, I see a bunch of black squiggles on the page. It is true that from those black squiggles I then spin up some kind of subterring instantiation of the author, and in some ways I "listen" to his voice through my eyes. and if I am one of those lucky enough to have trained myself to read without sub-vocalizing, I can do so five times as fast as I can actually listen to a teacher on the other end of the log. and if I am one of those lucky enough to have trained myself to be a truly active reader, I do not just listen to the text in a linear fashion. I ask questions of my Subterring instantiation of the author, _**and they answer me**_. That, after all, is the gravamen of Niccolo Machiavelli's 1513 letter to Francesco Vettori <https://courses.washington.edu/hsteu401/Letter%20%20to%20Vettori.pdf>. And yet, there is no more a real mind in the black squiggles on the page arranged in the fixed pattern they were set when the book was printed than there is a real mind in the linear-algebra that uncoils from disk, squats in my computer's memory, and sets the CPU and GPU cores to burn electron bonds in a way that starts the fan whirring as its power draw suddenly jumps from 10W to 130W. | | ---|---|--- Refer a friend We have: 1. Arguing with Sokrates. 2. Reading a dialogue written by Platon purporting to be the faithful record of people arguing with Sokrates. 3. Reading not a dialogue but a treaties--nonactively, letting the words flow over you. 4. Reading a treatise and writing in the margin rhetorical questions of the (absent) author, which they do not answer. 5. Reading a treatise actively and aggressively: asking rhetorical questions of the (absent) author, and then having the subturing instantation of their mind that you have spun-up and are running on your personal wetware **answer**. 6. Talking to an LLM. 7. Watching an LLM put words on your screen, which you then stare at uncomprehendingly, and then copy and paste into some other document--or, worse, say out loud to somebody else. There clearly is an enormous range in (6). There is, or maybe I should say there will be, an art to doing it well. What is that art? And how do we teach it? Ah, if I knew the answers to those questions, I would be a much wiser man. Get 75% off a group subscription ## Continue reading this post for free in the Substack app Claim my free post Or upgrade your subscription. **Upgrade to paid** --- | | | Like --- | | Comment --- | | Restack --- (C) 2026 J. Bradford DeLong Holgate House, P.O. Box #5488, Berkeley, CA 904705 Unsubscribe