[TeMPOraL]

> Computing: Performing the instructions they are given.

> Thinking: Can be introspective, self correcting. May include novel ideas.

LLMs can perform arbitrary instructions given in natural language, which includes instructions to be introspective and self correcting and generate novel ideas. Is it computing or is it thinking? We can judge the degree to which they can do these things, but it's unclear there's a fundamental difference in kind.

(Also obviously thinking is computation - the only alternative would be believing thinking is divine magic that science can't even talk about.)

I'm less interested in topic of whether LLMs are thinking or parrotting, and more in the observation that offloading cognition on external systems, be their digital, analog, or social, is just something humans naturally do all the time.