Philosophy for the public https://ordinaryattention.com/ en Wed, 19 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://ordinaryattention.com/posts/2026-08-19-ordinary-observation-my-two-cents-on-using-llms/ https://ordinaryattention.com/posts/2026-08-19-ordinary-observation-my-two-cents-on-using-llms/ Wed, 19 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Qian Wang One day, out of curiosity, I sent Claude (Opus 4.8) a question: ‘Is your way of thinking purely reasoning, logical or mathematical?’ It gave me five paragraphs of answer as it usually does. In short, it says mechanically it’s mathematics, in character though it’s more like pattern completion. What caught my attention in the long answer is the sentence saying ‘…when I write out step-by-step reas...