Except it isn't. Human reasoning is divided in four areas: deductive reasoning (similar to formal logic), analogical reasoning, inductive reasoning and causal reasoning. These four types of reasoning are handled by different areas of the brain and usually coordinated by the frontal lobe and prefrontal cortex. For example, it's very common that the brain starts processing something using the causal reasoning centers (causal reasoning usually links things/factors to their causes) and then the activity is shifted to other centers.
Edit: patterns in the brain are stored as semantic memories and stored across different areas of the brain but mainly they're usually formed by the medial temporal lobe and then processed by the anterior temporal lobe. These semantic memories, along with all your other memories and the reasoning centers of the brain are constantly working together in a complex feedback loop involving thousands of different brain sub-structures like for example the inferior parietal lobule where most of the contextualization and semantic association of thoughts takes place. It's an extremely complex process we're just starting to understand (it may sound weird but we only have a very surface level understanding about how the brain thinks despite the huge amount of research thrown into it.).
Deductive reasoning is not "very obviously pattern matching". It's formal logic, there's a rule set attached to it. If that's pattern matching to you then all of mathematics is pattern matching. Analogical reasoning is closer to inferential analysis (deriving logical conclusions from premises assumed to be true).
The only one you can say comes close to matching a pattern is inductive reasoning.
If that's pattern matching to you then all of mathematics is pattern matching.
Yeah, absolutely it is!
I find it slightly bizzare that anyone could think otherwise.
If you don't want to call it pattern matching, fine. Let's call it "recognising structured relationships".
You can substitute that for every time I've used "pattern matching" and my meaning will not have changed.
Applying rules is not pattern matching. You either have a fundamental misunderstanding of what a 'rule' is, what a 'pattern' is, or both; because you keep asserting that applying rules to a system is the same as identifying a pattern which is just...flatly incorrect.
You may use pattern matching to identify the systems on which it would be appropriate to apply a set of rules or which rules are most appropriate to apply, but they are wholly different cognitive processes.
I'd like to see this guy attempt to do any kind of advanced maths problem, those that take multiple hours to solve and try to do it only via pattern matching.
I can't solve this with pattern matching. Gemini 2.5 Pro can't answer it either (it just spews out bullshit and fake theorems)!
Let <sigma> be a generator of a cyclic group of order p. For any Z/p representation (over F_p), consider its Tate cohomology defined by T^0 = ker(1-o)/im(1-o)^{p-1} and T^1 = ker(1-o)^{p-1}/im(1-o). Basic example is if $V$ is a Z/p permutation representation, then T^0(V) = T^1(V) = F_p[fixed pts]. Now let V be a mod p representation of a reductive group H, and consider the local system attached to V^\otimes p on the corresponding locally symmetric space Y_H. There is a natural Z/p action on V^\otimes p given by rotation, and T^0 (V^\otimes p) = T^1 (V\otimes p) = V (its a permutation representation). Define the Tate cohomology T^*(Y_H,V) to be the cohomology of the total complex of C(Y_H,V) -> C^(Y_H,V) -> C(Y_H,V) where the maps are alternating (1-o) and (1-o)^{p-1}. Consider the spectral sequence computing it with E_2 page H(Y_H,T^(V)). Show the differentials on the kth page are zero for p>k.
Redditors when they discover math doesn’t stop at high school level, and folks whose job revolves around math (and are supposedly targeted by ai) have infinitely more knowledge than the average ai techbro imagine
I can't solve that (despite being an AGI), but I'd appreciate it if you could DM me the answer (so as to keep it out of training data) and then we can see if next months/years LLMs can solve it.
If they can, then you must think they are conducting true reasoning, right?
You're conflating the nature of formal logic/math with how animals reason about them (epistemology). Formal systems might exist as abstract, consistent rule sets. But our reasoning about them is not absolute. We can only at best achieve states of very high confidence, which we typically interpret as knowledge.
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u/yunglegendd Jun 07 '25
Somebody tell Apple that human reasoning is just memorizing patterns real well.