The whole thing is a statistical model, that's just what it is. No, I cannot in a reasonable way dissect how an LLM works to a satisfactory level to a skeptic.

He's not a skeptic, he's asking you to explicitly state your reasoning with the expectation that either the readers will learn something or (more likely) you will realize that your thought and speech pattern there was the equivalent of an LLM hallucinating. Yes you can prompt it as you suggested and yes you will generally receive a convincing answer but it is not doing what you seem to think it is doing ie the generated rating is complete bullshit that the model pulled out of its proverbial ass.

It's a statistical model for words and sentences, not knowledge. What does the LLM knows about having a pebble in your shoes, or drinking a nice cup of coffee?