> We can't know any more about an apple than an LLM can

When I hold and taste an apple I know that the apple exists. Not an issue for apples, you might say, but there's plenty of real information that is not written down and is only derivable from our senses. Such as instructions for using car washes, apparently.

Humans are naturally sceptical of descriptions, preferring first-hand experiences because descriptions can be unreliable, misreported, fabricated, etc.

Because LLMs live in the world of descriptions, they lack the dynamic range of credibility that humans have available.

LLMs can only distinguish between fictitious descriptions and factual descriptions. They must map all of their credibility into this range.

Humans meanwhile can distinguish between fictitious descriptions, presumed-to-be-factual descriptions, and actually factual personal experiences.

It's not intrinsic to LLMs being inorganic, it's intrinsic to LLMs being unembodied.

Yep. They also don't experience time. They can count compute steps. They can look at the wall clock and tell you the time. But give them a task at 11:59 PM, and if they get it done by 12 AM, they won't know just a minute has passed.

Now, humans can count time fairly accurately if they focus, but we often lose focus. However, we have an internal subjective time that tracks the solar day excellently, and this LLMs lack entirely.

Timeless, disembodied abstractions. Impressive ones, but they are far from actual experience and thus limited.