Does Thought Require Sensory Grounding? From Pure Thinkers to Large Language Models

TL;DR

The paper explores whether thinking requires sensory grounding, arguing that pure thinkers can exist without sensing, but with limitations, and discusses how sensory grounding impacts AI language models' cognitive abilities.

Contribution

It challenges the necessity of sensory grounding for thought and analyzes its role in enhancing AI language models' cognitive capacities.

Findings

Pure thinkers can exist without sensory grounding.

Sensory grounding imposes significant limitations on thought.

Sensory grounding can enhance cognitive capacities in language models.

Abstract

Does the capacity to think require the capacity to sense? A lively debate on this topic runs throughout the history of philosophy and now animates discussions of artificial intelligence. I argue that in principle, there can be pure thinkers: thinkers that lack the capacity to sense altogether. I also argue for significant limitations in just what sort of thought is possible in the absence of the capacity to sense. Regarding AI, I do not argue directly that large language models can think or understand, but I rebut one important argument (the argument from sensory grounding) that they cannot. I also use recent results regarding language models to address the question of whether or how sensory grounding enhances cognitive capacities.