> Pattern recognition becomes "understanding" once individually recognized concepts become sufficiently sparsified [sic] and compactified [sic].

Understanding is a state of mind. As such, it exists entirely within an individual and nowhere else.

For example, take any two university professors who teach the same subject where one only speaks Arabic and the other only speaks Vietnamese. Each will not be able to understand what the other says, regardless their understanding of the shared topic.

> I argue that for any proper definition [of understanding] you provide which humans satisfy, a strong LLM is very likely to satisfy that as well.

This is demonstrably incorrect as detailed above. There is no "understanding" LLMs can satisfy as we know it, since to certify said "understanding", it requires interpretation by a person to "know" an LLM "understands."

> I also would not argue that humans are "simple token generators". That is not what I said.

That is the essence of what you wrote, unless you object to my use of "simple" instead of "statistical". In this context, I postulate this is a distinction without difference.

> I said that just about everything can fall under the classification of "statistical token generators" at an abstract level, so it isn't a useful distinction.

This only holds if one subscribes to statistical token generators being a/the fundamental underpinning of "everything". Here is a proof by contradiction:

  If everything can be classified as a derivative of
  statistical token generation, how does one explain
  quantum physics?