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Key points
- AI excels in speed and breadth, but falls short in deep, reflective pondering.
- Pondering thrives on time, emotion, and meaning—qualities unique to humans.
- LLMs support thought, but only humans can ‘sleep on it’ and create wisdom.
I’ve been thinking about this lately—what defines human thought in a world increasingly influenced and perhaps even dominated by artificial intelligence? Large language models excel at generating ideas with stunning speed and connecting vast amounts of information with incredible breadth. But there’s a dimension they cannot touch: depth.
Depth, the hallmark of pondering, is the uniquely human ability to let thoughts mature, connect emotionally, and evolve over time. It’s this interplay of speed, breadth, and depth that defines thought—and while LLMs excel in some areas, the line in the cognitive sand is drawn where pondering begins.
Speed: The Instant Nature of AI
If LLMs have mastered anything, it’s speed. These systems generate ideas in milliseconds, synthesizing and producing outputs that mimic human reasoning. Need an analysis of Renaissance art? An LLM can deliver it instantly. Want a breakdown of quantum physics? It’s ready before you can pour your coffee.
Humans, by contrast, are slower thinkers. Our brains work in real time, integrating memories, emotions, and context. But this slowness is a feature, not a bug. Time allows us, and our neuropathophysiology, to revisit ideas, question assumptions, and let insights emerge organically.
Even newer AI methodologies like Chain of Thought (CoT) emphasize speed within structured reasoning. CoT breaks down complex problems into smaller, sequential steps, giving the appearance of deliberate thinking. But the process is still almost instantaneous, computed in a single burst. What’s missing is the temporal element—the moments, hours, or days that humans use to refine and deepen their thoughts.
Here's the key thought: Speed is AI’s strength, but it’s also its limitation. The rush to produce bypasses the space where meaning is made.
Breadth: Expanding the Cognitive Horizon
Another remarkable dimension of LLMs is their breadth. Trained on vast datasets spanning nearly every domain, they create expansive webs of information. Ask an LLM about justice, and it can link legal theory, moral philosophy, and historical examples with ease. This breadth allows LLMs to generate connections that humans might not immediately see, making them powerful tools for synthesis.
But breadth isn’t the same as depth. The connections LLMs make are statistical and probabilistic, not reflective or intentional. They lack the emotional salience and personal meaning that humans bring to ideas. While Semantic AI takes another to new levels by focusing on relationships between concepts, it still operates mechanically, recombining known patterns without genuinely understanding them.
Humans, too, rely on breadth, drawing from education, experience, and creativity. But the key difference is how we filter and prioritize these connections. We weigh ideas through the lens of emotion, identity, and purpose—qualities that breadth alone cannot achieve.
Depth: The Human Superpower
Depth is where humans shine. It’s the ability to ponder—to let ideas simmer, to revisit them, and to allow meaning to emerge. Unlike speed or breadth, depth isn’t about volume or velocity; it’s about transformation. These biological and biochemical underpinnings of pondering reveal why it’s so unique. Take a deep breath, this is going to get technical.
The prefrontal cortex (PFC) governs higher-order thought, enabling us to reflect, simulate outcomes, and suppress impulsive responses. The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) monitors uncertainty, helping us navigate ambiguity. Together, these regions work recursively, revisiting and refining ideas over time.
On a biochemical level, pondering depends on neurotransmitters like dopamine, which sustains focus; serotonin, which fosters calm; and glutamate, which enables communication between neurons. These chemicals create the conditions for depth, allowing us to dwell in thought without rushing to resolve it.
The result is a cognitive process that integrates emotion, memory, and imagination. This depth is where moral decisions are made, creativity is born, and identity is forged.
Why LLMs Can’t Cross the Threshold
LLMs might simulate depth through techniques like CoT or Semantic AI, but they can’t replicate the recursive, emotional, and temporal nature of pondering:
- No Time: LLMs generate outputs instantly, without letting ideas evolve organically.
- No Emotion: They lack the emotional framework that gives human thoughts salience and significance.
- No Self-Awareness: Pondering is deeply tied to our sense of self, allowing us to ask why something matters. LLMs simply compute probabilities.
Depth is not just another dimension of thought; it’s the dimension where meaning is made. And it’s the line that separates humans from the machines we build.
A Cognitive Partnership in Three Dimensions
The interplay of speed, breadth, and depth reveals the complementary strengths of humans and LLMs. While pondering is uniquely human and LLMs play a key role in supporting it,
- Speed: LLMs provide rapid answers and insights, freeing humans to focus on deeper reflection.
- Breadth: They synthesize vast amounts of information, offering a scaffold for human creativity and understanding.
- Depth: Humans transform these raw materials into meaning, wisdom, and purpose.
This partnership isn’t a replacement but a collaboration. By embracing our depth and leveraging AI’s speed and breadth, we can push the boundaries of thought further than ever before.
Ponder on...
Thought isn’t one-dimensional. It spans speed, breadth, and depth, and it’s in this interplay that we find the essence of cognition. LLMs dominate in speed and breadth, but they fall short at depth—the uniquely human ability to ponder.
Pondering isn’t just about thinking; it’s about creating meaning, shaping identity, and transforming information into wisdom. And that, perhaps, is the point of pondering itself: to remind us of the depth that defines what it means to be human.
