I love this dichotomy, formalists vs. nominalists. As the author argues, it's not very useful with respect to defining intelligence and LLMs.
It is however a wonderful world building detail in Anathem by Neal Stephenson. Their world history revolves around two ideologies: the syntactics and the semantics. Nominalists and Formalists. I find his predictions about a society built around this duality entertaining.
It is however a wonderful world building detail in Anathem by Neal Stephenson. Their world history revolves around two ideologies: the syntactics and the semantics. Nominalists and Formalists. I find his predictions about a society built around this duality entertaining.