Humans with certain amnestic syndromes are incapable of learning. That doesn't make them unintelligent or incapable of thought.

Most AI tooling is shipped with a feedback loop around the LLM. The quality of Claude Code for example lies in the feedback loop it provides on your code. Maybe the LLM itself isn't thinking, but the Agent which ships an LLM plus feedback loop definitely shows thinking qualities.

Just now in an debugging session with claude code:

  * let me read this file...
  * let me read this file...
  * I think there's a caching issue with the model after dropping the module. Let me check if there's a save or reload needed after DROP MODULE. First, let me verify something:
  * creates a bash/javascript script to verify its assumption
  * runs the script (after review and approval)
  * Aha! I found the problem! Look at the output...

You're moving the goalposts and contradicting yourself with language games.

Something doesn't need to learn to think. I think all the time without learning.

There's also an argument for machines already starting to crack learning with literal reinforcement training and feedback loops.

Your language game was when you said the 'cognition ends...', as cognition is just a synonym for thinking. "The thinking ends when the inference cycle ends. It's not thinking'" becomes a clear contradiction.

As for "the process by which it does that is wholly unrelated", buddy it's modelled on human neuron behaviour. That's how we've had this generative AI breakthrough. We've replicated human mental cognition as closely as we can with current technology and the output bears striking resemblance to our own generative capabilities (thoughts).

Happy to admit it's not identical, but it's damn well inside the definition of thinking, may also cover learning. It may be better to take a second look at human thinking and wonder if it's as cryptic and deep as we thought ten, twenty years ago.