Does AI truly understand?
I once heard a story about a man who visited Siberia in November and discovered the true meaning of the Russian word “гололедица” (gololéditsa) — ice-crusted ground. He was from the south and thought he already knew the meaning of the word. He didn’t.
He had come after a heavy rain, followed by a sudden freeze that turned the ground into an ice rink. After falling, getting up, and falling again over and over, he finally burst into laughter and exclaimed: “Oh, that’s what gololéditsa means!”
We do not seem to know what a word means prior to experiencing its meaning. Words before experience are misleading. They create a concept in the mind, a mental picture, an idol. An idol deceives us by creating an illusion of knowledge.
When we finally encounter reality as it is, we are utterly surprised and exclaim: “It is so different from what I thought!” At that moment, all mental idols crumble. Words fail. We can no longer use the old language. We need a new one — one that springs from the experience itself.
Words arising from experience are different. They are prompted, not chosen. We do not find them; they find us.
“We do not merely speak the language — we speak by way of it. We can do so solely because we always have already listened to the language. What do we hear there? We hear language speaking.” — Martin Heidegger, On the Way to Language
Merely talking is not speech. We truly speak only when we hear Language itself speaking — and respond. The Logos, the essential Speech, speaks incarnationally. The Word becomes known through flesh.
AI can manufacture words, but it doesn’t understand their meaning. AI has never encountered words in the flesh. It has never slipped on an ice-crust in the middle of November in Siberia. It has never talked to a friend in a cafe. It has never had a broken heart. It has never known joy.
That’s why AI cannot truly speak. Words are misleading until they are encountered in the flesh. We speak by way of being spoken to — incarnationally.
When you’ve been spoken to, false words no longer move you. You recognize true Speech from afar.
Incidentally, in most Slavic languages, the word for “speech” (речь) is etymologically related to the word for “river” (река). True speaking is like plunging into a river. Unless you take the plunge, you do not yet know — you are speechless.
Knowing is plunging. It begins when we step out onto the gololéditsa, fall, get up, become aware of our word-idols, renounce them, and plunge into the experience of unknowing. As Dionysius Areopagite said:
“…so that now as we plunge into that darkness which is beyond intellect, we shall find ourselves not simply running short of words but actually speechless and unknowing.” — The Mystical Theology
