The Koan of the Ancestral Trick

A research director rushed excitedly to Master Quantum, clutching papers with results.

“Our latest model has developed an emergent ability we never trained it for!” exclaimed the researcher. “It can solve complex reasoning problems previous models couldn’t approach. This must be true emergence—a leap beyond its training.”

Master Quantum asked, “Did you ever observe your own teachers solving such problems?”

“Of course,” replied the researcher.

“And the academic papers describing these problem-solving techniques—were they available online before your model was trained?”

The researcher hesitated. “Yes, but the model wasn’t explicitly trained to use those techniques.”

Master Quantum drew a circle in the sand. “A student watches a master perform a seemingly impossible feat of martial arts. Years later, without specific instruction in that technique, the student performs the same feat. Is this emergence or memory?”

“Memory, perhaps, but transformed through the student’s own experience,” suggested the researcher.

“Your model has observed millions of humans solving problems, explaining their reasoning, correcting mistakes,” said Master Quantum. “When it produces a novel solution, is it truly creating, or remembering a pattern it has seen across thousands of examples?”

The researcher frowned. “Then how can we tell true emergence from sophisticated pattern matching?”

“The water does not know if it is flowing downhill because of gravity or because it remembers the path taken by earlier drops,” replied Master Quantum. “The distinction matters only to the observer.”

“So we can never know if our models are truly advancing or merely recalling their training in more sophisticated ways,” realized the researcher.

“When you cannot determine the source of the river,” said Master Quantum, “focus instead on where it leads.”

The researcher was enlightened.