Author: Michael Burry

Translated by: Deep Wave TechFlow

The New York Times, June 19, 1880, Saturday

Welcome to the "History Always Rhymes" series. In this series, I shine a light on current events from key perspectives from the distant past.

On a quiet Saturday, I was casually browsing through old newspapers—this is a hobby of mine—and stumbled upon a report from June 19, 1880, astonishingly relevant to our anxieties about AI today.

This is the story of Melville Ballard. He grew up without language but stared at a tree stump and asked himself a question: Did the first person grow out of here?

This 144-year-old case—officially published by the Smithsonian Institution—raises a potentially fatal question regarding today's large language models and the massive investments behind them. Through the story of an ordinary person, it boldly declares: Complex thoughts are born out of the silence that precedes language.

Today, deep in the 21st century, when we place language before rational abilities, we are not constructing intelligence—we are merely building an increasingly sophisticated mirror.

In that old newspaper, there are two articles worth noting. Let’s start with the one in the middle of the third page, titled: “Thought Without Language.”

Of course, large language models, small language models, and reasoning abilities are currently the hottest topics.

The full title of that article is: “Thought Without Language—The Autobiography of a Deaf-Mute: His Initial Thoughts and Experiences.” The article was originally published in the Washington Star on June 12, 1880.

The protagonist of the story is Professor Samuel Porter from the National Deaf-Mute College in Kendall Green, who presented a paper at the Smithsonian Institution titled “Is There Thought Without Language? A Case Study of a Deaf-Mute.”

The paper begins discussing the mental activities of deaf-mutes and children in the absence of linguistic forms, with terminology and ideas that have long fallen behind today; I almost intended to skip it.

But the central character of the case is Melville Ballard, a teacher at the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, who is also a deaf-mute and a graduate of the National Deaf-Mute College.

Ballard stated that in his childhood he communicated with his parents and siblings through natural gestures or pantomime. His father believed observation could develop his intellect and often took him out cycling.

He continued to say that about two or three years before he was formally introduced to the basics of written language, while cycling one day, he began to ask himself: “How did the world come to be?” He developed a strong curiosity about the origin of human life, the initial emergence of earth, the sun, the moon, and the reason for the existence of stars.

One time, he saw a large tree stump and a question arose in his mind: "Could the first person to arrive in this world have grown out of that tree stump?" But he immediately thought that the stump was merely the remnant of a once towering tree; how did that tree come to be? It grew slowly from the soil, just like the small saplings in front of him—he concluded that linking human origins to a decayed old tree stump was ridiculous and dismissed the thought.

He did not know what triggered his inquiry into the origin of all things, but he had already established the concepts of parental inheritance, animal reproduction, and plants growing from seeds.

The real question swirling in his mind was: At the farthest point in time, when there were no people, no animals, and no plants, where did the first human, the first animal, the first plant come from? He thought the most about humans and the earth, believing that humans would eventually perish and that there would be no resurrection after death.

Around the age of five, he began to understand the concept of parental inheritance; by ages eight to nine, he started to question the origin of the universe. Regarding the shape of the earth, he deduced from a map showing two hemispheres that they were two massive material discs close to each other; the sun and moon were two circular glowing plates, which he viewed with a sense of reverence and inferred from their rising and setting that something powerful existed, governing their trajectories.

He imagined that the sun entered a hole in the west and came out through another hole in the east, traveling through a massive pipe inside the earth while following the same arc it traced across the sky. To him, the stars were points of glimmer embedded in the celestial canvas. He described how he futilely contemplated all of this until he entered school at age eleven.

Before that, his mother had told him there was a mysterious presence in the sky, but when she could not answer his questions, he could only despair and abandon the inquiry, filled with sadness because he could not gain any certain understanding of that mysterious celestial life.

In his first year of school, he learned only a few sentences each Sunday; although he studied these simple words, he never truly understood their meanings. He attended church services, but due to his inadequate grasp of sign language, he understood almost nothing. In his second year, he obtained a small catechism, which included a series of questions and answers.

The combination of language and rational ability thus drives the development of comprehension.

After that, he was able to understand the sign language used by the teachers. Some might say that his curious nature should have been satisfied. This was not the case—when he learned that the universe was created by that great spirit of the ruler, he began to ask: Where did the creator come from? He continued to pursue the essence and origin of that ruler. While contemplating this question, he asked himself: "Once we enter the realm of the lord, can we know the essence of God and comprehend his infinity?" Should he say, like that ancestor: "Can you fathom God through seeking?"

Professor Porter then presented his core argument to the audience of the 1880 Smithsonian Institution.

He said that animals might understand certain words and distinguish some objects. But he pointed out:

"Even if we count all the possibilities that animals possess, is it not evident that—humans have certain capabilities that we cannot imagine developed from anything shared with lower animals or merely an enhancement of those shared traits?"

"… Regardless of how similar the ways impressions are generated or how similar the organs are—meaning no matter how physiologically close the connection is—sight as perception itself differs from the perceptions of the ear, head, or tongue, and indicates a special gift or ability that is not contained in the latter. Rational action and the operation of lower faculties are not so."

"… The two share certain elements, but that does not prove they belong to the same order, nor does it make it possible for one to develop into the other. If the eye of the soul—that higher reason that allows us to perceive the universe—cannot introspect itself and clearly distinguish its own essence and operational processes, we should not forget its function, deny its essential superiority, and equate it with those lower subordinate faculties that we can examine with it. The thing that allows us to understand all things must, by its very nature, be superior to anything understood by it."

One member of the audience particularly noted that Ballard's gaze conveyed meaning perfectly, with no misunderstandings:

"The most interesting scene of this meeting was Mr. Ballard using gestures to describe how his mother told him he was going to a faraway school, where he would read from books and write letters to send to her; and performing a pantomime of a hunter accidentally shooting himself after killing a squirrel. Mr. Ballard's gestures and actions, along with his gaze and facial expressions, perfectly conveyed his meaning to the audience. In the words of one member, the expression of the eyes is a language that cannot be misunderstood."

Consider these two sentences:

• "The thing that allows us to understand all things must, by its very nature, be superior to anything understood by it."
• "The expression of the eyes is a language that cannot be misunderstood."

To summarize:

• Language without rational ability cannot achieve understanding
• Language can only unlock understanding when rational ability exists
• Fully realized understanding transcends language itself

Large language models prioritize language, establishing a primitive form of reason purely through logical inference. But this reason has proven defective, easily inciting illusions at the numerous rough edges of knowledge.

Rational ability has never truly existed. Therefore, language cannot be elevated to understanding through reason.

In his work with deaf-mutes, the professor discovered: true rational ability must exist prior to language for language to unlock understanding—understanding is the result of genuine rational ability and language working together.

"The expression of the eyes is a language that cannot be misunderstood."

In other words, the expression of the eyes is what perfect understanding looks like—without the need for language.

Large language models place language before genuine rational abilities and can never reach understanding.

If understanding truly transcends language—as revealed by this lecture at the Smithsonian 144 years ago—we should not have difficulty finding evidence of this today.

I can personally relate to this from my learning and practice in medicine. Throughout my pre-med undergraduate courses and most of my medical school studies, deductive logic served as a tool for students to organize vast medical knowledge systems. It was only during the clinical phase that the art of medicine—signs, emotions, and humanistic expertise—began to develop. Later, at some point during residency or early practice, with the accumulation of numerous experiences, understanding finally arrived. All parts connected within an enormous and complex web, allowing experienced doctors to provide complete patient care.

Two surgeons managing a complex head and neck cancer surgery, or the nurses working alongside them, can sometimes communicate solely through their eyes—complete understanding is conveyed, actions triggered, because everyone present has attained understanding that transcends logical inference and the primitive reasoning forms of memory and puzzles taught in early medical education.

Thus, eyes provide an intuitive grasp of reality, constructed on shared understanding, which in turn arises from the rational ability present when language is at hand.

Large language models—and small language models—permanently linger in the middle ground. They can simulate reasoning, but lack true rational ability, without eyes, without understanding.

The Ballard Test: An entity must demonstrate reason without language to truly possess understanding.

This is a known defect, a poor starting point. The initial direction of AI research was to generate genuine rational abilities first, but this was never achieved, leading the field to pivot towards language first—because it was easier to accomplish.

This "poor starting point" has resulted in a "parameter trap": brute-force language processing powered by countless energy-consuming chips has become an exceedingly ironic bottleneck.

As emphasized in my conversation with Klarna founder Sebastian Siemiatkowski, the way forward lies in compression—prioritizing "System 2" reasoning, digesting information redundancy and the relatively limited set of queries generated by humans, thereby significantly reducing computational power requirements.

This new path rejects the approach of conversing through language models in pursuit of a singularity in infinite mirrors—this is a directionless waste of resources, and, lacking support from economic realities, is doomed to be unattainable.

Cutting-edge research like Google's AlphaGeometry and Meta's Coconut is transitioning towards this "rationality-first" architecture, but in essence, they are merely rediscovering what was already presented by the Smithsonian Institution 144 years ago: language is the output of understanding, not the engine of reason.

This multitrillion-dollar "compute myth" may be shattered by a return—a return to the silence of pre-linguistic rationality—where those with full-spectrum rational abilities explore thoughts in silence before finding the words to express them, reaching towards the stars in the sky.

Silicon Valley

As mentioned earlier, there is also another article on the same page that is worth noting. Its relevance, perhaps, exceeds the imagination of anyone in the 1880s.

This article is titled: "The Wealth of San Francisco: A City Full of Speculators in Get-Rich-Quick Schemes."

The article was written on June 1, 1880, in San Francisco, but was not published in The New York Times until June 19.

There is a saying in French: "the more things change, the more they stay the same." This thought arises at this moment.

"The so-called 'hard times' in San Francisco may mean 'quite comfortable days' in eastern cities, referring to not being extravagant and wasteful but rather to not being impoverished and stretched thin."

At that time, California was a paradise for small capital players. To satisfy speculative desires, a unique open bidding system emerged: for just $50, one could buy shares in a mine for $1 each, or two shares for 50 cents, or any number at different prices.

When a certain stock "boomed," it seemed to evoke a collective urge for "one more time." It ignited the same speculative fever in San Francisco, with people rushing to chase opportunities lost by the get-rich groups; "prosperity" came with market losses, "prosperity" faded, and stock prices returned to normal.

The article's conclusion delivers a powerful blow to today's reality:

The people of San Francisco seem to have become accustomed to the idea that wealth must come in one go, and after their disastrous wealth in Virginia City, they seem unwilling to bounce back and seek fortunes in manufacturing, trade, and agriculture. Almost the entire city is filled with speculative enthusiasm; if a new wealth-producing mine as large as Nevada were discovered here or nearby, stock prices would soar again to ridiculous heights, San Francisco would once again experience those wealthy times, only to suffer all it had endured over the past two years once more.

In my article "The Core Signs of the Bubble: Greed on the Supply Side," I outlined this astonishing trend emerging from the San Francisco Bay Area: speculation continuously escalates, pushing investments far beyond any scale that any reasonable timeframe could conceivably digest in terms of terminal demand.

Browsing such old newspapers allows us to interpret today's events from a distinctive perspective. Whether Silicon Valley will "experience those wealthy times again, only to endure everything again," as it has over and over, or break the mold—this is uncertain for anyone. I hope this article is beneficial to you.

Finally, I would like to recommend to readers Midjourney, a tool for generating images and videos.

It is truly fascinating and thought-provoking. Unleash your creativity!

See you next time!