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Q&A: Numbers and Letters

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Numbers and Letters

Question

Can everything be explained purely in terms of numbers? And can AI, potentially, experience things like a human being? [From a Torah perspective]

Answer

I didn’t understand what it means to explain everything in terms of numbers.
In my opinion, AI machines experience nothing at all. See my series of columns on this.

Discussion on Answer

Michi (2025-10-12)

694 onward.

Gabriel (2025-10-13)

1. By explaining everything in terms of numbers, I mean that the foundation of every understanding, sensation, or concept could be based on a totality of digits or a mathematical formula—just as through language and words one can convey every experience from one person to another, in discourse, through description and through the particular combination of letters used for each and every conversation [and as is explained in Sefer Yetzirah at the end of chapter 4, that the world is structured out of letters and every created thing has a name].
And yet, seemingly, numbers could replace words, and if so then a computer too could compute every experience and every experience.
Is that correct?

2. By AI machines that experience experiences, I mean to ask whether it is possible that every kind of matter carries within it something like an entity that is what we call “I,” except that the matter is not synthesized or arranged in the right way so as to be able to experience things [such as via nerves and so on].
A similar, though limited, analogy would be a person born without any of the five senses [and likewise without any ability to feel any hormonal or physiological processes whatsoever]—would such a person feel, experience, or bear any awareness at all of his own self, or would he be like an inanimate object, like any static matter in the universe?

Michi (2025-10-13)

There’s no problem at all. Just write, in place of each letter, its numerical value.
Here, for example, is a representation of the sentence I wrote here:
1-10-50. 300-6-40. 2-70-10-5. …

Keresh (2025-10-13)

I noticed a very interesting phenomenon: every word can be interpreted precisely and absolutely according to the theory of gematria, and I’ll explain with an example. Take, for instance, the word “table.” Obviously, the meaning of the word is table, and one can verify quite easily that indeed “table” in gematria comes out to exactly (!) table. The careful observer will see that this is true of each and every word in the Hebrew language. You can even extend this observation to full sentences, and even to this very paragraph!!

Michi (2025-10-13)

I can only add here what I found in my poverty, when I donned the robe of the rabbis and served in splendor as the Purim rabbi at Netivot Olam Yeshiva in Bnei Brak: where can one find the word Esther at the shortest minimal skip? In the Scroll of Esther. A skip of distance 1. Unbelievable. And the matter became a miracle to be exalted, and whoever hears it will return to God with all his heart.

Gabriel (2025-10-13)

Sorry, but it seems you really, really didn’t understand. Obviously, there is no difference between a language model being based on letters and a language model being based on numbers. Either way, the model will function as a language.
Rather, my argument hinges on the gap between using language that conveys experiences between the listener and the speaker [such as letters, or numbers serving as letters, such as gematria], and using language that does not convey experiences but rather delimits concepts [such as numbers, or letters serving as numbers].
Letters and words, insofar as they function as language, will always convey experiences; whereas numbers and formulas, insofar as they function as a generalization or as the delimitation of some totality, will never convey experiences or the essence of the information, but only its definition and delimitation.
I think the distinction is simple and clear to anyone with a bit of sense in his head [especially if he is the local rabbinic authority in glorious Bnei Brak and his main occupation is wondrous letter-skips… on fading-star Purim evenings, wrapped in an Esther-like cloak].
In any case, happy holiday.

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