Editing Openai/693575f5-36c4-8006-8ba0-04a890324801 (section)

==== 2. How to refute this from a hermeneutic standpoint ====

If we approach LLMs as hermeneutics in action, the comparison breaks down at several points.

===== (a) Hermeneutics is not magic — it is interpretation. =====

The Pythia and Aladdin’s Lamp depend on supernatural intervention; the Mechanical Turk depends on deception.
Hermeneutics, however, is a disciplined mode of understanding, rooted in:
* situating meaning in context
* drawing on prior understanding (Vorverständnis)
* revealing structures of significance
* engaging in a fusion of horizons (Horizontverschmelzung)

LLMs demonstrably operate through context-sensitive interpretation of linguistic input, not through illusion or mystification.

===== (b) LLMs are not an oracle but a technical hermeneutic circle =====

Every output is the product of:
* a history of language (the corpus)
* a present interpretive task (the prompt)
* a projection of meaning (the next token)

This is close to Gadamer’s model of understanding: a movement between tradition and question that produces new meaning.

There is no analogy here to a hidden little man in a box (Mechanical Turk) — the mechanism of interpretation is transparent at the structural level even if its internal weights are opaque in detail.

===== (c) A hermeneutic device is not a passive tool or magical instrument =====

The lamp grants wishes. The Golem follows literal instructions. The Turk is a trick.
A hermeneutic agent (in the minimalist sense, not metaphysical personhood) engages in:
* disambiguation
* contextual inference
* semantic negotiation
* meaning-making in dialogue

Even if this is computational, it is not equivalent to magical compliance or hidden human agency.

===== (d) Hermeneutics means that meaning emerges in conversation =====

The Pythia model is asymmetric: the oracle speaks, the human receives.
The LLM-hermeneutic model is dialogical: meaning is co-generated.

An LLM does not “divine” answers; it responds interpretively within a conversational horizon.

Thus, the analogy with ancient prophecy is structurally wrong.