Attention is all we have
David Bessis argues that "attention" is the fundamental cognitive ability underlying intelligence, creativity, and even mathematics. He suggests that attention, rather than logic or reasoning alone, is the core mechanism that allows humans to learn, think, and innovate.
Background
This essay is by David Bessis, a mathematician and author of *Mathematical Thinking* (2024), who argues that the success of large language models like ChatGPT reveals something profound about human cognition. Bessis contends that attention — the core mechanism of transformer AI architectures (the "Attention is All You Need" 2017 paper) — is also the fundamental driver of human learning and intelligence. He draws on his own mathematical training to suggest that what we call "understanding" is actually a product of sustained, directed attention, not logic or innate talent. The piece positions AI not as a threat but as a mirror that forces us to rethink long-held myths about how human minds work.