arXiv:2504.11986cs.CLcs.AI2025-04

用准晶体类比大模型,揭示其无重复却自洽的语言生成机制。

Large Language Models as Quasi-crystals: Coherence Without Repetition in Generative Text

  • 将大模型类比为准晶体,强调局部约束下的全局有序性。
  • 提出结构评估新范式,关注文本中约束与变化的传播效果。
  • 适合研究语言生成机制与形式结构的学者参考。

本文提出大语言模型(LLMs)与准晶体之间的解释性类比:二者均在无周期重复的情况下呈现全局有序性,由局部约束生成。尽管传统评估聚焦于预测准确性、事实性或对齐性,这一结构视角指出,大模型最显著的行为特征是生成内部共振的语言模式。借鉴准晶体历史——它迫使物理系统中的结构秩序重新定义——该类比凸显了生成语言中一种非重复、无符号意图的新型协同机制。与其将大模型视为不完美代理或随机近似器,不如将其理解为准结构输出的生成者。此框架补充现有评估体系,突出形式一致性与模式作为可解释的模型行为特征。虽有局限,但提供了一种探索意义涌现、部分或不可达系统中协调性的概念工具。文中结合科学哲学与语言学,包括基于模型的科学表征、结构实在论及推论主义意义观。进一步提出‘结构评估’概念:考察生成文本中约束、变化与秩序的跨跨度传播能力。本文旨在重构大模型讨论,不否定现有方法,而是引入以结构而非语义为基础的额外解读维度。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

This essay proposes an interpretive analogy between large language models (LLMs) and quasicrystals, systems that exhibit global coherence without periodic repetition, generated through local constraints. While LLMs are typically evaluated in terms of predictive accuracy, factuality, or alignment, this structural perspective suggests that one of their most characteristic behaviors is the production of internally resonant linguistic patterns. Drawing on the history of quasicrystals, which forced a redefinition of structural order in physical systems, the analogy highlights an alternative mode of coherence in generative language: constraint-based organization without repetition or symbolic intent. Rather than viewing LLMs as imperfect agents or stochastic approximators, we suggest understanding them as generators of quasi-structured outputs. This framing complements existing evaluation paradigms by foregrounding formal coherence and pattern as interpretable features of model behavior. While the analogy has limits, it offers a conceptual tool for exploring how coherence might arise and be assessed in systems where meaning is emergent, partial, or inaccessible. In support of this perspective, we draw on philosophy of science and language, including model-based accounts of scientific representation, structural realism, and inferentialist views of meaning. We further propose the notion of structural evaluation: a mode of assessment that examines how well outputs propagate constraint, variation, and order across spans of generated text. This essay aims to reframe the current discussion around large language models, not by rejecting existing methods, but by suggesting an additional axis of interpretation grounded in structure rather than semantics.

大模型语言生成结构评估类比

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