https://andrewphunter.com/tags/control-theory/ Recent content in Control Theory on Andrew Hunter — Systems Architect & Builder Hugo en-us Tue, 22 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://andrewphunter.com/writing/reasoning-tokens-control-signal/ Tue, 22 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://andrewphunter.com/writing/reasoning-tokens-control-signal/ <p>The argument over reasoning models is loud and stuck at the wrong level. One camp reads the reasoning trace as a window into the model&rsquo;s mind. The other reads it as after-the-fact theater, tokens emitted to look like thinking. Both camps do the same thing: they read the tokens as language and ask what the tokens say. The mechanism does not care what they say.</p> <p>A reasoning token is a step that steers a trajectory through the model&rsquo;s probability field. Ask what it does to the distribution instead of what it means, and the whole &ldquo;do the tokens mean anything&rdquo; question dissolves into something you can measure.</p>