If you expect "the right way" to be something _other_ than a system which can generate a reasonable "state + 1" from a "state" - then what exactly do you imagine that entails?

That's how we think. We think sequentially. As I'm writing this, I'm deciding the next few words to type based on my last few.

Blows my mind that people don't see the parallels to human thought. Our thoughts don't arrive fully formed as a god-given answer. We're constantly deciding the next thing to think, the next word to say, the next thing to focus on. Yes, it's statistical. Yes, it's based on our existing neural weights. Why are you so much more dismissive of that when it's in silicon?