It seems to me inadvisable to say "think" and "reason", because those words have particular meanings, and those particular meanings are not in use by LLMs.
They are a computing method, where we can choose to use more or less run time (and so processor time), to generate results.
When you “ping” and IP address, are you bouncing sound waves off of the metal hull of the other computer? No, but the word is used anyways, as it’s a useful metaphor for what’s really going on.
My worldview is materialist and deterministic in principle. But day to day I'm an existentialist with a touch of spiritualism.
To me, a fairly pragmatic way of characterizing these tools day to day is to anthropomorphize them. One benefit of this heuristic: they simulate conversation and it's much easier to use them with a conversational flow. Another one is to create an approximation of a character, which makes it easier to build a useful intuition for what they can and cannot do.
Obviously these kinds of heuristics do break down. But it's obvious enough when they do so one can switch into a more precise and analytical mode of thinking.
They are a computing method, where we can choose to use more or less run time (and so processor time), to generate results.