Comment by ACCount37

Kind of. The narration is an actual part of the thinking process. Just not the only part.

It can reflect the thinking process fully, or it can be full of post hoc justifications. In practice, it's anything in between.

As task complexity increases and chain-of-thought length grows, it becomes load-bearing by necessity. It still doesn't have to be fully accurate, but it must be doing something right, or the answer wouldn't work.