Dragaera

OT: bois (was: Sethra Lavode vs. Enchantress of Dzur Mountain)

David Dyer-Bennet dd-b at dd-b.net
Fri Aug 23 21:38:20 PDT 2002

Damien Sullivan <phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu> writes:

> On Sat, Aug 17, 2002 at 02:16:36PM -0500, David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
> 
> > Now, at *some* level thought occurs by diffusing neurotransmitters
> > through the soup.  If what's in our head *actually* works anything
> > like a "neural network" (the modern technological concept) works,  I'd
> > say that "symbol" isn't a very relevent concept to it.
> 
> I'd disagree.  Nothing stops symbols from being shunted around in, or
> implemented in, a neural network.  And one book had specific examples where a
> neural net was trained in the standard way, and then the resulting black box
> was examined very carefully, and lo, you could see the logical rules right
> there.  They're obfuscated, not magical.

I'm not surprised they might be findable.  I wonder, though, if any
properties of neural networks *guarantee* that they're findable?  At
one level we understand neural networks very well (after all most of
them are software simulations, quite deterministic), but at other
levels I don't think we understand them *at all*.
-- 
David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b at dd-b.net  /  New TMDA anti-spam in test
 John Dyer-Bennet 1915-2002 Memorial Site http://john.dyer-bennet.net
        Book log: http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/Ouroboros/booknotes/
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