> I don't reject it, I just want to know the difference between saying "shit > happens" and saying "it happened because of emergence". Yes, complicated > systems behave in ways that are, well, complicated; but tell me something I > didn't know.
The difference is that at some point people realised that it is possible to create very simple models of neurons. One of the simplest ones is a function that sums all of its inputs and then produces a binary output according to weather a certain threshold is reached. You can then introduce all sorts of details like connection weights, non-binary triggers, spiking behaviours and so on. Then you can think of algorithms that allow a network of artificial neurons to self-organise. The simplest possible one might be Hebbian learning: connection strengths are increased for neurons that fire together. There are some very nice models that combine artificial evolution with artificial neural networks. Artificial neural networks have been trained to fly planes, invest in the stock market, converts speech to text, recognise handwriting and so on and so on. For most of these cases, nobody understands how the network works, they only understand how they created the necessary conditions for a certain behaviour to emerge. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
