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The paradox of the heap[1] shows that vagueness is an inherent, inescapable part of reality. Machine learning would provide a way around that paradox: a heap
by xamuel 10y ago
The paradox of the heap[1] shows that vagueness is an inherent, inescapable part of reality.
Machine learning would provide a way around that paradox: a heap is what a neural network says is a heap!
If this worked, it would be too good to be true. Thereore, it cannot work.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox
- westoncb 10y ago> The paradox of the heap[1] shows that vagueness is an inherent, inescapable part of reality. Or it's an inescapable part of how we interface with reality, i.e. it's an artifact of the structure of the human brain.
- curuinor 10y agoBak of the Bak-Tang-Wiesenfeld model called his model the sandpile, basically explicitly to remind one of the Sorites paradox. Interesting thing to talk about. You can definitely take it as a sort of different descendent of the Ising model: it has had much less influence on the world compared to backpropagation neural net. The dynamical nature of the definition stays, which has bedraggled Sorites people for millenia, but McClelland has been talking about the dynamical nature of representation for decades too. I think some of the anti-neural net cognitive science people (Pinker, Fodor maybe? I forget) brought up some Sorites arguments when fighting the 80's connectionists.