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We haven't found anything in nature that resembles reverse-mode automatic differentiation, either in evolution or in neuroscience.
by kragen 11mo ago
We haven't found anything in nature that resembles reverse-mode automatic differentiation, either in evolution or in neuroscience.
- mountainreason 11mo agoWhat would that look like. Is there an implementation of the finite difference method in biology somehow?
- kragen 11mo agoI'd be surprised.
- mountainreason 11mo agoYeah thanks, me too. So I'm wondering what point 22 is getting at. How could that even be possible?
- kragen 11mo agoBiology can use discrete methods; we have discrete neurons (and other cells), discrete chemical species like ATP, discrete amino acids, discrete genes made of discrete nucleotides, etc.
- mountainreason 11mo agoFur sure. But I don't get how that leads to an expectation that our biology is computing and utilizing derivatives in a computational graph. Point 22 seems to imply that the other finds it notable that that isn't happening.
- mountainreason 11mo agoAuthor*