[From Rick Marken (970411.1100 PDT)]
Martin Taylor (970411) --
I have no surprise at the content of your answers... The actual
answers were not the point of posting the message.
And the point was...?
The book is an enquiry into the nature(s?) of truth.
And Eco had a a good enough answer to his enquiry right in
front of his typewriter. Eco asked (according to you):
Is truth something unknowable but to be approached by painstaking
investigation based on observation?
The "good enough" answer to this question is "yes". The answer to
all Eco's other enquiries about truth are clearly "no". What am I
missing?
at the risk of causing some disturbance to your self-image
perception,
Why worry about causing disturbances to perceptions I'm controlling? If
I'm controlling those perceptions, the disturbance will have
little or no effect on them. Don't you worry.
I may say that your actions do suggest that you are controlling
something that conflicts with whatever it was that influenced
you in one of your answers--the one about letting the common
folk in on partial or "untruthful" stuff.
The question was:
Is it the right and proper function of those who are good
investigators, or of those who _know_ the truth, to shield
the common people from writings that might, by being incomplete
or false, mislead the unwary?
And I said:
No.
Now you say that I'm controlling for something "that conflicts with
whatever it was that influenced" me to answer "no" to that question. Do
you mean I'm controlling for something that conflicts with my goal of
_not_ shielding "the common people" from writings that might mislead
them? Do you think I have the goal of shielding people
(common or otherwise) from certain writings? If I am in a conflict
I certainly don't notice it.
Martin Taylor (970411 10:11) --
Here's how I think e-coli learning works. I'm sure Bill or Rick
will correct me if I am wrong.
Here I am:-)
(4) Procedure:
(a) Evaluate the criterion at the current location.
(b) Make a small change by moving the location of the point in a
random direction.
(c) If the criterion gets worse, return to (b).
(d) If the criterion gets better, make another change in the same
direction again
Step (c) is note quite right. The _rate_ at which random changes in
weights (that determine that value of the "criterion" -- really the
controlled perceptual variable) occur is determined by the size of the
error (the difference between "criterion" and reference setting). Step
(d) is not quite right either. If the criterion gets "better" (error is
reduced) the _rate_ at which random changes in the weights occur
is reduced. When (if) the error is zero, the changes stop completely or
keep occuring at some VERY low rate.
I see no trial and error-elimination in that
Each new setting of the weights is a "trial"; if the perception that
results from a setting is not at the reference there is an error.
So E. coli reorganization is a random, trial and error process. By
having the error be a _quantitative_ determinant of the rate
at which random trials occur, the process turns out to be _biased_
toward trials which result in perceptions near the reference
specification.
Best
Rick