Neural networks Neural processing Natural intelligence Commentary

Warren Sturgis McCulloch, Walter Pitts computer science

Neural networks

• Warren Sturgis McCulloch and Walter Pitts
• realized that the computational power
• of biological neural networks
• could be modeled using a non-biological or logical mechanism.
• The McCulloch-Pitts neuron is a mathematical model
• of a biological neuron,
• which weighs and sums its inputs
• and produces an output if its threshold has been reached.

Neural processing

• The idea is to connect McCulloch-Pitts neurons
• in a network, called an artificial neural network.
• Then you feed its various inputs with sample data
• and train the network by adjusting the weighting factors
• until you get the desired outputs.
• This model led to theories of automata, cybernetics,
• cognitive modeling, and artificial intelligence.

Natural intelligence

• One definition of intelligence is
• mental processing that a computer can not copy,
• so that “artificial intelligence” is an oxymoron.
• If we were to commit to that definition,
• many people would not qualify,
• because they decide nothing that a computer couldn’t.
• Yet we think that computers cannot have intuition,
• cannot make leaps of thought to discover things,
• and cannot be sane or insane.
• Whether informed by patterns of neuroses or pheromones,
• we feel that only machines cannot suffer,
• and that any animal that survives is intelligent or lucky.