Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Discrete and continuous

Some aspects of reality appear to be discrete. Matter seems to come in chunks we call atoms. Charge seems to come in chunks. Other aspects of reality appear to be continuous. Distance/length in 3 dimensions, x, y, and z, seems to be continuous. Duration/time seems to be continuous.

Some of our artificial intelligence systems are purely discrete, things like logic programming software run on digital computers. Other approaches to AI can be continuous, things like the dynamic approach to cognition based on differential equations. And there are analog computers and control systems.

While modeling the world Asa H makes use of both discrete and continuous math. Asa can add new categories and attributes/features. It grows a graphical network of concepts. It can also (continuously) adjust the relative strengths of attributes, do interpolation and extrapolation, etc.

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