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From: sew@minn-ua.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: Re: intelligence and genius - (nf)
Message-ID: <920@minn-ua.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 30-Jan-84 13:26:03 EST
Article-I.D.: minn-ua.920
Posted: Mon Jan 30 13:26:03 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 1-Feb-84 01:56:39 EST
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#R:sri-arpa:-1568100:minn-ua:2300001:000:756
minn-ua!sew    Jan 30 10:30:00 1984


An article in Nature (June 83?  Also a few months later in Psychology Today)
suggested that mammal brains might use a related approach to help determine
reality.  The idea is that when mammals dream, the "lower" brain is feeding
random signals into the "higher" brain and whatever responds is inhibited.
Thus many false connections would get broken, along with some infrequently
reinforced good connections.

The concept seems to be simple.  If a connection responds to a random signal,
it is probably a random connection.  Remove random connections what what will
be left is connections which are part of patterns.

"To make a statue of an elephant, remove everything which does not look like
an elephant."

Scot E. Wilcoxon
...ihnp4!umn-cs!minn-ua!sew