[_iyig]

Brings to mind this classic from the Jargon File:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/koans.html

In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6. “What are you doing?”, asked Minsky.

“I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe” Sussman replied.

“Why is the net wired randomly?”, asked Minsky.

“I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play”, Sussman said. Minsky then shut his eyes. “Why do you close your eyes?”, Sussman asked his teacher.

“So that the room will be empty.”

At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.

[nefasti]

I don’t get it :(

[epaga]

I think it means - just as closing your eyes doesn't mean the room becomes empty, wiring the learning network randomly doesn't mean you'll end up with no pre-conceptions (e.g. the rule system at least will need to be programmed in).

[blamestross]

It also doesn't avoid preconceptions directly. It just initializes random ones.

[shim2k]

Aren’t preconceptions not random by definition?

[kian]

I think he's suggesting that any given random set of preconceptions will itself be a 'sample' from the entire preconception-space, and therefor itself a preconception - just one that you didn't involve yourself in choosing.

[blamestross]

If your preconceptions were not random relative to the truth, wouldn't you be able to know how to correct them?