2025-03-24
Am I the only one who finds the ease of programming in the post-LLM era a bit frustrating? Amazing, but frustrating still. I have always programmed to learn. Yes, the end product is important, but so too is your understanding of the program's operation. With regard to visualization, I cut my teeth on Python's matplotlib module. Matplotlib allows for a significant amount of customization. This...
2025-03-17
Update 04-07-2025: This paper was recently presented as a History of Political Economy Lunch discussion. My initial response to feedback has been integrated into the current draft. Thank you to everyone who participated in the discussion. I am indebted to Bruce Caldwell for conversations and advice throughout the development of this project, without which this paper would not be possible. My...
2025-03-11
The 1960 Symposium On Self-organization: an Overview The period between 1950 and 1970 was a time of significant development in the field of computing. The diversity of artificial intelligence research that grew from this period laid the foundation for technologies that we continue using today. At the 1960 Symposium on Self-organization (the book indicates 1961, but this appears to be in error...
2025-03-08
If we can model the world using finite state machines and these machines, in practice, are deterministic, must we import a belief in determinism at a deeper level in our analysis? This is a difficult question 1) due to the limited extent of our knowledge and 2) due to what one might want to believe about freedom of will. Both of these challenges will play a role in discussion. I will base my...
2025-03-02
Number of Bits: 4 Finite state machines may seem rather mysterious, but odds are that they conform to your intuitions. 1 The challenge, rather, is understanding how to build a finite state machine with well-structured code. So, let's walk through the idea of a simple finite state machine using JavaScript. Discussion in the post will focus on abstract concepts. If you would like to see the code,...
2025-02-27
For the purposes of our discussion where we want to include what is commonly described as an "organism" as well as what is understood by the terms machine or "mechanism" in the narrower sense, it will be advisable to avoid the latter two expressions and to employ the more neutral expression: "system" in the sense of a coherent structure of causally connected physical parts. The term system will...
2025-02-16
I always find that building statistical functions from scratch is the best way to reinforce understanding of statistical concepts. Those of you who have been following my posts recently know that I have built the McCulloch-Pitts Neuron and Perceptron models in this manner. As I continue working through the history of neural networks, it is time to build a feedforward network with...
2025-02-06
How well recognized was Hayek's The Sensory Order before a number of minor revivals that occurred starting in the 1970s? Well, the answer to this question is not terribly obvious. To begin, I extracted citations from Semantic Scholar. However, Semantic Scholar was missing an number of important citations that appeared in books and various working papers and was even missing citations from some...
2025-02-03
1. Hayek and the Perceptron Controversy: F. A. Hayek's Forgotten Contribution to Neural Networks * 1.1 In 1988, there occurred independent citations of F. A. Hayek from research in computer science. One from Cowan and Sharpe in their recapitulation of the current state of research on neural networks. The other from Miller and Drexler on their comparison of computational ecologies with markets....
2025-01-08
In the early years of development of artificial intelligence and computing, neurons were fast considered for their role as computing devices. In an earlier post I discussed the mapping of neurons McCulloch and Pitts ( 1943 ). This was part of the enterprise of the same enterprise of envisioning various computing machines. This is not to make the claim that those engaged in this process viewed...