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October 31, 2005
The Shape of Space
In The Shape of Space, Minsky hypothesizes how we, as newborns learn to sense the space around us, with an eye towards crafting artificial intelligence algorithms to do the same. How do we figure it out and put it all together? Where is the prime mover for the development of our relative understanding of our surroundings. How is it that individuals come to the same collective understanding about what is and isn't?
What I find most interesting is the how we consistently mistake truth for our imagination. When we have seen an object from a single perspective, we imagine what it looks like from other perspectives and 'recognize' it from said perspectives. We do this using learned information about perception and space. This power of imagination allows us to function but closes us off to worlds and possibilities that we will no longer allow to happen. Real breakthroughs appear when we recede and let go of those assumptions. When we think like a child, again.
Posted by Bukhin, Mike at October 31, 2005 10:09 PM