Different Levels of Modeling and the Brain

What stands out from the studies of machine learning is a new way of approaching modeling. In the introductory chapter, we outlined that the meaning of modeling is to describe a system in a simplified way which allows us to make predictions, which thus encapsulates (in some sense) the essence of our knowledge. In this sense, machine learning goes beyond simply providing convenient algorithms to solve some automation problems. Learning to represent or extract meaningful entities might not be equivalent to meaning itself, but it is certainly related.

Predictive analysis with physics

To further illuminate what we mean here, let’s discuss different ways of describing a system by looking at an example of modeling a natural phenomenon such as that of a falling leaf from a tree. In order to understand and describe such a situation, we might think back to our physics lessons and digest the situation with a description embedded in physical laws. If we begin with an apple, we can start with gravity and understand that the apple falls straight down.