Connectionism and the Emergence of Knowledge

Procedures for creating used by connectionist networks with hidden units are analyzed. With these networks it is possible to create by modification of the inputs, by modification of collector properties, by modification of connections between units and variation of thresholds of activation, by modification of constraints imposed on the network, by creation of new hidden units or by creation of new outputs. The interest of connectionist networks is in simulating various processes to allow analysis of modifications that are efficient and capable of concretizing the consequences of choices. Networks must be designed as tools capable of helping formalize problems, and not as replicas of cognitive processes.