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>>joelg+(OP)
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.

RIP.

>>Tossro+81
Honest question: What does this koan mean? Specifically, what is closing one's eyes analogous to in the neural network? What is the recommended alternative action?

>>areyou+HA1
Somewhere else is the thread is a closer rendition of how the actual exchange went. Using that, I finally understand the koan:

Closing his eyes did not make the room empty. It made him not know which things were where.

Randomizing the neural network did not remove all the preconceptions from the network. It made him not know what the network's preconceptions were.