One programme this week was discussing how computers can 'learn' to play games like chess and backgammon. IBM built a machine that could beat Kasparov in a game of chess, but it required a massive amount of cooling technology just to keep it running as it worked through thousands of pre-progammed move scenarios a second, They made the point that Kasparov hardly raised a sweat.. and the computer only just managed to beat him.
This prompted a scientist to muse on how Kasparov's mind worked whilst he played and how he had developed such a grasp of the complexities of the game. He reasoned that the sheer repitition of playing the game over the years had trained Kasparov's mind to work as well as a multi-million dollar computer.
Taking this idea he wrote a computer program that could learn from being beaten at a game (they chose backgammon as the test game). The computer endlessly played games of backgammon for a very long time, learning from its defeats until it got to the point where it was held to be unbeatable.
The programme implied that our minds work in this way too and this made me wonder about some of the things we motorcyclists do when we ride. When we ride we have to contend with weather conditions, various surfaces and an endless variety of driving behaviours on the part of other road users. Experience and repitition make us able to deal with this and ride safely. More to the point, I pondered on how I ride in heavy fast traffic. I grew up riding in a city and I have always been faster than many other riders through heavy traffic. When I am doing this I have always been aware that I (and all of us I'm sure) don't have a fixed point of concentration. It's a bit like my mind is taking in lots of stuff around me and I only get alerted to what is important at that moment. To do this your mind needs to know what a movement, shape or action implies and this can only be 'learned' through repitition (and, more painfully, mistakes).
I'm not saying I have a Kasparovian level of mastery over my riding, but I'm sure that some of the same things are going on.
The programme also discussed the case of the Royal Navy radar operator who, during Operation Desert Storm, saved a US battleship because of the fluctuations of a few Dopamine neurons. He had been seeing the blips of returning US air planes for weeks, but one morning he saw an identical blip on his screen and, although he didn't know why, it scared him. The blip was heading directly towards a US aircraft carrier on the exactly the same course as the planes took. Trusting his instinct he ordered two missiles to be launched. Only later did he discover that he had been right and the blip was a missile, not a US plane. For a long time nobody could work out what he had seen that would make him think the blip was any different to those he routinely saw on his screen... there was no difference. Eventually somebody worked out that the blip had first appeared on the screen in a slightly differnet way to an aircraft blip. The operator's experience meant that his mind registered a difference even when he consciously could not.
Interesting thing, your bonce.
GC
