Dennett's Real Patterns in Science and Nature

How the concept of a pattern, as understood in information science and applied in contemporary AI, can address deep questions in science and philosophy.

The explosive growth of AI and machine learning in recent decades is predicated on the recognition and exploitation of patterns in data. Of course, scientists have engaged in their own—less automated—processes of pattern recognition since the birth of science itself, and biological organisms evolved their own neural networks for pattern reco...