Boltzmann Machines

• I'm not really sure why they use Boltzmann machines, but I expect it supports their statistical mechanics.
• A Boltzmann machine is a probabilistic integrate and fire neuron.
• Without any input, it will tend to fire on a regular basis.
• If there is positive input, it will fire more frequently.
• All it does is have a function that looks at the current activation.
• It then probabilistically (using random) selects whether to fire or not.
• Hinton uses restricted Boltzmann machines, but the restriction is on the connections. They have to be bidirectional, and they have to be layered. (This is not the way the brain works, but they could care less because they're not interested in neurophysiology.)