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CIRCUIT CONFIGURATION

Pathways

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Pathways represent directed, stateless connections between circuit components, transporting sparse sets or multisets.

See also: https://creatingintelligence.org/#circuits

Details and properties

  • Pathways are strictly stateless, whereas circuit components generally maintain a state across multiple execution cycles.
  • The dataflow along pathways is clocked and globally synchronized.
  • By default, a pathway transports sets, automatically removing duplicate and inhibitory elements.
  • Pathways can be configured to transport multisets (duplicate elements) and inhibitory signals (negative elements).
  • Pathways may be configured to modify their payload.
  • Dataflow within a circuit can be controlled via pathway merging options.
  • Within the dataflow description format, pathway properties are specified within the components’ receive parameters.


Property Description
slot integer slot number, linking to an upstream component
tags list of signal flow modifiers
gating implements temporal multiplexing, specified by a recurring array of 0s and 1s, to close or open paths at specific intervals aligned with the global clock

Pathway tagging

A regular pathway:

{ "hyperparameters": {"default": [1000, 10]},
  "dataflow": [
    {"component": "input", "send": [1]},
    {"component": "output", "receive": [1]}
  ]}

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The same network with a tagged pathway:

{ "hyperparameters": {"default": [1000, 10]},
  "dataflow": [
    {"component": "input", "send": [1]},
    {"component": "output", "receive": [{"slot": 1, "tags": ["permute"]}]}
  ]}

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This setup merges two pathways, each individually tagged:

{ "hyperparameters": {"default": [1000, 10]},
  "dataflow": [
    {"component": "input", "send": [1]},
    {"component": "input", "send": [2]},
    {"component": "output", 
        "receive": [[{"slot": 1, "tags": ["permute"]}, 
                     {"slot": 2, "tags": ["threshold"]}]]}
  ]}

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Gated pathways

The gating property opens and closes the pathway at specific time intervals. In the following example, the pathway transports data for two cycles, then blocks for one cycle. All repeating gating patterns are aligned to start simultaneously with the global clock.

{ "hyperparameters": {"default": [1000, 10]},
  "dataflow": [
    {"component": "input", "send": [1]},
    {"component": "output", "receive": [{"slot": 1, "gating": [1, 1, 0]}]}
  ]}

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Signal modifications

Tag Display Description
multiset blue arrow enables multiset signals
inhibit red arrow enables multiset signals, flips positive elements to negative (inhibitory) elements
permute π applies a permutation unique to the specified path
rate_limit R caps the population at the path’s default population
threshold T clears signals that fall below the path’s default population
noise ~ generates random noise if signal is empty, otherwise clearing the path

This pathway conveys multisets:

{ "hyperparameters": {"default": [1000, 10]},
  "dataflow": [
    {"component": "input", "send": [1]},
    {"component": "output", "receive": [{"slot": 1, "tags": ["multiset"]}]}
  ]}

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Inhibitory pathways transport multisets, flipping all positive elements to negative elements. Within this framework, this mechanism is the exclusive source of inhibitory signals apart from external input.

{ "hyperparameters": {"default": [1000, 10]},
  "dataflow": [
    {"component": "input", "send": [1]},
    {"component": "output", "receive": [{"slot": 1, "tags": ["inhibit"]}]}
  ]}

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Signal gating tags

Gating tags veto, mandatory, and priority act across all receive blocks of a component.

For a circuit, the output nodes form the blocks of its output.

The fallback tag operates per block.

Tag Display Description
veto X clears all paths if a veto path is non-empty
mandatory * clears all paths if a mandatory path is empty
priority ! clears all non-priority paths if a priority path is non-empty
fallback | clears fallback paths if any non-fallback path is non-empty (NOR)

kWTA

Tag Display Description
kwta k passes the top-k elements ranked by total saliency (multiplicity of excitatory and inhibitory elements), ties included, with k taken to be the default population

kWTA operates per block on the merged signal and also applies to a single path. If any path of a merge carries a kWTA tag, the whole merge is filtered. Each element is scored by its multiplicity summed over all merged paths: a set path contributes one count per element, a multiset path contributes its duplicate counts. All elements scoring at or above the k-th highest score pass, so ties at the threshold are included. With k or fewer distinct elements, all pass. k is the smallest default population among the merged paths. The output is a set and may pass inhibitory winners as negative elements. kWTA applies no minimum score: a flat input passes unchanged. Thresholding or rate limiting the result is left to a downstream path or component.

In this circuit, two paths are merged via kWTA. Elements present on both paths win; if the paths share no elements, their union passes.

{ "hyperparameters": {"default": [1000, 10]},
  "dataflow": [
    {"component": "input", "send": [1]},
    {"component": "input", "send": [2]},
    {"component": "delay", "send": [11], 
        "receive": [[{"slot": 1, "tags": ["kwta"]}, 
                     {"slot": 2, "tags": ["kwta"]}]]},
    {"component": "output", "receive": [11]}
  ]}

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kWTA on a single multiset path selects the most frequent elements:

{ "hyperparameters": {"default": [1000, 10]},
  "dataflow": [
    {"component": "input", "send": [1]},
    {"component": "output", 
        "receive": [{"slot": 1, "tags": ["multiset", "kwta"]}]}
  ]}

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Schematics rendering and data logging

Tag Display Description
label string custom edge label
show_slot integer render the path’s slot number
show_dimension N render the path’s dimension hyperparameter
show_population P render the path’s population hyperparameter
log ? print the path’s payload to the console at every timestep

Customize edge labels:

{ "hyperparameters": {"default": [1000, 10]},
  "dataflow": [
    {"component": "input", "send": [1]},
    {"component": "input", "send": [2]},
    {"component": "delay", "send": [7], "receive": 
        [[{"slot": 1, "label": "P=", "tags": ["show_population"]}, 
          {"slot": 2, "label": "N=", "tags": ["show_dimension"]}]]},
    {"component": "output", "receive": 
         [{"slot": 7, "label": "slot=", "tags": ["show_slot"]}]}
  ]}

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Tagging a pathway with log prints its payload to the console at every evaluation cycle.

{ "hyperparameters": {"default": [1000, 10]},
  "dataflow": [
    {"component": "input", "send": [1]},
    {"component": "output", "receive": [{"slot": 1, "tags": ["log"]}]}
  ]}

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