HOW IT THINKS · TWO INTERACTIVE LESSONS
Know when to stop chasing.
The ball is on the right. Should the paddle follow it? Counter uses the ball’s direction to choose between meeting a return and getting ready for the next one.
Same position. Different direction.
Change only the ball’s direction. Watch the move change.
Reading Counter’s signals…
A signal becomes a strategy.
The departure neuron does not move the paddle by itself. Its connections let later neurons change the target. Follow shares one signal between actions; Counter combines signals into a strategy. Both are programs written directly in weights.
That understanding gives us a concrete design instruction: use a separate recovery target when the ball departs. We included this instruction in the prompting experiment, then checked whether changing direction affected the returned network’s decisions.