Strength, not just presence

The input neurons here are all firing. The signal is there. But look at the wires connecting them to the central neuron.

Each wire has a weight — a number between 0 and 1. The weight controls how much of the signal gets through. A weight of 0.8 lets most of it pass. A weight of 0.1 barely lets anything through.

The central neuron doesn't count how many signals arrived. It multiplies each signal by its weight, then adds those up.

That's how the neuron decides what matters. A signal with a high weight contributes a lot. A signal with a low weight barely registers. Then it adds everything up.

Click the neurons on or off. Drag the weight labels to see the calculation update live.

The signal is the same. What changes is the connection.