Well that depends on how you see it. This a methaphor we are talking about. In its simplest form both are conditional based outcomes. Be it binary, a gradient, or even multi dimensional.
if-else's are all conditionals, but not all conditionals are if-else's
And i can't imagine a gradient activation function being described as "behaves like if-else's" since they have so little in common. Though I suppose that is a matter of opinion.
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u/cowlinator 13d ago
They do not, because if/else is binary on/off, and the neuron activation function is a gradient.