# How Can We Be So Dense? The Benefits of Using Highly Sparse Representations

**URL:** <https://discourse.numenta.org/t/how-can-we-be-so-dense-the-benefits-of-using-highly-sparse-representations/5693>\
**Category:** Related Papers\
**Created:** [March 28, 2019, 8:43pm UTC](https://discourse.numenta.org/t/how-can-we-be-so-dense-the-benefits-of-using-highly-sparse-representations/5693 "2019-03-28T20:43:06Z")\
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**Author:** ![marty1885](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.numenta.org/marty1885/32/1891_2.png) [@marty1885](https://discourse.numenta.org/u/marty1885)\
**Post date:** [June 13, 2019, 1:43am UTC](https://discourse.numenta.org/t/how-can-we-be-so-dense-the-benefits-of-using-highly-sparse-representations/5693/30 "2019-06-13T01:43:17Z")

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You get ~95% on MNIST using template-and-match… Well… So what happens if you turn on learning?

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