I spend a lot of my free time doing self directed learning from text books and frequently hit a wall where I don't know where to even begin.
Usually I recognise this as either an incomplete understanding of the topic, or a representation of the problem that I'm not familiar with.
When this happens, I usually make a note of the question or topic, and specific questions I have that are preventing me from understanding the problem, and I seek out different sources of similar knowledge.
I find different authors present ideas and concepts in different ways, and sometimes if a concept isn't clear in one text, it's clear in another.
In your specific example, I'd recommend seeking another book or article on neural networks and skim it until you find information on the concept you're stuck with, and see if it can add any pieces to the puzzle.
If that fails, sometimes just forgetting about it and proceeding will unlock understanding at random later on, usually in the shower in my case.
Usually I recognise this as either an incomplete understanding of the topic, or a representation of the problem that I'm not familiar with.
When this happens, I usually make a note of the question or topic, and specific questions I have that are preventing me from understanding the problem, and I seek out different sources of similar knowledge. I find different authors present ideas and concepts in different ways, and sometimes if a concept isn't clear in one text, it's clear in another.
In your specific example, I'd recommend seeking another book or article on neural networks and skim it until you find information on the concept you're stuck with, and see if it can add any pieces to the puzzle. If that fails, sometimes just forgetting about it and proceeding will unlock understanding at random later on, usually in the shower in my case.