Talk:Function approximation

Function approximation is a general class of problem solving where one tries to approximate an unknown function from a labeled data set (X, y).

....

Mathematically the problem can be posed as:

$\min _{w}\|Xw-y\|^{2}.$

I do not understand the above. What does "labeled" mean? Is the "data set" simply a finite collection of ordered pairs of numbers? The part following the words "the problem can be posed as" makes no sense at all. If the author of these words or anyone else has any idea what was meant, could they make some attempt to explain it in the article? Michael Hardy 04:22, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)