Sometimes there is just no reductive theory for emergent phenomena. For example, in the case of ant routing we have a good understanding of the behavior of individual ants, and we can observe the intelligent behavior of the colony as a whole. One could ask for a concrete theory of how the micro scale behavior of each ant leads to the macro scale behavior of the colony, but it doesn't exist. If we had enough working memory to hold all the ants in our minds, we'd see that both micro and macro scale behaviors are different aspects of the same system, there's no "missing link" in the chain of explanations, and the dichotomy is only due to our own cognitive limitations.
There are a lot of problems that do not have analytical solutions, like the N-body problem. With these problems all you can do is numerical simulation, which is pretty much what modern machine learning is.
There are a lot of problems that do not have analytical solutions, like the N-body problem. With these problems all you can do is numerical simulation, which is pretty much what modern machine learning is.