Methods and apparatus for discrimitive semantic transfer and physics-inspired optimization in deep learning are disclosed. A computation training method for a convolutional neural network (CNN) includes receiving a sequence of training images in the CNN of a first stage to describe objects of a cluttered scene as a semantic segmentation mask. The semantic segmentation mask is received in a semantic segmentation network of a second stage to produce semantic features. Using weights from the first stage as feature extractors and weights from the second stage as classifiers, edges of the cluttered scene are identified using the semantic features.