Swaroop Roy

05005033

 How

does the mind work.

What is the meaning of life in living
beings.
How can intelligence emerge from
non-intelligence.
How do we learn.
How do we solve problems.
How do we remember events.

 Society

of Mind ........ whats that ?

 Society of Mind ........ whats that

Its a scheme in which the mind

thought of as being made up of

many smaller processes.

 These

processes are called mental

agents or just agents.
Each agent can only perform simple
tasks that need no mind or thought
at all.(why ?)
Yet when these agents are joined in
societies -in very special ways- this
leads to true intelligence.

 To

explain the mind, we have to show

how minds are built from mindless
stuff, from parts that are much
smaller and simpler than anything
we'd consider smart (agents).
Unless we can explain the mind in
terms of things that have no
thoughts or feelings their own, we'll
only have gone around in a circle

 Analogous

to studying living beings

through cells.

 Analogous

to studying living beings

through cells.
Similarly studying matter through
atoms.

 To

start to see how minds are like

societies, consider this task : pick up
a cup of tea.

 To

start to see how minds are like

societies, consider this task : pick up a
cup of tea.
The GRASPING agents want to keep
hold of the cup.
The BALANCING agents want to keep
the tea from spilling.
The THIRST agents want to drink the
tea.
The MOVING agents want to get the
cup to the lips

 Note

that each of them are mutually

exclusive, balancing does not affect
thirst and thirst is not involved in our
social life.
They depend on one another to get
the job done which is drink tea.
All this happens while talking.
Very complex system.

Imagine the childs mind contains a host of

smaller minds and right now an agent
called Builder is in control whose
speciality is to build towers from blocks.
Building a tower itself is too complicated a
task for any snigle agent so Builder takes
help from several other agents.

Our builder is really far from done.

See must recognize blocks in spite of
backgrounds, shades, lights, and even when
they're partially obscured by other things.
Move has to guide the arm through
complicated paths in space without striking
the tower or the child itself.
Grasp must not take a block already in the
tower !!!!
What if the tower starts to sway? Real
builder must guess the cause. Is it because
some joint isn't square enough? Is the
foundation insecure,or is the tower too tall
for its width? Perhaps is only because the
last block was placed too roughly.

 All

children learn about such things but we

rarely ever think about them in our later
years, by the time we are adults we
consider all of this to be simple common
sense.
Commonsense not a simple thing. Instead,
its an immense society of hard-earned
practical ideas-of multitudes of life-learned
rules and exceptions, dispositions and
tendencies, balances and checks.
Illusion of simplicity comes from losing
touch with what happened during infancy,
when we formed our first abilities.

certain sense of loss while

breaking down.
Builder is composed of agents like
Find and Get, where does the
knowing how to build reside ?
Not in any single part, yet those
parts are all that Builder is.

certain sense of loss while breaking

down.
Builder is composed of agents like
Find and Get, where does the
knowing how to build reside ?
Not in any single part, yet those parts
are all that Builder is.
Answer: Its not enough to understand
what each agent does, also need to
know how they are inter-related

 Does

builder really know how to

build towers ?

 Does

builder really know how to

build towers ?
Depends on how you look at it.

 What

is Life? One dissects body but

finds no life inside.
What is Mind? One dissects a brain
but finds no mind inside.
Are life and mind so much more than
the "sum of their parts" that it is
useless to search for them?

Holist:
Holist "l'll prove no box can hold a mouse. A
box is made by nailing six boards together. But
its obvious that no box can hold a mouse unless
it has some 'mouse-tightness' or containment .
Now, no single board contains any containment
since the mouse can just walk away from it.
And if there is no containment in one board,
there can't be any in six boards. So the box can
have no mouse-tightness at all. Theoretically,
then, the mouse can escape!"
Citizen: "Amazing.Then what does keep the
mouse in a box?"
Holist: "Oh, simple.Even though it has no real
mousetightness, a goodbox can 'simulate' it so
well that the mouse is fooled and can't figure
how to escape."

 Marvin

Minski Society of Mind

(book).
All pictures courtesy Society of
Mind (book).