samskivert: The Society of Mind (3)

05 August 2004

The fundamental idea, that mind is comprised of a hierarchy of cooperating agencies, is surely an insightful and robust foundation for the construction of theories about the operation of the mind. However, Minsky’s deeper exploration of those ideas in terms of K-lines, pronomes, frames, etc. were almost too detailed for a book speaking in such generalities. Without a problem domain and some sort of toy system with which to evaluate his proposals, one is left dissatisfied with the ideas, unable to point to immediate inconsistencies but also uncompelled by any innate elegance of the ideas themselves to expend the mental energy to think up a toy system with which to put them to the test.

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