Power Point by: Marc Prenger

The Society of Mind is broken up into 30 chapters. Each of these chapters is broken up into subsections. As stated in the prologue by Mr. Minsky, these 30 chapters are not in any certain order. They can only be fully understood as a whole. I will be giving a general overview of 5 of these 30 chapters in order to give you some insight into the book. I have chosen 5 short chapters so that there will be a minimal amount of information “thrown” at you, therefore reducing confusion. -Marc Prenger

 The idea of this chapter is to make the reader aware of agents. Agents are small, mindless entities that, together, create your mind. Each agent performs a specific function and only communicates with other agents in order to get its specified job done. The only purpose of an agent is to perform its specified function.  Agents are represented in the picture on the title slide.

 As an individual, we cannot concern ourselves with unanswerable questions such as: “What is the purpose of life?” Questions such as these can continuously be answered with another question, “Why?” The same holds true if we see ourselves as a Self-inside-a-Self, or a tiny person inside of us controlling our every action. This would pose the question, “Does not the Self inside also have a Self-inside-a-Self?”  On another note, why do individuals like things that have no earthly value to them? Why pick square furniture if circular furniture is just as sturdy? Because it creates a sense of uniformity in one’s life so that they are not preoccupied with the furniture!  Can one be the same person they were five, ten twenty years ago? Can you remember what it was like to not understand the symbols, “Don’t Read This?” If you answered yes to the first question, and no to the second question then you are contradicting yourself. The agents that handle the ability to read have changed over as you aged. Individuality is based on the agents in our mind that change the least over time.

 Complex things such as whether or not someone enjoyed a play are often stated in simple terms such as what I’ve said: enjoy, like, or hate. Why are such summaries created? Summaries are used so that our minds can comprehend such complex situations without being “over-loaded” with unnecessary information.  Summaries are used in order to describe overall feelings, or situations “on the whole.” If someone asked you how a bike ride was, you could tell them all the little details: I scraped my knee (bad), I got to hang out with friends (good), the scenery was amazing (good), I got a good workout (good), and a bug flew in my eye (bad). Instead of describing all the little details, a simple summary would suffice: “It was okay.”

 In order for an individual to be able to perceive a complex issue, it is sometimes necessary to see it in a different manner. This is called reformulation. Using reformulation, it is possible for adults to understand how a child draws a human as a circle with a face on it and arms coming from it. An adult would ask, “Where is the body?” A child’s mind sees this in a different manner. As they draw their picture, they draw one large shape as a head but later do not draw another large shape for a body seeing as they already have one drawn.

 Thought is based on recognizing differences. Questioning the significance of something is the same as asking, “What difference does it make?” “What is the difference between me doing this and me not doing this?”  In order for differences to be compared, agencies (groups of agents) must be virtually identical. If they are not, the differences that were intended to be compared will get lost in all the jumble of all the other differences between agencies. If you are trying to compare a memory of yourself from the past, you must be able to perceive yourself now and yourself in the past. How can your mind hold room for two minds – one person old, the other new?  In order to compare two things without causing a conundrum as stated before, agencies receive one line of thought, store it, then they receive another line of thought, and play the two in rapid succession. Any changes in the outputs of the agents represent differences.