The Society of Mind by Marvin Minsky

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The Society of Mindby Marvin Minsky

• Swaroop Roy
• 05005033

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Motivation

• 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.

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Introduction

• Society of Mind ........ whats that ?

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Introduction

• Society of Mind ........ whats that ?
• Its a scheme in which the mind thought of as
  being made up of many smaller processes.

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Mental Agents

• 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.

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• 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

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Why do we want to look at the mind this way

• Analogous to studying living beings through
  cells.

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Why do we want to look at the mind this way

• Analogous to studying living beings through
  cells.
• Similarly studying matter through atoms.

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Society of Mind An Example

• To start to see how minds are like societies,
  consider this task pick up a cup of tea.

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Society of Mind An Example

• 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

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Society of Mind An Example

• 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.

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World of Blocks

• 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.

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World of Blocks
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World of Blocks
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Common Sense

• 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.

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Common Sense

• 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.

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Agents and Agencies

• A 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.

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Agents and Agencies

• A 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

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Agents and Agencies

• Does builder really know how to build towers ?

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Agents and Agencies

• Does builder really know how to build towers ?
• Depends on how you look at it.

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Life and Mind

• 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?

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Life and Mind

• 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."

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References

• Marvin Minski Society of Mind (book).
• All pictures courtesy Society of Mind (book).