6.868 / MAS.731

Society of Mind

Spring 2013

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Implementing the Society of Mind

The Society of Mind presents an abundance of good ideas about how the mind works — but how can we implement them? What are the challenges involved in translating these abstract constructions into concrete programs, and what progress have we already made?

Next Wednesday (17 Apr), Prof. Minsky will be attending an out of town conference. In his stead, we have invited a panel of students whom he has supervised, to relate their experiences with implementing Prof. Minsky's ideas, the obstacles they encountered, and how to overcome them.

In preparation for the lecture, we have compiled references to previous work done with Society of Mind. You are not required to read them, but you may still want to skim them; we recommend them highly as informative background reading, and they may help you as you continue to work on your final project.

Assignment 5: Thinking

Chapter 7 of The Emotion Machine proposes some theories about how we observe our own thought processes, how we defer our plans and lines of thought for later, and how we restore them. After you have read the chapter, please send an e-mail to the staff (society-of-mind@mit.edu) containing at least two of your questions or criticisms about the content of the chapter that you would like to be addressed in lecture; along with each question or criticism, you should also propose a tentative solution. As always, your responses should be thoughtful, clear, and important. Your e-mail is due by 6 A.M. Wednesday morning (17 Apr), although you may submit it earlier. We'll use these responses to direct and shape the course of a later lecture.

Formatting: You should include your responses either in the body of your e-mail, or as a plain text or pdf attachment— please do not send Microsoft Word documents, etc.