BACH@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA (12/30/83)
From: Rene Bach <BACH@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Mike,
It seems to me that we have an inbuilt mechanism which remembers
what is done (thought) at all times. I.E. we know and remember (more or
less) our train of thoughts. When we get in a loop, the mind is
immediately triggered : at the first element, we think it could be a
coincidence, as more elements are found matching the loop, the more
convinced we get that there is a repeat : the reading example is quite
good , even when just one word appears in the same sentence context
(meaning rather than syntactical context), my mind is triggered and I go
back and check if there is actually a loop or not. Thus to implement this
property in the computer we would need a mechanism able to remember the
path and check whether it has been followed already or not (and how
far), at each step. Detection of repeats of logical rather than word for
word sentences (or sets of ideas) is still left open.
I think that the loop detection mechanism is part of the
memorization process, which is an integral part of the reasoning engine
and it is not sitting "on top" and monitoring the reasoning process from
above.
Renerobison@eosp1.UUCP (Tobias D. Robison) (01/05/84)
There are certainly examples of loops which the brain does not immeidately "trigger on" and detect. Haven't you had the experience of noticing that you have been humming (or thinking) a small part of a piece of music over and over again? A very slow trigger, I would say. - Toby Robison decvax!ittvax!eosp1 or: allegra!eosp1