Hofstadter, Dennett - The Mind's I

Prelude . . . Ant Fugue 201bility requires only the most abstract kinds of mechanisms to remain unchanged. A manylayeredsystem can have programs tailored to very specific needs (e.g., programs for chessplaying, woolly-mammoth hunting, and so on) at its most superficial level, and progressivelymore abstract programs at deeper layers, thus getting the best of both worlds Examples of thedeeper type of program would be ones for recognizing patterns; for evaluating conflictingpieces of evidence; for deciding which, among rival subsystems clamoring for attention,should get higher priority; for deciding how to label the currently perceived situation forpossible retrieval on future occasions that may be similar; for deciding€ whether twoconcepts really are or are not analogous; and so on.Further description of this kind of system would carry us deep into the philosophicaland technical territory of cognitive science, and we will not go that far. Instead, we referreaders to the "Further Readings' section for discussions of the strategies of knowledgerepresentation it humans and in programs. In particular, Aaron Sloman's book The ComputerRevolution in Philosophy goes into great detail on these issues.D.R.H