Steven Pinker -- How the Mind Works - Hampshire High Italian ...

Thinking Machines 75As it stands, we are considering the aunts and uncles collectively. Toseparate the uncles from the aunts, we need to find the males. Mechanicallyspeaking, the system needs to see which inscriptions have counterpartsin Long-Term Memory with is-male marks next to them. Here isthe demon that does the checking:IF: Goal = Distinguish Uncles/AuntsShort-Term Memory = X parent-of YLong-Term Memory = Z sibling-of XLong-Term Memory = Z is-maleTHEN: STORE IN LONG-TERM MEMORYZ uncle-of YERASE GOALThis is the demon that most directly embodies the system's knowledgeof the meaning of "uncle": a male sibling of a parent. It adds theunclehood inscription to Long-Term Memory, not Short-Term Memory,because the inscription represents a piece of knowledge that is permanentlytrue:Long-Term Memory Short-Term Memory GoalEdgar uncle-of-Me Abel parent-of Me Gordie uncle-of Me?Gordie uncle-of-Me Bella parent-of MeAbel parent-of Me Edgar sibling-of AbelAbel is-maleFanny sibling-of AbelBella parent-of Me Gordie sibling-of BellaBella is-femaleClaudia sibling-of MeClaudia is-femaleDuddie sibling-of MeDuddie is-maleEdgar sibling-of AbelEdgar is-maleFanny sibling-of AbelFanny is-femaleGordie sibling-of BellaGordie is-maleConceptually speaking, we have just deduced the fact that weinquired about. Mechanically speaking, we have just created mark-for-