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

76 HOW THE MIND WORKSmark identical inscriptions in the Goal column and the Long-TermMemory column. The very first demon I mentioned, which scans forsuch duplicates, is triggered to make the mark that indicates the problemhas been solved:Long-Term Memory Short-Term Memory GoalEdgar uncle-of-Me Abel parent-of Me Gordie uncle-of Me? YesGordie 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-maleWhat have we accomplished? We have built a system out of lifelessgumball-machine parts that did something vaguely mindlike: it deducedthe truth of a statement that it had never entertained before. From ideasabout particular parents and siblings and a knowledge of the meaning ofunclehood, it manufactured true ideas about particular uncles. The trick,to repeat, came from the processing of symbols: arrangements of matterthat have both representational and causal properties, that is, that simultaneouslycarry information about something and take part in a chain ofphysical events. Those events make up a computation, because themachinery was crafted so that if the interpretation of the symbols thattrigger the machine is a true statement, then the interpretation of thesymbols created by the machine is also a true statement. The computationaltheory of mind is the hypothesis that intelligence is computationin this sense."This sense" is broad, and it shuns some of the baggage found in