Here Minsky describes symbol manipulation (if I can really use that phrase here) in terms of swapping the states of two agents, which requires memory buffers to succeed. These buffers must be specialized enough to store only that information to be swapped, and must also require sensitivity to timing, in order to perform the correct swap at the correct time.
(NB: There are some architectural hints here -- is Minsky buying into the structure/rule distinction? Control structure is very important in this section too, which strikes me as a crucial leaning-away from connectionism.)
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