How do words evoke complex statesof mind? "Many people have tried to explain language as though it were separate from the rest of psychology." Minsky argues against this. His view is that language must be treated as part of thought. Minsky's move is to integrate language and thinking by exploiting two new kinds of agents. 1) Polynemes -- a type of K-line that sends the same simple signal to many different agencies, each of which must learn what to do when that signal is received. 2) Isonomes -- controls a short-term memory in each of many agencies.
(NB: These building blocks strike me as being very associationistic in nature. Does Minsky's notion of semantics boil down to experiences associated with specific words?)
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