Again, Minsky attacks "simplifying": "What makes us want to compress so much into such inexpressive summaries as `like', `prefer', and `enjoy'? Why try to reduce such complex things to simple values or amounts of pleasurable quality?" Minsky's position is that we cannot accept such summaries at face value. "Neither the state of the world nor that of the mind is ever so simple that it can be expressed in a single, one-dimensional judgement."
The simplest summaries are demnaded by the highest levels of the mind when decsions are made. (NB: This gives a very strong sense of increased abstraction as one moves to high levels of agents). Such summaires hide lots of internal machinery used to support this decision. "The relation between wanting and liking is not simple at all, because our preferences are the end products of so many negotiations among our agencies. To accomplish any substantial goal, we must renounce the other possibilities and engage machiner to keep ourselves from succumbing to nostalgia or remorse. Then we use words like `liking' to express the operation of the mechanisms that hold us to our choice."
(NB: This is interesting to me. A common view in cognitive psychology is that we do not have direct access (eg., via introspection) to the machinery underlying our thoughts. Here, Minsky is making a similar point, but for different reasons -- summaries that neglect details make it easier to stick to accomplishing goals!)
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