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From: bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry W. Kort)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc,comp.ai,sci.bio
Subject: Re: Artificial Intelligence and Intelligence
Summary: Together, we can we piece this one together.
Keywords: Synthetic Reasoning
Message-ID: <43576@linus.UUCP>
Date: 13 Jan 89 08:29:06 GMT
References: <558@soleil.UUCP> <43472@linus.UUCP> <331@csd4.milw.wisc.edu>
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Reply-To: bwk@mbunix (Barry Kort)
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In article <331@csd4.milw.wisc.edu> markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu
(Mark William Hopkins) takes me up on my jigsaw puzzle metaphor:

>In article <43472@linus.UUCP> bwk@mbunix (Barry Kort) writes:
>>If I give you a large, assembled jigsaw puzzle, and you examine
>>it piece by piece, you will end up with a pile of carefully
>>examined pieces.
>
>I don't know about that.  I solve most of my puzzles by classifying pieces
>on the basis of their shape and printed color, with little or no regard
>for the place where they fit in the "big" picture.
>
>Yet, I also claim that I'm solving the puzzle holistically in the process.
>The "big" picture always emerges out of the jumble of pieces near the end.

I grant that you are solving the puzzle holistically.  After all, the
big picture does in fact emerge at the end.  But the *process* of
solution seems to be occuring outside the focus of concious attention.
We can teach people how to examine the jigsaw pieces, and classify them
by color, shape, and texture.  But the method of assembly which yields
the "Aha! Insight" seems to a fuzzier, less algorithmic activity.

Perhaps it is occuring largely in the right hemisphere, using parallel
processing and combinatorial logic.  Why is it that holistic thinking
and insight seems to come during periods of sleep or during periods
when our attention is diverted away from the problem at hand?  Why
is it that the solution "shows up" without warning?

--Barry Kort