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From: whitten@netcom.com (David Whitten)
Subject: Re: Mind Modelling
Message-ID: <whittenCsuEwn.BoF@netcom.com>
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Date: Tue, 12 Jul 1994 19:45:59 GMT
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Collin Pieper (clp5@cornell.edu) wrote:

: A little off the track, but you may want to check out Marvin Minsky's
: _Society of Mind_ it's an easy read by the father of AI about how he
: believes the mind works.  He is rather convincing in his argument that
: the mind is a society of agents that are not in themselves intelligent,
: but when they come together and interact, create intelligence.

: Anybody else here of any good books along the lines of thought, AI, world
: modeling, etc. that they believe would apply to IF?

: Collin

As I understand Minsky's Society of Mind Theory, The mind is a set of these
competing 'idea-agents' which all compete to solve problems. (I may have
it confused with the Blackboard theory)

I remember skimming his book, but don't remember the book having enough 
details to actually guide a test implementation.  Since you have more 
recently read it, do you think it would be reasonable to create a mind 
soup testbed with the NPC's described as being composed of a subset of 
the idea-agents,and use this a way to generate 'squint real hard and hope' 
believable NPCs ?

I just think that it ought to be possible to have something out there
to make it easier for beginning IF writers to build upon rather than
the simplistic wander around the game, I know three facts, and can do
two things characters we have today.

Maybe I'm unusual, but I read fiction for the characters more than
the 'adventure'/'swashbuckling'.

David (whitten@netcom.com) (214) 437-5255
