Changes

In a complex intelligent system a number of relatively independent modules will emerge as utilities to subserve the purpose of knowledge acquisition.  Chief among these are the faculties of memory and imagination, which operate in closely coordinated representation spaces of the manifold, and may be no more than complementary ways of managing the same turf.  These capacities amplify the sensitivity and selectivity of intelligence in the system.  They support the transcription of momentary experience into records of its passing.  Finally, they collate the fragmentary notes and diverse notations of dynamic experience and catalyze their conversion into unified forms and organizations of rational knowledge.

In a complex intelligent system a number of relatively independent modules will emerge as utilities to subserve the purpose of knowledge acquisition.  Chief among these are the faculties of memory and imagination, which operate in closely coordinated representation spaces of the manifold, and may be no more than complementary ways of managing the same turf.  These capacities amplify the sensitivity and selectivity of intelligence in the system.  They support the transcription of momentary experience into records of its passing.  Finally, they collate the fragmentary notes and diverse notations of dynamic experience and catalyze their conversion into unified forms and organizations of rational knowledge.

=====1.1.4.1. Imagination=====

=====1.1.4.1. Imagination=====

The intellectual factor or knowledge component of a system is usually expected to have a certain quality of mercy, that is, to involve actions which are Reversible, Assuredly, Immediately, Nearly.  Even though every action obeys physical and thermodynamic constraints, processes that suit themselves to being used for knowledge representation must exhibit a certain forgiveness.  It must be possible to move pointers around on a map without irretrievably committing forces on the plain of battle.  Actions carried out in the image space should not incur too great a pain or price in terms of the time and energy they dissipate.  In sum, a virtue of symbolic operations is that they be as nearly and assuredly reversible as possible.  This "virtual" construction, as usual, declares a positively oriented proportion:  operations are useful as symbolic transformations in proportion to their exact and certain reversibility.

The intellectual factor or knowledge component of a system is usually expected to have a certain quality of mercy, that is, to involve actions which are Reversible, Assuredly, Immediately, Nearly.  Even though every action obeys physical and thermodynamic constraints, processes that suit themselves to being used for knowledge representation must exhibit a certain forgiveness.  It must be possible to move pointers around on a map without irretrievably committing forces on the plain of battle.  Actions carried out in the image space should not incur too great a pain or price in terms of the time and energy they dissipate.  In sum, a virtue of symbolic operations is that they be as nearly and assuredly reversible as possible.  This "virtual" construction, as usual, declares a positively oriented proportion:  operations are useful as symbolic transformations in proportion to their exact and certain reversibility.