Making Mental Assumptions Out of You, Me, and Dot. Dot. Dot.

 Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies -Douglas Hofstadter-pgs 1-35.

When you’re typing the word "analogies", do you sometimes just stop at the L?

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“Pattern-finding is the core of intelligence” (Hofstadter pg 13.) 

     There is a distinction between pattern-finding, and pattern-creation. The process by which a human determines some bit of information to be either random (gobbeldy-goop) or relevant, depends almost entirely upon the potential or perceived functionality of the information. Subsequently aesthetics and functionality form the criteria for evaluating some bit of data to be part of some pattern.This criteria for pattern finding is specifically human. The average heartbeat is about 60 beats per minute. Our appreciation for duality emerges from our symmetrical biology. Our number system is an analog derived from counting our fingers. From a non-human perspective, our patterns are entirely biased by our humanity. In fact the only thing that gives our patterns objective validity is the fact that they are found or adopted by a large number of us, and that they serve us well.

      From this Hofstadter is most correct in being specific, intelligence is not about patterns, it is about the finding. The mechanism that does the recognition or creation is the essential aspect responsible for higher data processing. Just as patterns are the essence of the lowest level of life, in rna and dna, the manipulation, reproduction, and identification of these patterns are key to biological success. This simple principal scales throughout the various levels of life, all the way towards the highest concentration of complexity, the human brain. Repetition is the fundamental aspect of patterns, in all relatively constant systems, (chess, the universe, math); the key to long term success is the repetition of short term successes. 

But as enlightened as our modern cognitive scientists are, their work is still in the clutches of Freud’s most basic assumptions.

I mean c’mon. Fluid Concepts and Creative …

-DvN