The Society of Mind is the book and theory of natural intelligence as written and developed by Marvin Minsky.

Nature of "mind"

Minds are what brains do. The Society of Mind theory views the human mind and all other naturally evolved cognitive systems as a vast society of individually simple processes known as agents. These processes are the fundamental thinking entities from which minds are built, and together produce the many abilities we attribute to minds. The great power in viewing a mind as a society of agents, as opposed to as the consequence of some basic principle or some simple formal system, is that different agents can be based on different types of processes with different purposes, ways of representing knowledge, and methods for producing results.

This idea is perhaps best summarized by the following quote from Minsky:

"What magical trick makes us intelligent? The trick is that there is no trick. The power of intelligence stems from our vast diversity, not from any single, perfect principle. - Marvin Minsky, The Society of Mind, page 308

Examples in the book

Society of Mind theory postulates reflexive monitoring agents termed B-brains to look out for unproductive activities such as possible infinite looping. These contrast with 'A-brains' which are the ordinary non-meta activities.

Influence

Minsky's ideas have been developed further by other cognitive scientists, including Daniel Dennett and Douglas Hofstadter.

See also

• consciousness
• Ego, Superego and Id
• memes
• Neural Darwinism

External links and references

• Book by Minsky, Marvin The Society of Mind ISBN 0671657135 March 15, 1988

• MIT article Examining the Society of Mind