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From: crummer%AEROSPACE@sri-unix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: Re: How my brain works
Message-ID: <16313@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 27-Jan-84 18:35:21 EST
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.16313
Posted: Fri Jan 27 18:35:21 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 8-Feb-84 03:44:20 EST
Lines: 16

From:  Charlie Crummer 

I see what you mean about the question as to whether the brain is a parallel
processor in consious reasoning or not.  I also feel like a little daemon that
sits and pays attention to different lines of thought at different times.

An interesting counterexample is the aha! phenomenon.  The mathematician
Henri Poincare, among others, has written an essay about his experience of
being interrupted from his conscious attention somehow and becoming instantly
aware of the solution to a problem he had "given up" on some days before.
It was as though some part of his brain had been working on the problem all
along even though he had not been aware of it.  When it had gotten the solution
an interrupt occurred and his conscious mind was triggered into the awareness
of  the solution.

  --Charlie