Mystery Number Four - Computational Linguistics and Talking Robots - page 82

For example, the observation of another agent eating an apple matches the
consequent K+6 of the penultimate inference in 5.2.1. This observation may
set in motion a search, to determine where the apple came from in order get
one for oneself as well.
The search starts with intersections between (i) the agent's current task and
(ii) potential countermeasures stored in the agent's memory, observed or self-
performed. Of the available countermeasures, the one (a) best matching the
agent's current situation and (b) with the best outcome is automatically se-
lected. If no such countermeasure is available, the agent's options are some
additional inferencing and ultimately trial and error.
If an appropriate countermeasure has been found, the second step is a trans-
fer of the content in question. The transfer replaces the agent of the remem-
bered countermeasure by moi , and provides new prn and address values. The
result is a new content, written to the now front and serving as a blueprint for
an action sequence suitable for reestablishing the agent's balance.
Assume, for example, that the agent is alone in Mary's house - which serves
as a trigger (5.4.1) subactivating the token line of Mary in the agent's Word
Bank. Furthermore, the agent is hungry, which triggers the hungry-eat infer-
ence chain 5.2.1. The constant eat in the consequent of the completor inference
of the chain subactivates the corresponding token line, resulting in intersec-
tions between the Mary and the eat token lines such as the following:

5.5.1 T WO Mary eat INTERSECTIONS
⎡

⎡
⎣

⎤
⎦

⎡
⎣

⎤
⎦

⎤ ⎡ ⎤

verb: eat
arg: (Mary 25) (apple 46)
pc: take 47
prn: 48

verb: eat
arg: (Mary 25) (müsli 80)
pc: prepare 81
prn: 82

noun: (Mary 25)
fnc: eat
prn: 48

noun: (Mary 25)
fnc: eat
prn: 82

⎣ ⎦ ⎣ ⎦

In other words, the agent remembers Mary in her house once eating an apple
and once eating müsli.
The two proplets in each intersection share a prn value, namely 48 and
82, respectively, and are in a semantic relation of structure, namely functor-
argument. In both intersections, the verb proplet eat provides at least one yet
unrealized intrapropositional continuation, namely (apple 46) 48 in the first
and (müsli 80) 82 in the second. Following the continuation in the first inter-
section results in the following primary (5.4.3) subactivation:

5.5.2 S UBACTIVATION SPREADING FROM Mary eat TO Mary eat apple
⎡

⎡
⎣

⎤
⎦

⎡
⎣

⎤
⎦

⎤

verb: eat
arg: (Mary 25) (apple 46)
pc: take 47

noun: (apple 46)
fnc: eat
eval: attract

noun: (Mary 25)
fnc: eat
prn: 48

⎣ ⎦