malleability and self modification

So far I probably sound a little one sided. I’ve only commented on metacognition’s effect on computing. I find this particularly interesting because I am a programmer. Focusing on computation as a topic in cognitive science can have a pretty big impact on your perception of code and the process of creating software. Hofstadter mentions this in previous sections: the difference between constructing an algorithm or a program for results versus one to illustrate abstract questions. Each viewpoint seems to, in some way, go against the others. That is, programming with or without thinking about the way a human goes about it, programming for results, programming (or attempting to program) intelligence, etc.

I guess you can’t have the best of all of the methods very easily, if at all.

Hofstadter talks about the inflexibility of programs or instructions in programs. Hard coded determinism is a difficult medium with which to describe a mental process. He mentions constructing templates which are flexible or modifiable. This reminded me of the idea of self modifying code (SMC?). I can’t say I’m particularly knowledgeable about the subject, but it does bring to mind some ideas. It’d be incredibly dangerous if code were just allowed to be modified anywhere on the fly, of course. Think of it in the terms Hofstadter puts it though – with regards to templates. Malleability is key in representing the mind I think. This seems to be a fundamental sort of flaw in converting between fluid things like thoughts and some rigid, procedural sort of thing like a program. Hofstadter, in this section, continues to point out the difficulties in translating exactly how we evaluate a sequence into the applicable computing concepts. This problem seems similar in some way to natural language translation. There are always concepts that don’t carry over well. Some have to be modified (heavily) before being transferred to the target language. Others just don’t work at all.