Malleable Mental Objects

Hofstadter writes some interesting descriptions about working memory and virtual memory in this reading. To solve a problem one needs to extract information from long term memory and use it actively in their short term working memory. The steps in between are unknown and most likely complicated even though in our brains it can take mere seconds for them to be completed. This gap or unknown process between long term and working memory is what Hofstadter tries to pinpoint and explain on page ninety of Fluid Concepts. He gives a near perfect analogy for working or virtual memory, comparing it to a moving ball on a video game. The ball itself is not physical or stationary; instead it is an abstract object that is constructed of moving pixels and exhibits a type of predetermined behavior. Although the pixels make up the visual object it is completely different than a computer screen pixel or group of pixels, it floats on such pixel hardware in an ever changing state. Hofstadter details that this level distinction between virtual objects and their component hardware is similar to the distinction between working memory or mental objects and its physical origins. Working memory and mental objects are extremely fluid, malleable, and ever changing. One usually does not store such objects or concepts in long term memory and perhaps the ability to quickly alter these objects is linked to its rapidly fading nature in our memory.

Hofstadter’s visual analogy of a moving ball on a video game screen, such as pong, made this whole concept of the communication and distinct levels of mental objects and working memory ‘click’ in my mind. Even though working memory is linked to long term memory and physical aspects of the brain it is on a whole different level than both. Working memory is usually ever changing and can be altered extremely quickly and drastically within humans. I also believe that because of this ability to quickly alter these mental objects in working memory it becomes more difficult to store them in long term memory. I wonder how this concept would equate to machines, being that they have the ability to store working memory computations and objects in physical state memory if prompted to do so. Would that mean if humans ever had a mechanical memory module could we store most or all our working memory concepts and objects quickly and in permanent memory banks which we could later access anytime.