Concepts, Processes

1
Concepts, Processes Representations

• Concept?
• an instantaneous human understanding
• Process?
• series of actions that change one concept into
  another
• Representation?
• a thing which engenders a particular concept in
  humans

2
Representing Concepts

• Sounds (e.g. fear, delight, a sheep)
• noises
• spoken word
• Icons (e.g. a face / no entry / love)
• symbols
• images
• text

3
Representing processes

• We need a series of symbols which describe a
  process as it evolves through time
• e.g. using the examples
• making a cup of tea
• getting slightly tipsy
• building a brick wall

4
Making a cup of tea...

• BEGIN MAKE TEA
• fill kettle with water
• turn kettle on
• put tea bag in cup
• wait till kettle boils
• turn kettle off
• fill cup with kettle contents
• wait 1 minute
• remove tea bag

• IF tea with milk THEN
• add milk to cup
• ELSE
• dont add milk to cup
• END IF
• IF tea with sugar THEN
• add sugar to cup
• ELSE
• dont add sugar to cup
• END IF
• stir contents of cup with spoon
• END MAKE TEA

5
Some thoughts...

• What could use these instructions?
• Humans
• knowledge of world
• cultural similarities
• use human language
• can carry out complex instructions
• a computer
• little knowledge of world
• no cultural understanding
• cant use human language
• can only carry out very simple instructions

6
Instructions for a computer

• make sense in a computers world
• use only its knowledge
• give it some of your knowledge
• use the words that it understands
• use a language that it understands
• give only instructions that it can carry out