How Your Brain Finds Answers to Problems

Now let us suppose that the room is dark so that you cannot see the cigarettes. You know, or hope, there is a package of cigarettes on the table, along with a variety of other objects. Instinctively, your hand will begin to "grope" back and forth, performing zigzag motions (or "scanning") rejecting one object after another, until the cigarettes are found and "recognized." This is an ex­ample of the second type of servo-mechanism. Recalling a name temporarily forgotten is another example. A "Scan­ner" in your brain scans back through your stored memo­ries until the correct name is "recognized." An electronic brain solves problems in much the same way. First of all, a great deal of data must be fed into the machine. This stored, or recorded information is the machine's "memory." A problem is posed to the machine. It scans back through its memory until it locates the only "answer" which is consistent with and meets all the conditions of the problem. Problem and answer together constitute a "whole" situation or structure. When part of the situation or structure (the problem) is given to the machine, it locates the only "missing parts," or the right size brick, so to speak, to complete the structure.