maragan

Can you figure out the anagram from my title??? Anagrams are just one of the things that Hofstadter talked about in the preface to chapter 2. But, the To Read or, Toreador section brought up some interesting points on how and everday cognitive activity can be used in a program. Jumbo, Hofstadters anagram solving machine, was put up to the task to try and figure out how to make all of the letters fit together. Hofstadter brings up the point of the word hotshots, and some others, and how some can perceieve the word to be read as "hots hots" (say that ten times fast). Now, my point on this is when is a machine able to decipher "hotshots" from "hots hots" ?

This is what Hofstadter was getting to when he was talking about the nonstandard parsing. He goes on to say that we, as humans, are rather remarkable insofar as to not be tripped up by this. I should say, most humans are good at this. To be able to take a frozen set of letters, and be able to convert it into a uniformed word or phrase is rather impressive. But, it is one of those "things" in life that is often over looked (such as the ability of a five year old to boot up a computer and actually use it). So, I'll end with this link to a pretty cool anagram unscrambler.

http://www.crossword-dictionary.com/anagram.asp

-Bryan