In this section, Hofstadter discusses some very interesting concepts. One of these concepts is parallel processing. He discussed how a program named "Hearsay II" could construct 'multiple top-level structures at once. An analogous vision program would construct several top-level interpretations for a scene, all in parallel.' If I were to compare this feature of Hearsay II to human cogntion it would be like having access to multiple states of perception at the same time which is very hard to imagine and may even be impossible, but it's fun to think about.
Another interesting concept that was discussed is called "intelligent backtracking". This involves taking a step backwards and undoing some prior decision. For this to happen, the program must first realize that where it currently is is not where it wants to be. For example, perhaps Jumbo created a "word-like" word but it is not really a word. It must realize that the group of letters is not a word and then go back and take a different route to wordhood. This interests me because it seems as if Jumbo is actually thinking, and maybe it really is.
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