Operational thinking

MECHANICAL SELF-PRESERVATION INSTINCTS Our fifth-generation crane/sorter has no goal of self-preservation 

If you are becoming a little uncomfortable about the idea of programming values into something or someone, your discomfort is quite appropriate. As we shall see later, this was done to you in massive ways. 

Finally, we ll give our sixth-generation crane/sorter s computer a whole new ability in addition to its new bearing-temperature sense and 

Learning from experience is a hallmark of intelligence. So our computer must start storing information about events that have happened to it in its past, our analogue of experience. 

Sensing the presence of boxes, their orientation, and their size 

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The reuse or recycling of wastes can reduce the amount of freshwater and raw materials required for a process. While looking at the inputs to unit operations, think about the opportunities for reusing and recycling outputs from other operations. Note that if reused wastes are not properly documented, double-counting may occur in the material balance, particularly at the process or complete plant level that is, a waste will be quantified as an output from one process and as an input to another. 

Third, in situ sensing is needed to verify the veracity and logic of a model s predictions or an operator s reasoning. Making a composite part that passes mechanical tests does not verify that the modeling equations or operator thinking are correct and can be trusted to make predictions. 

Operational thinking is one of the highest abilities of the human mind. It consists of the ability to create images or other mental representations of reality. The images may be sensory or abstract or symbolic. Then you can manipulate or play with those representations in order to answer... 

I ll usually forget some tool, of course. Operational thinking may el as if it s perfect (an important flaw we ll consider later), but in retrospect we often see how we left something out or jumped to a wrong conclusion. But it is exceptionally powerful, and giving operational thinking to our crane/sorter is an enormous leap up the evolutionary ladder for it. 

We will program our crane/sorter s computer to do operational thinking in its spare time, when it s not moving a box and doesn t see one coming down the line. 

One of the kinds of operational thinking we will program will test the... 

Consciousness as world simulator is functioning quite well in suppression. Both the outside world and your own position are represented realistically. Your operational thinking, simulation of the consequences, is realistic ( I won t make a good impression on the people if I scratch ), and so your behavior is adaptive. The simulation of the world and your position in it is realistic, but you deliberately control the attention and energy available to parts of the simulation so that the urge to scratch is starved. 

In looking at consciousness from the world simulator model in previous chapters, we noted that an effective and healthy simulation is one that accurately mirrors the outside world and our own essential or deeper feelings and values. The more accurately the outside physical world is simulated, the more useful simulations of various courses of action (operational thinking) will be. Reaction formation is a major distortion of the world simulation process, for what we perceive about our reaction to an event is opposite to our more basic initial reaction. Our simulations about further courses of actions and their consequences, and our subsequent behavior, will then be flawed. 

Visualization skills, or the skills necessary to describe or explain microscopic phenomena, require the student or the teacher to engage in abstract thinking [3,5,6,13]. It is thought that the demands of formal operational thinking are often the cause of poor performance in chemistry [3,6]. Poor visualization skills will also result if students or teachers are unable to operate on this cognitive level. 

Plan considers the existence of strategic, tactical, and operational thinking, covering long-range, medium-range, and short-term time horizons, respectively. The success of all aspects of a comprehensive continuous performance improvement system depends heavily on a sound, results-driven plan. 

Resuming operations. Think about the steps that must be taken to resmne operations. Advanced planning can save time and money after an emergency situation occru-s. 

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