Wholes and parts

Finally I have received the "Society of Minds" book by M. Minsky. It's a great pleasure to read. It offers the opportunity to understand non-formal, common-sense reasoning that makes our human thinking so manifold. Two idea's were striking my interest so far: The idea that parts and wholes can only be understood by considering them together (you can only understand a part if you understand its purpose) and that emotions help us to assign priority to goals. Especially the different emotional states of pain and pleasure help us to simplify actual situations, and reduce our interests in long range plans.