M was feeling down, all of his previous flashes with other letters had yielded little codelets, but tonight he was alone, unbounded, and bummed. If only I could belong to a glom, perhaps one with a nice A or a set of double OOs. Like Moo, Moon, MOOnlit, roMAntic nights. Letters mingled about the bar, constantly evaluating each other in parallel. He watched despondently as a nearby T flirted and sparked with an R and an I simultaneously before leaving them both for the more exciting possibility of an E. Terrible, isn't it?
So might go the "Romances Among The Letters" if told from a participants point of view. Luckily, letters aren't conscious enough to suffer the tragic cliches and agonies of romance, but even if they were they would eventually join a glom as part of the solution.
In Hoffstadter's second chapter "The Architecture of Jumbo" he presents the analogy of the stages of romantic relationships to the interactions between letters. The program fluidly tests combinations of letters to mimic how the mind might generate possible solutions to a Jumbo (letter scramble) problem.
It was curious how powerful this particular analogy was when reading. The complexity of human relationships was mapped onto a design of a mental operation, something that is perhaps equally complex. It served as an effective metaphor because Hoffstadter was able to extend many features of relationships (quick elimination, internally and externally triggered breakups, flirtation, compatibility and attractiveness, multiple partners, and so on). The metaphor was not applicable for one element, but for many, making it very fitting. Combined with the importance of human relationships in our daily interactions, this metaphor was particularly salient and clear - I was able to get a good idea of how the Jumbo Architecture functions by comparing it to something I already am very familiar with.
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