COMMENT ⊗   VALID 00265 PAGES
C REC  PAGE   DESCRIPTION
C00001 00001
C00027 00002	∂06-Oct-87  1227	JMC  
C00116 00003	∂01-Oct-87  1404	JMC  	re: Committees
C00117 00004	∂01-Oct-87  1410	JMC  	recursivity   
C00118 00005	∂01-Oct-87  1418	JMC  	visiting professors
C00119 00006	∂01-Oct-87  1433	JMC   	Message of 1-Oct-87 14:23:53
C00121 00007	∂01-Oct-87  1438	JMC  	INS 
C00122 00008	∂01-Oct-87  1455	JMC  	re: Reminder  
C00123 00009	∂01-Oct-87  1459	JMC  	re: Various Topics 
C00124 00010	∂06-Oct-87  1444	JMC  	re: aids 
C00128 00011	∂06-Oct-87  2230	JMC  	re: Talk at Stanford    
C00130 00012	∂06-Oct-87  2338	JMC  	re: Talk at Stanford    
C00131 00013	∂06-Oct-87  2352	JMC  	AIDS
C00133 00014	∂07-Oct-87  1005	JMC  	book the Green Library should get 
C00134 00015	∂07-Oct-87  1014	JMC  	re: gorbachev and circumscription 
C00135 00016	∂07-Oct-87  1318	JMC  	re: DAI Workshop Funding Request  
C00136 00017	∂07-Oct-87  1430	JMC  	knowledge
C00137 00018	∂07-Oct-87  1442	JMC  	same message, better address 
C00138 00019	∂07-Oct-87  1550	JMC  	wrong address 
C00140 00020	∂07-Oct-87  1556	JMC  	re: more on gorbachev   
C00141 00021	∂07-Oct-87  1602	JMC  	receipt of paper   
C00142 00022	∂07-Oct-87  2232	JMC  	supreme court 
C00145 00023	∂08-Oct-87  1625	JMC  	re: supreme court  
C00147 00024	∂08-Oct-87  1632	JMC  	re: NSF Centers    
C00148 00025	∂08-Oct-87  2044	JMC  
C00149 00026	∂08-Oct-87  2117	JMC  	report on ebos
C00150 00027	∂09-Oct-87  1106	JMC  	reference
C00151 00028	∂09-Oct-87  1110	JMC  	re: Sept Auditron Readings   
C00152 00029	∂09-Oct-87  1203	JMC  	please send paper  
C00153 00030	∂09-Oct-87  1225	JMC  	re:aids  
C00157 00031	∂09-Oct-87  1236	JMC  	re: One More About Your Lecture   
C00159 00032	∂09-Oct-87  1445	JMC  
C00167 00033	∂10-Oct-87  1737	JMC  	re: `America's Secret Wars Unveiled,' by Hodding Carter III
C00169 00034	∂10-Oct-87  2041	JMC  
C00171 00035	∂10-Oct-87  2118	JMC  
C00172 00036	∂13-Oct-87  2016	JMC  	re: DARPA Umbrella Contract  
C00173 00037	∂13-Oct-87  2018	JMC  
C00177 00038	∂13-Oct-87  2022	JMC  	reply to message   
C00178 00039	∂14-Oct-87  1158	JMC  	re: Dangers of D & D    
C00182 00040	∂14-Oct-87  1203	JMC  	reply to message   
C00183 00041	∂14-Oct-87  1238	JMC  	re: References
C00184 00042	∂14-Oct-87  1258	JMC  	re: Kyoto Prize    
C00187 00043	∂14-Oct-87  1313	JMC  	Please print  
C00188 00044	∂14-Oct-87  1325	JMC  	re: McCarthy's Anti-Gang Campaign 
C00190 00045	∂14-Oct-87  1329	JMC  	re: LISP in mathematics 
C00191 00046	∂14-Oct-87  1359	JMC  	re: Les's meeting  
C00193 00047	∂14-Oct-87  1516	JMC  	re: Kyoto Prize    
C00195 00048	∂14-Oct-87  1521	JMC  	more for Goguen    
C00197 00049	∂14-Oct-87  2035	JMC  	Brink's proposed modifications    
C00198 00050	∂14-Oct-87  2058	JMC  	reply to message   
C00199 00051	∂15-Oct-87  0820	JMC  
C00203 00052	∂15-Oct-87  0854	JMC  	reply to message   
C00204 00053	∂15-Oct-87  1201	JMC  	class next week    
C00205 00054	∂15-Oct-87  1337	JMC  	re: class next week
C00206 00055	∂15-Oct-87  1946	JMC  	re: [*,RA]    
C00207 00056	∂16-Oct-87  0836	JMC  	re: CIS vending machine.
C00208 00057	∂16-Oct-87  0841	JMC  	re: CIS vending machine.
C00209 00058	∂16-Oct-87  0856	JMC  	Computer Forum
C00211 00059	∂16-Oct-87  0857	JMC  
C00212 00060	∂16-Oct-87  1519	JMC  	re: CIS vending machine.
C00213 00061	∂16-Oct-87  1533	JMC  	re: Helen's generation  
C00214 00062	∂16-Oct-87  2022	JMC  	re: Re: Helen's generation   
C00215 00063	∂16-Oct-87  2140	JMC  	(→20773 26-Oct-87) 
C00216 00064	∂26-Oct-87  0000	JMC 	Expired plan   
C00217 00065	∂26-Oct-87  0818	JMC 	re: Forum 
C00218 00066	∂26-Oct-87  0822	JMC 	re: Gang of four    
C00219 00067	∂26-Oct-87  0855	JMC 	re: class next week 
C00220 00068	∂26-Oct-87  0900	JMC 	(→21101 4-Jan-88)   
C00221 00069	∂26-Oct-87  0908	JMC  
C00222 00070	∂26-Oct-87  1200	Mailer 	failed mail returned  
C00223 00071	∂26-Oct-87  1215	Mailer 	failed mail returned  
C00224 00072	∂26-Oct-87  1219	JMC  	Operational semantics   
C00226 00073	∂26-Oct-87  1221	JMC  
C00227 00074	∂26-Oct-87  1225	JMC 	re: Operational semantics
C00228 00075	∂26-Oct-87  1227	JMC  
C00229 00076	∂26-Oct-87  1258	JMC 	re: Winter CS101 text    
C00230 00077	∂26-Oct-87  1327	JMC 	conference
C00231 00078	∂26-Oct-87  1357	JMC  
C00232 00079	∂27-Oct-87  0823	JMC 	reply to message    
C00234 00080	∂27-Oct-87  0922	JMC 	re: Paper available 
C00235 00081	∂27-Oct-87  0925	JMC 	re: TV students
C00236 00082	∂27-Oct-87  0933	JMC 	re: Oct 27 lunch    
C00237 00083	∂27-Oct-87  1921	JMC 	re: your Participation in the High Noon Lecture Series 
C00238 00084	∂27-Oct-87  2117	Mailer 	re: Garrison Keillor on Hog Slaughter
C00240 00085	∂28-Oct-87  1423	JMC 	re: report on ebos  
C00241 00086	∂28-Oct-87  1853	JMC 	re: A question about circumscription.   
C00242 00087	∂28-Oct-87  2100	JMC 	for Christos Papadimitriou    
C00244 00088	∂29-Oct-87  0734	JMC 	re: A question about circumscription.   
C00245 00089	∂29-Oct-87  0912	JMC 	re: AAAI grant request   
C00246 00090	∂29-Oct-87  1332	JMC 	re: What I've been doing 
C00247 00091	∂29-Oct-87  1400	JMC 	Mikhailov 
C00248 00092	∂29-Oct-87  1419	JMC 	re: Mikhailov  
C00250 00093	∂29-Oct-87  1453	JMC 	letter    
C00253 00094	∂30-Oct-87  0901	JMC 	re: Ramin Zabih
C00254 00095	∂30-Oct-87  0903	JMC 	re: Poole 
C00255 00096	∂30-Oct-87  0909	JMC 	reply to message    
C00256 00097	∂30-Oct-87  0916	JMC 	re: Who's Who? 
C00257 00098	∂30-Oct-87  0950	JMC 	Prediction-producing Algorithms    
C00265 00099	∂30-Oct-87  1144	JMC 	reply to message    
C00266 00100	∂30-Oct-87  1337	JMC 	basic research in AI
C00269 00101	∂30-Oct-87  1338	JMC  
C00270 00102	∂01-Nov-87  1201	Mailer 	re: HBR Review of `Endless Enemies: The Making of an Unfriendly World'  
C00274 00103	∂02-Nov-87  0830	JMC 	annual report  
C00275 00104	∂03-Nov-87  1016	JMC 	re: DARPA umbrella proposal   
C00276 00105	∂03-Nov-87  1159	JMC 	re: DARPA umbrella proposal   
C00277 00106	∂03-Nov-87  1200	JMC 	re: Winter CS101 text    
C00278 00107	∂03-Nov-87  1202	JMC  
C00284 00108	∂03-Nov-87  1228	JMC 	conversation with Jack Schwartz    
C00285 00109	∂03-Nov-87  1241	JMC 	addendum to previous
C00287 00110	∂03-Nov-87  1522	JMC 	In view of our conversations, this puzzles me.    
C00288 00111	∂03-Nov-87  1620	Mailer 	re: more jokes   
C00289 00112	∂03-Nov-87  2102	JMC 	re: JMC   
C00290 00113	∂03-Nov-87  2112	Mailer 	Inder,McMillen,Bowman,mrc,and critics
C00291 00114	∂04-Nov-87  1158	Mailer 	re: Chain letters
C00293 00115	∂04-Nov-87  1443	JMC 	flak on overhead rate    
C00296 00116	∂04-Nov-87  1551	Mailer 	Gorbachev speech 
C00300 00117	∂04-Nov-87  1634	JMC 	report on September ttac meeting   
C00302 00118	∂05-Nov-87  1031	JMC 	re: Gorbachev speech     
C00304 00119	∂05-Nov-87  1320	JMC 	re: EBOS etc.  
C00305 00120	∂06-Nov-87  1032	JMC 	Re: addendum to previous 
C00307 00121	∂06-Nov-87  1035	JMC 	re: addendum to previous 
C00308 00122	∂06-Nov-87  1051	JMC 	Re: addendum to previous 
C00310 00123	∂06-Nov-87  1051	JMC 	basic research contract  
C00311 00124	∂06-Nov-87  1335	Mailer 	re: San Diego's Market/MLK street    
C00312 00125	∂06-Nov-87  1340	Mailer 	re:  largest state.   
C00313 00126	∂06-Nov-87  1430	JMC  
C00337 00127	∂06-Nov-87  1458	JMC 	re: San Diego's Market/MLK street  
C00338 00128	∂07-Nov-87  1124	JMC 	re: Technological Opportunities for Humanity 
C00339 00129	∂09-Nov-87  0853	JMC 	re: Visit to MIT    
C00340 00130	∂09-Nov-87  0857	JMC 	re: Advice needed   
C00341 00131	∂09-Nov-87  1254	JMC 	reply to message    
C00342 00132	∂09-Nov-87  1353	Mailer 	re: Tarantulas and also giant cockroaches 
C00344 00133	∂09-Nov-87  1359	Mailer 	re: cardinal and white night    
C00346 00134	∂09-Nov-87  1406	Mailer 	re: Connections - Silkwood, Iran-Contra, Teilhard de Chardin  
C00348 00135	∂10-Nov-87  1201	JMC 	user disk pack 
C00349 00136	∂10-Nov-87  1209	JMC 	reply to message    
C00350 00137	∂10-Nov-87  1219	JMC 	re: Where is JMC?   
C00351 00138	∂10-Nov-87  1326	JMC 	re: qlisp interface 
C00352 00139	∂10-Nov-87  1400	JMC 	re: WICS  
C00353 00140	∂10-Nov-87  1517	JMC 	re: SPO Advisory Committee    
C00355 00141	∂10-Nov-87  1526	JMC 	re: Ginsburg and pot
C00356 00142	∂10-Nov-87  1530	JMC 	re: WICS  
C00357 00143	∂10-Nov-87  1600	JMC 	re: user disk pack  
C00358 00144	∂10-Nov-87  1619	JMC 	re: SPO Advisory Committee    
C00359 00145	∂10-Nov-87  1621	JMC  
C00360 00146	∂10-Nov-87  1644	JMC 	re: Ginsburg and pot
C00362 00147	∂11-Nov-87  0837	Mailer 	re: Question of clarification on Ginsburg 
C00366 00148	∂11-Nov-87  0842	Mailer 	thought for today
C00367 00149	∂11-Nov-87  0847	JMC  
C00368 00150	∂11-Nov-87  0952	JMC  
C00371 00151	∂11-Nov-87  0955	JMC 	re: Are you there?  
C00372 00152	∂11-Nov-87  1159	JMC 	re: Nils' Newsletter to Alumni and Friends of the Dept.
C00373 00153	∂11-Nov-87  1347	JMC 	misguided missive   
C00374 00154	∂11-Nov-87  1422	JMC 	re: Formal Reasoning budget   
C00375 00155	∂11-Nov-87  1634	JMC 	re: Joe Weening
C00376 00156	∂11-Nov-87  1637	JMC 	re: Revised Formal Reasoning budget
C00377 00157	∂12-Nov-87  1337	JMC 	re: Revised Formal Reasoning budget
C00378 00158	∂12-Nov-87  1342	Mailer 	re: poison vs. venom  
C00379 00159	∂12-Nov-87  1422	Mailer 	re: Polygraph testing, acerbic remarks    
C00382 00160	∂12-Nov-87  1424	JMC 	re: Revised Formal Reasoning budget
C00383 00161	∂12-Nov-87  1618	Mailer 	burden of proof on polygraphs   
C00386 00162	∂12-Nov-87  1632	Mailer 	re: Polygraphs and the liberal/conservative boundary
C00388 00163	∂12-Nov-87  1652	JMC 	re: Revised Formal Reasoning budget
C00389 00164	∂12-Nov-87  1659	Mailer 	re: polygraph    
C00391 00165	∂13-Nov-87  0926	Mailer 	re: Polygraph and the press
C00393 00166	∂13-Nov-87  0928	Mailer 	re: Question
C00394 00167	∂13-Nov-87  1202	Mailer 	re: Polygraph testing, acerbic remarks    
C00396 00168	∂13-Nov-87  1207	Mailer 	Double Blind Studies  
C00397 00169	∂13-Nov-87  1619	JMC 	re: Simpson discussion   
C00398 00170	∂13-Nov-87  1627	JMC 	re: Ginsburg   
C00399 00171	∂14-Nov-87  1129	JMC 	re: 1st IWoLES 
C00401 00172	∂14-Nov-87  1152	Mailer 	re: Memories
C00402 00173	∂14-Nov-87  1309	Mailer 	re: traffic safety    
C00403 00174	∂14-Nov-87  1626	JMC 	phone call
C00405 00175	∂16-Nov-87  0920	JMC 	re: German vs. American road fatalities 
C00406 00176	∂16-Nov-87  1255	JMC 	expenses  
C00407 00177	∂16-Nov-87  1305	JMC 	regards from Nepeivoda   
C00408 00178	∂16-Nov-87  1321	JMC 	re: Are you there?  
C00409 00179	∂17-Nov-87  0933	JMC 	re: UDP?  
C00410 00180	∂17-Nov-87  0943	Mailer 	re: A gripping trivia question  
C00411 00181	∂17-Nov-87  1341	Mailer 	re: deficites and Treasury Bills
C00413 00182	∂19-Nov-87  1257	JMC 	re: QUERRY: Is there anyway to get books electronically??   
C00414 00183	∂19-Nov-87  1747	JMC 	re: QUERRY: Is there anyway to get books electronically??   
C00415 00184	∂19-Nov-87  1900	Mailer 	moral responsibility for the Sandinistas  
C00418 00185	∂19-Nov-87  1936	JMC 	Searle essay   
C00419 00186	∂19-Nov-87  2109	JMC 	Austin    
C00420 00187	∂20-Nov-87  1210	Mailer 	re: moral responsibility for the Sandinistas   
C00421 00188	∂20-Nov-87  1213	Mailer 	re: tight security at Narita    
C00422 00189	∂20-Nov-87  1611	JMC 	re: Austin
C00423 00190	∂20-Nov-87  1639	JMC 	re: Austin
C00424 00191	∂23-Nov-87  0945	JMC 	re: nmr-workshop    
C00425 00192	∂23-Nov-87  1149	JMC  
C00430 00193	∂23-Nov-87  1613	JMC 	re: Lady Godiva Chocolates    
C00431 00194	∂23-Nov-87  1626	Mailer 	moral responsibility  
C00433 00195	∂24-Nov-87  1223	JMC 	re: High Noon Lecture Series  
C00434 00196	∂24-Nov-87  1233	JMC 	send bio  
C00435 00197	∂26-Nov-87  1935	JMC 	re: ai courses 
C00436 00198	∂26-Nov-87  1938	JMC 	reply to message    
C00437 00199	∂26-Nov-87  1941	JMC 	reference 
C00438 00200	∂26-Nov-87  1954	JMC 	re: Nicaragua & Carter   
C00439 00201	∂26-Nov-87  1958	Mailer 	re: coffee house service getting better   
C00440 00202	∂26-Nov-87  2235	Mailer 	next   
C00441 00203	∂26-Nov-87  2253	Mailer 	re: History and JMC   
C00444 00204	∂27-Nov-87  0902	JMC 	re: for Christos Papadimitriou     
C00445 00205	∂27-Nov-87  1446	JMC 	re: reference  
C00446 00206	∂27-Nov-87  1455	Mailer 	re: Traffic menaces on bikes    
C00448 00207	∂28-Nov-87  1522	JMC 	re: History and JMC      
C00449 00208	∂30-Nov-87  0834	JMC  
C00450 00209	∂30-Nov-87  0834	JMC 	visit to Washington 
C00451 00210	∂30-Nov-87  0858	JMC 	Please send reprint 
C00452 00211	∂30-Nov-87  0920	JMC 	re: Searle essay    
C00454 00212	∂30-Nov-87  1124	JMC 	re: Looking for a first name  
C00455 00213	∂30-Nov-87  1143	JMC 	visiting professors 
C00457 00214	∂30-Nov-87  1228	JMC 	resignation    
C00459 00215	∂30-Nov-87  1404	Mailer 	re: Math puzzler 
C00460 00216	∂01-Dec-87  0036	JMC  
C00461 00217	∂01-Dec-87  1156	JMC 	paper for Codevilla 
C00462 00218	∂01-Dec-87  1300	JMC 	re: Paper for Codevilla  
C00463 00219	∂01-Dec-87  1602	JMC  
C00487 00220	∂01-Dec-87  1635	Mailer 	random points and lines in the plane 
C00491 00221	∂01-Dec-87  1639	JMC 	re: Topologix transputers
C00492 00222	∂01-Dec-87  1641	JMC 	re: Winter CS101 text    
C00493 00223	∂01-Dec-87  1643	JMC 	possible visit Friday    
C00495 00224	∂02-Dec-87  1318	JMC  
C00497 00225	∂02-Dec-87  1533	JMC 	re: Winter CS101 text    
C00498 00226	∂04-Dec-87  2128	JMC 	re: Winter CS101 text    
C00499 00227	∂04-Dec-87  2141	JMC 	re: `Radfem' - etymology and equivalence [was Re: Plus ca change]
C00500 00228	∂05-Dec-87  1609	JMC 	address for Firdman 
C00501 00229	∂05-Dec-87  1613	JMC 	Address for Henry Firdman
C00502 00230	∂07-Dec-87  0931	JMC 	arpanet   
C00503 00231	∂08-Dec-87  1302	JMC 	re: Oliver Radkey   
C00504 00232	∂08-Dec-87  1307	JMC 	re: Oliver Radkey   
C00505 00233	∂08-Dec-87  2023	JMC 	re:  Your invited talk at the Canton, China conference, July 1988
C00506 00234	∂08-Dec-87  2024	JMC 	re: Sept. expenditure statement    
C00507 00235	∂08-Dec-87  2034	JMC  
C00509 00236	∂08-Dec-87  2036	JMC 	Please mail    
C00510 00237	∂08-Dec-87  2132	Mailer 	Project Voltaire 
C00515 00238	∂10-Dec-87  1236	Mailer 	re: Rumor   
C00516 00239	∂10-Dec-87  1429	Mailer 	re: Project Voltaire  
C00517 00240	∂12-Dec-87  1057	JMC 	re: Forwarding messages  
C00518 00241	∂12-Dec-87  1101	Mailer 	Mencken
C00519 00242	∂12-Dec-87  1107	Mailer 	re: Info wanted on Belize (formerly British Honduras)    
C00521 00243	∂12-Dec-87  1120	JMC 	re: ssp   
C00523 00244	∂12-Dec-87  1617	Mailer 	re: Info wanted on Belize (formerly British Honduras)    
C00525 00245	∂13-Dec-87  1122	Mailer 	where much modern religion seems to lead  
C00527 00246	∂14-Dec-87  0904	JMC 	reply to message    
C00528 00247	∂14-Dec-87  1148	Mailer 	re: Ruminations on air travel   
C00530 00248	∂14-Dec-87  1536	Qlisp-mailer 	re: Fibonacci   
C00531 00249	∂14-Dec-87  1543	JMC 	re: Ruminations on air travel 
C00532 00250	∂15-Dec-87  1220	JMC 	WICS 88   
C00534 00251	∂15-Dec-87  1228	JMC 	cs101
C00535 00252	∂15-Dec-87  1541	JMC 	re: WICS 88    
C00536 00253	∂15-Dec-87  1549	JMC 	re: WICS 88    
C00537 00254	∂15-Dec-87  1558	Mailer 	re: BSU
C00539 00255	∂15-Dec-87  1617	Mailer 	re: Ruminations on air travel   
C00543 00256	∂15-Dec-87  1629	JMC 	re: Does the Campus-Wide Power Shutdown this Sunday... 
C00544 00257	∂17-Dec-87  1525	JMC 	re: Jack Schwartz to visit Stanford in February   
C00545 00258	∂17-Dec-87  1551	JMC 	collaboration with Soviets    
C00546 00259	∂18-Dec-87  1012	JMC 	re: Jack Schwartz to visit Stanford in February   
C00547 00260	∂18-Dec-87  1013	JMC  
C00548 00261	∂18-Dec-87  1024	JMC 	re: Jack Schwartz to visit Stanford in February   
C00549 00262	∂23-Dec-87  1553	JMC 	books
C00550 00263	∂23-Dec-87  1555	JMC 	Keith Clark    
C00551 00264	∂23-Dec-87  1636	JMC 	re: Journal of Philosophical Logic Paper
C00552 00265	∂29-Dec-87  1650	JMC 	file 
C00555 ENDMK
C⊗;
∂06-Oct-87  1227	JMC  
To:   alyson%amcad.uucp@HUSC6.HARVARD.EDU  
\input memo.tex[let,jmc]
\title{MATHEMATICAL LOGIC IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE}

	This article concerns computer programs that represent information
about their problem domains in mathematical logical languages and use
logical inference to decide what actions are appropriate to achieve their
goals.

	Mathematical logic isn't a single language.  There are many
kinds of mathematical logic, and even choosing a kind doesn't specify
the language.  This is done by declaring what {\it non-logical} symbols
will be used and what sentences will be taken as axioms.  The non-logical
symbols are those that concern the concrete subject matter, e.g. objects
and their locations and motions.

	All kinds of mathematical logic share two ideas.  First it must
be mathematically definite what strings of symbols are considered
formulas of the logic.  Second it must be mathematically definite what
inferences of new formulas from old ones are allowed.  This permits
writing computer programs that decide what combinations of symbols are
sentences and what inferences are allowed in a particular logical
language.

	Mathematical logic has become an important branch of
mathematics, and most logicians work on problems arising from the internal
development of the subject.  It has also been applied to studying the
foundations of mathematics, and this has been its greatest success.  Its
founders, Aristotle, Leibniz, Boole and Frege also wished to apply it to
making reasoning about human affairs more rigorous.  Indeed Leibniz was
explicit about his goal of replacing argument by calculation.  However,
expressing knowledge and reasoning about the common sense world in
mathematical logic has encountered difficulties that seem to require
extensions of the basic concepts of logic, and these extensions are only
beginning to develop.

	If a computer is to store facts about the world and reason with
them, it needs a precise language, and the program has to embody a
precise idea of what reasoning is allowed, i.e. of how new formulas may be
derived from old.  Therefore, it was natural to try to use mathematical
logical languages to express what an intelligent computer program knows
that is relevant to the problems we want it to solve and to make the
program use logical inference in order to decide what to do.  (McCarthy
1960) contains the first proposals to use logic in AI for expressing
what a program knows and and how it should reason.  (Proving logical
formulas as a domain for AI had already been studied).

	The 1960 paper said:

\begingroup\narrower\narrower
% COMMON.TEX[E80,JMC]	TeX version Programs with Common Sense
The {\it advice taker} is a proposed program for solving problems by
manipulating sentences in formal languages.  The main difference between
it and other programs or proposed programs for manipulating formal
languages (the {\it Logic Theory Machine} of Newell, Simon and Shaw and
the Geometry Program of Gelernter) is that in the previous programs the
formal system was the subject matter but the heuristics were all embodied
in the program.  In this program the procedures will be described as much
as possible in the language itself and, in particular, the heuristics are
all so described.

	The main advantages we expect the {\it advice taker} to have is that
its behavior will be improvable merely by making statements to it,
telling it about its symbolic environment and what is wanted from it.  To
make these statements will require little if any knowledge of the program
or the previous knowledge of the {\it advice taker}.  One will be able to
assume that the {\it advice taker} will have available to it a fairly wide
class of immediate logical consequence of anything it is told and its
previous knowledge.  This property is expected to have much in common with
what makes us describe certain humans as having {\it common sense}.  We
shall therefore say that {\it a program has common sense if it automatically
deduces for itself a sufficiently wide class of immediate consequences of
anything it is told and what it already knows.}
\par\endgroup

	The main reasons for using logical sentences extensively in AI
are better understood by researchers today than in 1960.  Expressing
information in declarative sentences is far more flexible than
expressing it in segments of computer program or in tables.  Sentences
can be true in much wider contexts than specific programs can be useful.
The supplier of a fact does not have to understand much about how the
receiver functions or how or whether the receiver will use it.  The same
fact can be used for many purposes, because the logical consequences of
collections of facts can be available.

	The {\it advice taker} prospectus was ambitious in 1960, would
be considered ambitious today and is still far from being immediately
realizable.  This is especially true of the goal of expressing the the
heuristics guiding the search for a way to achieve the goal in the
language itself.  The rest of this paper is largely concerned with
describing what progress has been made, what the obstacles are, and how
the prospectus has been modified in the light of what has been
discovered.

	The formalisms of logic can be used to differing extents, mostly
much less ambitious, and we'll begin by recounting some of them.

	1. A machine may use no logical sentences --- all its ``beliefs''
being implicit in its state.  Nevertheless, it is often appropriate to
ascribe beliefs and goals to the program, i.e. to remove the above
sanitary quotes, and to use a principle of rationality --- {\it It does
what it thinks will achieve its goals}.  Such ascription is discussed in
(Dennett 1971), (McCarthy 1979) and (Newell 1980).  The advantage is that
the intent of the machine's designers and the way it can be expected to
behave may be more readily described {\it intentionally}
 than by a purely physical
description.

	  The relation between the physical and the {\it intentional}
descriptions is most readily understood in simple systems that admit
readily understood descriptions of both kinds, e.g. thermostats.  Some
finicky philosophers object to this, contending that unless a system has a
full human mind, it shouldn't be regarded as having any mental qualities
at all.  This is like omitting the numbers 0 and 1 from the number system
on the grounds that numbers aren't required to count sets with no elements
or one element.  Much more that can be said about ascribing
mental qualities to machines, but that's not where the main action is in
AI.

	2. The next level of use of logic involves computer programs that
use sentences in machine memory to represent their beliefs but use
other rules than ordinary logical inference to reach conclusions.
New sentences are often obtained from the old ones
by ad hoc programs.  Moreover, the sentences that appear in memory are
from a program-dependent subset of the logical language being used.
Adding certain true sentences in the language may even spoil the functioning of
the program.  The languages used are often rather unexpressive compared to
first order logic, for example they may not admit quantified sentences,
and they may represent ``rules'', e.g. the equivalent of universally
quantified sentences in a separate notation.  Often rules cannot be
consequences of the program's action; they must have all been put in by the
``knowledge engineer''.  Sometimes the reason programs have this form is
just ignorance, but the usual reason for the restriction is the practical
one of making the program run fast and deduce just the kinds of
conclusions its designer anticipates.  Most often the rules are
implications used in just one direction, e.g. the contrapositive of an
implication is not used.  We believe the need for such specialized inference
will turn out to be temporary and will be reduced or eliminated by
improved ways of controlling general inference, e.g. by allowing the
heuristic rules to be also expressed as sentences as advocated in
the above extract from the 1960 paper.

	3. The third level uses first order logic and also logical
deduction.  Typically the sentences are represented as clauses, and the
deduction methods are based on J. Allen Robinson's (1965) method of
resolution.  It is common to use a theorem prover as a problem solver,
i.e.  to determine an $x$ such that $P(x)$ as a byproduct of a proof of
the formula $∃x.P(x)$ that represents the proposition that there is an
$x$ satisfying the predicate $P$.  This level is less used for practical
purposes than level two, because techniques for controlling the
reasoning are still insufficiently developed, and it is common for the
program to generate many useless conclusions before reaching the desired
solution.  Indeed unsuccessful experience (Green 1969) with this method
led to more restricted uses of logic, e.g. the STRIPS system of (Nilsson
and Fikes 1971).

	The commercial ``expert system shells'', e.g. ART, KEE and
OPS-5, use logical representation of facts, usually ground facts only,
and separate facts from rules.  They provide elaborate but not always
adequate ways of controlling inference.

	In this connection it is important to mention logic programming,
first introduced in Microplanner (Sussman et al., 1971) 
and from different points of view by Robert Kowalski (1979) and Alain
Colmerauer in the early 1970s.
A recent text is (Sterling and Shapiro 1986).  Microplanner
was a rather unsystematic collection of tools, whereas Prolog relies
almost entirely on one kind of logic programming, but the main idea
is the same.  If one uses a restricted class of sentences, the so-called
Horn clauses, then it is possible to use a restricted form of logical
deduction, and the control problem are much eased, and it is possible
for the programmer to anticipate the course the deduction will take.
The price paid is that only certain kinds of facts are conveniently
expressed as Horn clauses, and the depth first search built into
Prolog is not always appropriate for the problem.  Nevertheless,
expressibility in Horn clauses is an important property of a set
of facts and logic programming has been successfully used for many
applications, although it seems unlikely to dominate AI programming
as some of its advocates hope.

	Although  third level systems express both facts and rules
as logical sentences, they are still rather specialized.  The axioms
with which the programs begin are not general truths about the world
but are sentences whose meaning and truth is limited to the narrow
domain in which the program has to act.  For this reason, the ``facts''
of one program usually cannot be used in a database for other programs.

	4. The fourth level is still a goal.  It involves representing
general facts about the world as logical sentences.  Once put in
a database, the facts can be used by any program.  The facts would
have the neutrality of purpose characteristic of much human information.
The supplier of information would not have to understand
the goals of the potential user or how his mind works.  The present
ways of ``teaching'' computer programs amount to ``education
by brain surgery''.

	A major difficulty is that fourth level systems require extensions
to mathematical logic.  One kind of extension is non-monotonic
reasoning, first proposed in the late 1970s (McCarthy 1977, 1980, 1986),
(Reiter 1980), (McDermott and Doyle 1980).  Traditional logic is monotonic
in the following sense.  If a sentence $p$ is inferred from a collection
$A$ of sentences, and $B$ is a more inclusive set of sentences (symbolically
$A ⊂ B$), then $p$ can be inferred from $B$.

	If the inference is logical deduction, then exactly the same
proof that proves $p$ from $A$ will serve as a proof from $B$. If the
inference is model-theoretic, i.e.  $p$ is true in all models of $A$,
then $p$ will be true in all models of $B$, because the models of $B$
will be a subset of the models of $A$.  So we see that the monotonic
character of traditional logic doesn't depend on the details of the
logical system but is quite fundamental.

	While much human reasoning corresponds to that of traditional
logic, some important human common sense reasoning is not monotonic.  We
reach conclusions from certain premisses that we would not reach if
certain other sentences were included in our premisses.  For example,
learning that I own a car, you conclude that it is appropriate on a
certain occasion to ask me for a ride, but when you learn the further
fact that the car is in the garage being fixed you no longer draw that
conclusion.  Some people think it is possible to try to save
monotonicity by saying that what was in your mind was not a general rule
about asking for a ride from car owners but a probabilistic rule.  So
far it has not proved possible to try to work out the detailed
epistemology of this approach, i.e.  exactly what probabilistic
sentences should be used.  Instead AI has moved to directly formalizing
non-monotonic logical reasoning.

	Formalized non-monotonic reasoning is under rapid development
and many kinds of systems have been proposed.  I shall concentrate on
an approach called circumscription, because I know it, and because it
has met with wide acceptance and is perhaps the most actively pursued
at present.  The idea is to single out among the models of the collection
of sentences being assumed some ``preferred'' or ``standard'' models.
The preferred models are those that satisfy a certain minimum principle.
What is to be minimized is not yet decided in complete generality,
but many domains that have been studied yield quite general theories
using minimizations of abnormality or of the set of some kind of entity.
The idea is not completely unfamiliar.  For example, Ockham's razor ``Do
not multiply entities beyond necessity'' is such a minimum principle.

	Minimization in logic is another example of an area of mathematics
being discovered in connection with applications rather than via
the normal internal development of mathematics.  Of course, the reverse
is happening on an even larger scale; many logical concepts developed
for purely mathematical reasons turn out to have AI importance.

	As a more concrete example of non-monotonic reasoning, consider
the conditions under which a boat may be used to cross a river.  We all
know of certain things that might be wrong with a boat, e.g. a leak, no
oars or motor or sails depending on what kind of a boat it is.  It would
be reasonably convenient to list some of them in a set of axioms.
However, besides those that we can expect to list in advance, human
reasoning will admit still others, should they arise, but cannot be
expected to think of them in advance, e.g. a fence down the middle of
the river.  This is handled using circumscription by minimizing the set
of ``things that prevent the boat from crossing the river'', i.e. the
set of obstacles to be overcome.  If the reasoner knows of none in a
particular case, he or it will conjecture that the boat can be used, but
if he learns of one, he will get a different result when he minimizes.

	This illustrates the fact that non-monotonic reasoning
is conjectural rather than rigorous.  Indeed it has been shown
that certain mathematical logical systems cannot be rigorously extended,
i.e. that they have a certain kind of completeness.

	It is as misleading to conduct a discussion of this kind
entirely without formulas as it would be to discuss the foundations of
physics without formulas.  Unfortunately, many people are unaware of this
fact.  Therefore, we present a formalization by Vladimir Lifschitz
(1987) of a simple example called ``The Yale shooting problem''.  Drew
McDermott (1987), who has become discouraged about the use of logic in
AI and especially about the non-monotonic formalisms, invented it as a
challenge.  (The formal part is only one page, however).  Some earlier
styles of axiomatizing facts about change don't work right on this
problem.  Lifschitz's method works well here, but I think it
will require further modification.

	In an initial situation there is an unloaded gun and a person
Fred.  The gun is loaded, then there is a wait, and then the gun
is pointed at Fred and fired.  The desired conclusion is the death
of Fred.  Informally, the rules are (1) that a living person remains alive until
something happens to him, (2) that loading causes a gun to become loaded,
(3) that a loaded gun remains loaded until something unloads it, (4) that
shooting unloads a gun and (5) that shooting a loaded gun at a person
kills him.  We are intended to reason as follows.  Fred will remain alive
until the gun is fired, because nothing can be inferred to happen to
him.  The gun will remain loaded until it is fired, because nothing
can be inferred to happen to it.  Fred will then die when the gun is
fired.  The non-monotonic part of the reasoning is minimizing ``the
things that happen'' or assuming that ``nothing happens without a reason''.

	The logical sentences are intended to express the above 5 premisses,
but they don't explicitly say that no other phenomenon occurs.  For example,
it isn't asserted that Fred isn't wearing a bullet proof vest, nor are
any properties of bullet proof vests mentioned.  Nevertheless, a human
will conclude that unless some unmentioned aspect of the situation
is present, Fred will die.  The difficulty is that the sentences admit
an {\it unintended minimal model}, to use the terminology of mathematical logic.
Namely, it might happen that for some unspecified reason the gun becomes
unloaded during the wait, so that Fred remains alive.  The way non-monotonic
formalisms, e.g. circumscription and Reiter's logic of defaults,
were previously used to formulate
the problem, minimizing ``abnormality'' results in two possibilities,
not one.  The unintended possibility is that the gun mysteriously
becomes unloaded.

	By popular demand Lifschitz's actual axioms are relegated to the Appendix.

	It seems likely that introducing non-monotonic reasoning
will not be the only modification to logic that will be required in order
to give machines human capability for common sense reasoning.

	In order to make programs that reason about their own
knowledge and belief, i.e. have even rudimentary consciousness,
it is necessary to formalize many {\it intensional} notions, e.g.
knowledge and belief.  (McCarthy 1979a) formalizes some of them
in first order logic by introducing propositions and individual
concepts as individuals.  Complicating such efforts are the
paradoxes discovered by Montague (1963).  It will be necessary
to weaken the axioms suitably to avoid them, but a good way of
doing it hasn't yet been found.

It seems also to be necessary to formalize the notion of context,
but this is in a very preliminary state of investigation.

!\medskip
\noindent{\bf AI and Philosophy}

	Artificial intelligence cannot avoid philosophy.  If a computer
program is to behave intelligently in the real world, then it must be
provided with some kind of framework into which to fit particular facts
it is told or discovers.  This amounts to at least a fragment of some
kind of philosophy, however naive.  Here we are agreeing with
philosophers advocating the study of philosophy who claim that someone
who purports to ignore philosophy is merely condemning himself to a
naive philosophy.

	AI could probably make do with a naive philosophy for a long
time, since AI is still far behind the intellectual performance of
people who are philosophically naive.  Unfortunately, it hasn't been
possible to say what a naive philosophy is, and the philosophers offer
little guidance.

	The next plausible alternative might be to take one of the
philosophies that have been proposed by philosophers and build our
programs to seek knowledge and represent it in accordance with its
tenets.  This also hasn't been possible.  Either no-one in AI,
including retreaded philosophers, understands philosophical theories
well enough to program a computer in accordance with their tenets,
or the philosophers haven't even come close to the required precision.
Actually it seems that some of the empiricist philosophies may be
precise enough but turn out to be inadequate when one attempts to use
them in the most modest computer programs.

	Therefore, we AI researchers have found ourselves on our
own when it comes to providing the program with a basic intellectual
structure.  Here is some of what we think we require.

	1. Ontology.  Taking Quine's idea that our ontology is defined
by the range of the bound variables, we need to specify what kinds of
entities are to be assumed, i.e. what are the robot's beliefs to be
about.  Nominalism suggests that variables take material objects as
values.  This promptly proves inadequate; for example, because it
doesn't permit the robot's designer to inform it about
what properties of objects are preserved when certain kinds of events
take place.

	Quine (1987) tells us that ``But there is no place in science
for ideas'', arguing for this view with examples of the difficulty
in defining what it means for two people to have the same idea.
However, if a program is to search for a good idea by generating
lots of them and testing, then it needs some criteria for deciding
when it has already tested a certain idea.  Thus ideas as objects
seem to be required, but how to avoid the difficulties Quine cites
hasn't yet been discovered.  Present AI systems can't enumerate
ideas.

	2. Free will.  The robots we plan to build are entirely
deterministic systems.  However, a sophisticated robot must decide
what to do by considering the various things it {\it can} do and
choosing which has the best consequences in view of the goals
it has been given.  In order to do this, it must be able to represent
``I can do A and I can do B, but B seems better, so while I can
do A, I won't''.  What does it mean for a robot to believe, ``I
can, but I won't''?  It's a determinist system, so either it will
do A or it won't.  (McCarthy and Hayes 1969) contains some proposals
for resolving the problem of free will for robots.

	3. Non-monotonic reasoning.  AI programs require ways of
jumping to conclusions on the basis of insufficient evidence.

	AI researchers' attempts to determine an intellectual framework
precise enough for programming AI systems have already led to a
certain philosophical views --- both to taking sides in some ancient
philosophical controversies and to proposals that we regard as new.
Here are some points, some of which are controversial within AI.

	1. Incrementalism or modesty.  The facts about the effects of
actions and other events that have been put into the databases of AI
programs are not very general.  They are not even as general as what
questioning would elicit from naive people, let alone general enough to
satisfy people familiar with the philosophical literature.  However,
they suffice in limited cases to determine the appropriate action to
achieve a goal.  Observing their limitations in practice leads to
further advance.

	We argue that this is a useful methodology even when
the objectives are philosophical.  One can design formalisms that can be
used in working systems and improve them when their defects become
apparent.

	The philosopher might claim that the working systems are
too trivial to be of interest to him.  He would be wrong, because
it turns out that the philosophical investigations of action have
missed important phenomena that arise as soon as one tries to
design systems that plan actions.  Here are two examples.  First the ideas
of association dating at least from Mill and going through the
behaviorists are too vague to be programmed at all.  Second,
philosophers have missed most of the non-monotonic character of
the reasoning involved in everyday decision making.

	For AI it is not only important that the researcher be
able to revise his ideas.  It is also important that the program
be able to improve its behavior incrementally, either by accepting
advice from the user or by learning from experience, and this requires
new languages for expressing knowledge.  For example, a baby first
considers the word ``mother'' as a proper name, then as a general
name for adult women, and still later as a designating a relation.
Languages with appropriate {\it elaboration tolerance} can interpret certain
sentences as changing a predicate symbol from taking one argument
to taking two.  They don't exist yet.

	2. Objectivity.  Regardless of one's ultimate view of reality,
in designing robots we need to make the robot view the world as an
external reality about which it has and can obtain only partial
knowledge.  We will not be successful if we design the robot to
regard the world as merely a structure built on its sensory information.
There needs to be a theory (it could be called meta-epistemology)
relating the structure of a world, a knowledge-seeker in that world,
the interaction channel between the knowledge-seeker and the rest
of the world, the knowledge-seeker's rules for deciding what assertions
about the world are meaningful and its rules for accepting evidence
about the world and what the knowledge-seeker can discover.  If the
rules are too restrictive, perhaps as in some operationalist
philosophies of science, the knowledge-seeker will be unable
to discover basic facts about the world, regarding the assertions
as insufficiently operational to be even meaningful.

!\noindent {\bf Remarks}

	Many of these remarks involve stating a position on issues
that are controversial even within AI.

	1. Artificial intelligence is best regarded as a branch of
computer science rather than as a branch of psychology.  Namely,it
is concerned with methods of achieving goals in situations in which
the information available has a certain complex character.  The methods
that have to be used are related to the problem presented by the situation
and are similar whether the problem solver is human, a Martian or a
computer program.

	Initially some people were over-optimistic about how long it
would take to achieve human level intelligence.  Optimism was natural,
because only a few of the difficulties had been identified.  Enough
difficulties have been identified by now to establish AI as one of the
more difficult sciences.  Maybe it will take five years to achieve
human level intelligence, and maybe it will take five hundred.

	2. It is still not clear how to characterize situations in which
intelligence is required.  Evidently they have a certain open-ended
character.  Even in a game like chess where the rules are fixed, the
methods for deciding on a move have an open ended character --- new
ways of thinking about chess positions are invented all the time.

	3. AI has so far identified certain methods of pattern matching,
heuristic search of trees of possibilities, representation of information
by rules and learning.  Other methods are still to be characterized,
especially methods of representing problems as collections of subproblems
that can be examined separately to get certain results that can then
be used in studying their interactions.

	4. The logic approach to AI is not the only one that may lead
to success.  For example, approaches more closely tied to biology
may succeed eventually, even though most of the biology motivated
approaches that have been tried since the 1950s have dried up.

	5. Much of AI's controversial character comes from its
implications for philosophy, a subject about which there are strong
views.  AI tends to support rationalist and realistic views of
philosophical problems rather than empiricist, phenomenological or
idealist views.  It encourages a piecemeal approach to the philosophy
of mind in which mental qualities are considered separately rather
than as part of a grand package.  This is because some systems have
important but rather limited mental qualities.

	6. There are many open problems in formalizing common sense and
many approaches to solving them awaiting exploration.  2,000 years of
philosophy has only limited relevance.  In my opinion, their proper
discussion is unavoidably mostly technical, involving the actual logical
formalisms being used.

	7. The situation calculus used above has important known
limitations.  The $result(e,s)$ formalism has to be modified to
handle continuous time, and a quite different formalism is needed
for expressing facts about concurrent events.  Kowalski's (1986)
 {\it event calculus} is a candidate for meeting both of these
requirements.

	8. The study of AI may lead to a mathematical metaepistemology
analogous to metamathematics.  Namely, one can study the relation between
a knower's rules for accepting evidence and a world in which he is
embedded.  There can then be actual mathematical theorems about whether
certain intellectual strategies will discover certain facts about the
world.  I think this will eventually revolutionize philosophy.

	9. The best general text on the logic approach to AI is
(Genesereth and Nilsson 1987).

\medskip
!\noindent{\bf References}

\noindent
{\bf Dennett, D.C. (1971)}: ``Intentional Systems'', {\it Journal of Philosophy}
vol. 68, No. 4, Feb. 25.

\noindent
{\bf Fikes, R, and Nils Nilsson, (1971)}:
``STRIPS: A New Approach to the Application of 
Theorem Proving to Problem Solving,'' {\it Artificial Intelligence}, Volume 2,
Numbers 3,4, January,
pp. 189-208.

\noindent
{\bf Genesereth, Michael and Nils Nilsson (1987)}: {\it The Logical
Foundations of Artificial Intelligence}, Morgan-Kaufman.

\noindent
{\bf Green, C., (1969)}:
``Application of Theorem Proving to Problem Solving. In IJCAI-1, pp. 219-239.

\noindent
{\bf Kowalski, Robert (1979)}: {\it Logic for Problem Solving},
North-Holland, Amsterdam.

\noindent
{\bf Kowalski, Robert and Marek Sergot (1985)}: {\it A Logic-based Calculus of
 Events}, Dept. of Computing, Imperial College, London.

\noindent
{\bf Lifschitz, Vladimir (1987)}:
``Formal Theories of Action'', to be published.

\noindent
{\bf McCarthy, John (1960)}: ``Programs with Common Sense'', in Proceedings of the
Teddington Conference on the Mechanization of Thought Processes, Her Majesty's
Stationery Office, London.
%  common[e80,jmc],
% common.tex[e80,jmc]

\noindent
{\bf McCarthy, John and P.J. Hayes (1969)}:  ``Some Philosophical Problems from
the Standpoint of Artificial Intelligence'', in D. Michie (ed), {\it Machine
Intelligence 4}, American Elsevier, New York, NY.
%  phil[ess,jmc] with slight modifications

\noindent
{\bf McCarthy, John (1977)}:
``Epistemological Problems of Artificial Intelligence'', {\it Proceedings
of the Fifth International Joint Conference on Artificial 
Intelligence}, M.I.T., Cambridge, Mass.
%  ijcai.c[e77,jmc]

\noindent
{\bf McCarthy, John (1979)}:
``Ascribing Mental Qualities to Machines'' in {\it Philosophical Perspectives 
in Artificial Intelligence}, Ringle, Martin (ed.), Harvester Press, July 1979.
%  .<<aim 326, MENTAL[F76,JMC],mental.tex[f76,jmc]>>

\noindent
{\bf McCarthy, John (1979a)}: 
``First Order Theories of Individual Concepts and Propositions'', 
in Michie, Donald (ed.) {\it Machine Intelligence 9}, (University of
Edinburgh Press, Edinburgh).
%  .<<aim 325, concep.tex[e76,jmc]>>

\noindent
{\bf McCarthy, John (1980)}: 
``Circumscription - A Form of Non-Monotonic Reasoning'', {\it Artificial
Intelligence}, Volume 13, Numbers 1,2, April.
%  .<<aim 334, circum.new[s79,jmc], cirnew.tex[s79,jmc]>>

\noindent
{\bf McCarthy, John (1986)}:
``Applications of Circumscription to Formalizing Common Sense Knowledge''
{\it Artificial Intelligence}, April 1986
%  circum.tex[f83,jmc]

\noindent
{\bf McDermott, D. and J. Doyle, (1980)}:
``Non-Monotonic Logic I,'' {\it Artificial Intelligence\/},
Vol. 13, N. 1

\noindent
{\bf McDermott, D. (1987)}:
``A Critique of Pure Reason'', {\it Computational Intelligence}, with
peer commentaries, forthcoming, 1987.

\noindent
{\bf Montague, Richard (1963)}: ``Syntactical Treatments of Modality, with
Corollaries on Reflexion Principles and Finite Axiomatizability,''
{\it Acta Philosophica Fennica\/} {\bf 16}:153--167.  Reprinted in (Montague 1974).

\noindent
{\bf Montague, Richard (1974)}: {\it Formal Philosophy}, Yale University Press

\noindent
{\bf Newell, Allen (1981)}: ``The Knowledge Level,'' {\it AI Magazine\/},
Vol. 2, No. 2

\noindent
{\bf Quine, W. V. (1987)}: {\it Quiddities}, Harvard University Press.

\noindent
{\bf Reiter, R.A. (1980)}: ``A Logic for default reasoning,'' {\it Artificial 
Intelligence\/}, 13 (1,2), 81-132.

\noindent
{\bf Robinson, J. Allen (1965)}: ``A Machine-oriented Logic Based
on the Resolution Principle''. {\it JACM}, 12(1), 23-41.

\noindent
{\bf Sterling, Leon and Ehud Shapiro (1986)}: {\it The Art of Prolog}, MIT Press.

\noindent
{\bf Sussman, Gerald J., Terry Winograd, and 
Eugene Charniak (1971)}: ``Micro-planner Reference Manual,'' Report AIM-203A,
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge.

\medskip
!\noindent Appendix: Lifschitz's Cauality Axioms for the Yale Shooting Problem

	Lifschitz's axioms use the situation calculus of (McCarthy and
Hayes 1969) but introduce a predicate $causes$ as an undefined notion.

	We quote from (Lifschitz 1987).

``Our axioms for the shooting problem can be classified into three groups.
The first group describes the initial situation:
%
$$holds(alive,S0),\eqno(Y1.1)$$
$$¬ holds(loaded,S0).\eqno(Y1.2)$$
%
The second group tells us how the fluents are affected by actions:
%
$$causes(load,loaded,true),\eqno(Y2.1)$$
$$causes(shoot,loaded,false),\eqno(Y2.2)$$
$$causes(shoot,alive,false).\eqno(Y2.3)$$
%
These axioms describe the effects of 
{\it successfully performed} actions;
they do not say {\it when} an action can be successful.
This information is supplied separately:
%
$$precond(loaded,shoot).\eqno(Y2.4)$$
%
The last group consists of two axioms of a more general nature. We use
the abbreviations:
%
$$success(a,s) ≡ ∀f(precond(f,a) ⊃ holds(f,s)),$$
$$affects(a,f,s) ≡ success(a,s) ∧ ∃v\;causes(a,f,v).$$
%
One axiom describes how the value of a fluent changes after an action affecting
this fluent is carried out:
%
$$success(a,s) ∧ causes(a,f,v) ⊃ (holds(f,result(a,s)) ≡ v=true).\eqno(Y3.1)$$
%
(Recall that $v$ can take on two values here, $true$ and $false$; the
equivalence in $Y3.1$ reduces to $holds(f,result(a,s))$ in the first case and
to the negation of this formula in the second.)
If the fluent is not affected then its value remains the same:
%
$$¬affects(a,f,s) ⊃ (holds(f,result(a,s)) ≡ holds(f,s)).\eqno(Y3.2)\hbox{''}$$

	Minimizing $causes$ and $precond$ makes the right thing happen.
While these axioms and {\it circumscription policy} solve this problem, it
remains to be seen whether we can write a large body of common sense
knowledge in the formalism without getting other unpleasant surprises.
Another current question is whether we can get by with axioms about the
external world only or whether the axioms must contain information about
the purposes of the reasoning in order to determine the preferred models.
Moreover, there are many more possibilities to explore for the formal
minimum principle required for common sense reasoning.

!\smallskip
\centerline{Copyright \copyright\ \number\year\ by John McCarthy}
\smallskip
\noindent This draft of logic.2[w87,jmc] TEXed on \jmcdate\ at \theTime
\vfill\eject\end
%logic.2[w87,jmc]		Yet another try

∂06-Oct-87  0847	JMC  	reply to message   
To:   PHY    
[In reply to message rcvd 06-Oct-87 08:37-PT.]

Please file all the above.

∂05-Oct-87  2354	JMC  	aids
To:   su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
	1. The following article confirms what some of us have
suspected about the attitude of the homosexual activists.

	2. Vigorous enforced sexual quarantines at the beginning might
have slowed the spread of AIDS.  But remember it was a while before
any tests were available.

 	3. Compared to Alzheimer's disease, AIDS is very well funded.
The claim that it has not been well funded is an aspect of the
politics of claiming victimization.  Considering the exotic
nature of the problem, progress has been rapid.  Compared to
progress on Alzheimer's disease, which affects 2.5 million
Americans, progress on AIDS has been extremely rapid.

a009  2248  05 Oct 87
PM-AIDS Book, Bjt,0723
Gay Community Was Slow To React Adequately To AIDS Epidemic
By RICH CARTIERE
Associated Press Writer
    SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A homosexual author charges gay activists
nationwide at first failed to understand the AIDS epidemic as a
medical problem rooted in promiscuity, treating it instead as a
''public relations problem.''
    That mistake, coupled with the political expediency and scientific
rivalry that wracked response to AIDS between 1980 and 1985, helped
the disease rage out of control, says Randy Shilts in his book, ''And
the Band Played On: People, Politics and the AIDS Epidemic.''
    When some gay community leaders tried to caution against profligate
sex during the epidemic's initial years, they were attacked as
''sexual Nazis'' and ''anti-sex brownshirts,'' says Shilts.
    ''Self-criticism was not the strong point of a community that was
only beginning to define itself affirmatively after centuries of
repression,'' Shilts writes. His book is scheduled to be released
Oct. 30.
    Shilts, who has covered AIDS full-time since 1983 for the San
Francisco Chronicle, says his book is the first attempt to document
''how completely and consistently the Reagan administration turned
its back and ignored its own health officials'' in funding the fight
against the disease.
    He says it also is the first time that the scientific community's
initial reluctance to deal with the disease and the subsequent
rivalry between leading researchers has been comprehensively studied.
    ''In the first two years, some people were warned by superiors that
research into AIDS would hurt their careers,'' Shilts said in an
interview Monday. ''And then the bickering in the following years
between scientists delayed progress.''
    He writes that by the time America ''paid attention to the disease,
it was too late to do anything about it.'' The epidemic ''was allowed
to happen by an array of institutions, all of which failed to perform
their appropriate tasks to safeguard the public health.''
    Gastrointestinal diseases that swept through homosexual communities
nationwide just before the AIDS epidemic should have been early
warning signs about the health dangers of promiscuity, but Shilts
says they were ignored by gay leaders.
    Tempering his criticism, Shilts says, ''The gay community was slow
to react adequately, but what then happened in response to the crisis
happened mainly because of gay people's involvement.''
    Shilts says doctors with homosexual patients delayed putting
together risk-reduction guidelines, and were reluctant to join
community panels.
    In Vancouver, British Columbia, gay bathhouse owners became angry at
the local homosexual newspaper for ''running a health page; this
obsession with a handful of sick people in the United States was bad
for business,'' according to Shilts.
    The book also indentified the man referred to by researchers as
''Patient Zero'' because he may have brought AIDS to North America.
    At least 17 percent of the first 248 AIDS cases reported in the
United States by 1982 are linked to Gaetan Dugas, who remained
defiantly sexually active after his diagnosis and died in 1984, says
Shilts.
    Of the first 19 AIDS cases reported in Los Angeles, four of the
victims had sex with the airline steward from Montreal, and another
four had sex with one of his sexual partners. New York's first two
cases, in 1979, were Dugas' ex-sexual partners.
    From just one sexual encounter with Dugas, researchers were able to
link 11 other cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome, Shilts
writes.
    Shilts charges the Reagan administration ignored pleas from
government scientists and did not allocate adequate money for AIDS
research.
    Citing documents turned up using the Freedom of Information Act,
Shilts alleges then-Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret
Heckler misled Congress when she testified on April 12, 1983, that
her department was using ''every dollar necessary to try to find an
answer.''
    Shilts quotes from an internal memo written that day by Dr. Don
Francis, chief of AIDS lab research at the federal Centers for
Disease Control, which says: ''The inadequate funding to date has
seriously restricted our work and has presumably deepened the
invasion of this disease into the American population.''
    AIDS, which damages the body's immune system, leaving victims
susceptible to infections and cancer, is spread most often through
sexual contact, needles or syringes shared by drug abusers, infected
blood or blood products, and from pregnant women to their offspring.
    As of Sept. 28, the CDC had received reports of 42,354 Americans
with AIDS, 24,412 of whom had died.
    
 
AP-NY-10-06-87 0134EDT
***************

∂05-Oct-87  1448	JMC  	afore-mentioned demand for final report
To:   LES    
I had phoned her and grumbled that they send out these demands
for reports without saying what it is other than the
number.  Clearly some of the buck needs to be passed to Jussi.

 ∂05-Oct-87  1443	AS.JAL@forsythe.stanford.edu 	NSF Final Report    
Received: from LINDY.STANFORD.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 5 Oct 87  14:43:38 PDT
Received: by lindy.stanford.edu; Mon, 5 Oct 87 14:43:19 PDT
Date: Mon,  5 Oct 87 14:41:57 PDT
From: Judy Leasher <AS.JAL@forsythe.stanford.edu>
To: jmc@sail.stanford.edu
Subject: NSF Final Report

                             October 5, 1987



TO:           Professor John McCarthy
              Computer Science

FROM:         Judith Leasher
              Sponsored Projects Office
              Encina #40, Mail Code 6060
              Telephone:  723-2907
              ITS Account:  as.jal

SUBJECT:      NSF Final Report for Grant No. DCR 8206565


As requested in our telephone conversation of this morning, the
title of the above grant is:  "Mechanical Theorem Proving and
Development of EKL", for the period September 1, 1982 - June 30,
1987.

If I can be of further assistance, please let me know.

Thank you.

To:  JMC@SAIL
cc:  AS.JAL

∂05-Oct-87  1446	JMC  	re: NSF Final Report    
To:   AS.JAL@FORSYTHE.STANFORD.EDU    
[In reply to message sent Mon, 5 Oct 87 14:41:57 PDT.]

Thanks, I wouldn't have guessed it was that grant.

∂05-Oct-87  1428	JMC  
To:   PHY    
Sorry, that was daedal.dvi[f87,jmc].

∂05-Oct-87  1428	JMC  
To:   PHY    
OK, please print daedal.dvi[w87,jmc] again and ship it.

∂05-Oct-87  0918	JMC  	re: visiting professors and industrial lecturers 
To:   FEIGENBAUM@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU    
[In reply to message sent Sun, 4 Oct 87 18:35:22 PDT.]

We're fine, thanks.

∂05-Oct-87  0856	JMC  
To:   PHY    
Thanks, will do.

∂04-Oct-87  1503	JMC  	paper for Daedalus 
To:   PHY    
Please print daedal.dvi[f87,jmc] and Federal Express it to

Daedalus
Norton's Woods
136 Irving Street
Cambridge, MA 02138

for arrival Tuesday.

∂04-Oct-87  1433	JMC  	re: transfer to stanford
To:   sharma%uicsrd.CSRD.UIUC.EDU@A.CS.UIUC.EDU 
[In reply to message sent Sun, 4 Oct 87 14:43:16 cdt.]

You should talk further with Joe Weening.  A
faculty member you should talk to is Anoop Gupta,
415 725-3716; AG@Amadeus.stanford.edu, who has quite general interests
in parallel symbolic computing.  I don't plan to be
sufficiently active in parallel computing in general
to take on new students.

∂04-Oct-87  1028	JMC  	re: transfer to stanford
To:   sharma%uicsrd.CSRD.UIUC.EDU@A.CS.UIUC.EDU 
[In reply to message sent Sat, 3 Oct 87 21:16:32 cdt.]

Your project seems interesting, but the current and projected future
activities of my project (QLISP) at Stanford are limited to software.
However, should you come to Stanford, I and others in my group would
like to hear about your work and perhaps discuss the relation between
your hardware ideas and the experience we are getting in using a
parallel computer for LISP.

∂03-Oct-87  1656	JMC  	re: railroad conspiracy 
To:   WEISE@SIERRA.Stanford.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU 
[In reply to message from WEISE@sierra.stanford.edu sent Sat 3 Oct 87 14:27:34-PDT.]

Well documented doesn't mean proved.  Books promoting conspiracy theories
have abounded since, I believe, the time of ancient Greeks.  The
"capitalist plot" genre has been popular for more than a century.
Consider what the lawyers for the bankrupt railroads could have done if
General Motors and Exxon could have been proved to have done them in.
Triple anti-trust damages on some billions of dollars would have saved the
railroads and enriched the lawyers almost up to their wildest dreams of
avarice.  You subpoena the lobbyists and lawyers for GM, etc. and take
their testimony with threats of perjury indictments.  It would have been a
far better racket than merely getting a few million dollars apiece from
each accident involving Pinto gas tanks exploding.  Oh well, maybe it just
didn't occur to them.

∂03-Oct-87  1640	JMC  
To:   * 
Congratulations Marty on getting domains in.

∂02-Oct-87  2154	JMC  	apology  
To:   danny@THINK.COM  
I did not make the deadline on Grace Hopper.
Next year for sure.

∂02-Oct-87  2044	JMC  
To:   nilsson@TENAYA.STANFORD.EDU
Thanks for the file

∂02-Oct-87  1958	JMC  
To:   TK@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU  
Can you MAIL me phone numbers?  I'd like to talk about Lisp machines.

∂02-Oct-87  1902	JMC  	re: Railroad Conspiracy Theories, anyone?   
To:   masha@JUNE.CS.WASHINGTON.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU   
[In reply to message from masha@june.cs.washington.edu sent Fri, 2 Oct 87 16:05:53 PDT.]

I believe the accusations relate not to long distance railways but
to street railways.  I remember in 1955 asking my landlord in New Paltz,
New York (what the devil was I doing in New Paltz) about some bits
of tracks peaking out through the asphalt in the middle of the main
street.  He said that there had formerly been a railway between
Poughkeepsie and New Paltz, but it had gone out of business before
the War.  It turned out he meant before World War I.

I suspect the accusation is exaggerated.  However, there is one legal
anomaly that worked against the railroads.  In the 19th century all
good liberals were enemies of the wicked greedy capitalist railroads,
and part of all liberal platforms was to tax them heavily.  These
taxes remained, and some still remain, high on railroad rights-of-way.
On the other hand the roads the truckers use are supported by taxes,
and the taxes on trucks themselves aren't very high.  Very likely
the car companies support the highway lobbies which resist and
general lowering of taxes on railroads.  However, the railroad
lobbies are not entirely impotent.  They have succeeded in preventing
laws that would give coal slurry piplines the right to cross railroads.

Not all wicked lobbies are corporate.  Ideologically based lobbies
can be even worse, because they often can't be bought off or
compromised with.  Environmentalist lobbies have, in their short
existences, harmed the public welfare at least as much as business
lobbies.

∂02-Oct-87  1847	JMC  	reply to message   
To:   PHY    
[In reply to message rcvd 02-Oct-87 15:51-PT.]

Please chuck the MAA booklet and file the rest.

∂02-Oct-87  1530	JMC  	letter   
To:   PHY    
Could you texify halste.re1[f87,jmc] and send it?  You
can sign it PHY for John McCarthy.

∂02-Oct-87  1456	JMC  	re: visiting professors and industrial lecturers 
To:   FEIGENBAUM@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU    
[In reply to message sent Fri, 2 Oct 87 14:43:46 PDT.]

Forbus sounds like a good idea.  I think I'll wait couple weeks for
additional suggestions before listing candidates to the faculty and
inquiring about his availability.

∂02-Oct-87  1426	JMC  	re: Research Mentor Information   
To:   VAL    
[In reply to message rcvd 02-Oct-87 14:14-PT.]

It looks ok.  As to slots, we might say "2 unpaid slots now, but funding
is pending".  I guess you get to tell Gorbis what to do for now, but
I would prefer to focus him as much as possible on common sense itself
rather than pure logic.  We should go easy on him at first, because he
may have some difficulties getting oriented.  Please see that he learns
what he has to do to pass the comprehensives, etc.  There is a mechanism
for orienting new students, but it doesn't always succeed with foreign
students.

∂02-Oct-87  1408	JMC  	re: question  
To:   VAL    
[In reply to message rcvd 02-Oct-87 13:55-PT.]

She came to Texas with us and will continue with us when we return.
Carolyn found her by way of an announcement on bboard.

∂02-Oct-87  1356	JMC  	logic in AI   
To:   nilsson@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU 
Thanks for your latest draft.  I may crib bits of it.  I have
one quibble.  I think we should adhere to the logicians'
terminology in the following respect.  They don't use the
word "language" for first order logic, but reserve the
phrase "first order language" for a system that includes the
vocabulary of predicate and function symbols.  I think this
usage is advantageous for AI as well as for logicians, because
it emphasizes that you get different languages according to
whether you write at(x,l), holds(at(x,l),s), loc(x,s) = l,
etc. or use a language permitting several of these.

∂02-Oct-87  1319	JMC  	re: Carolyn's phone number   
To:   VAL    
[In reply to message rcvd 02-Oct-87 13:17-PT.]

Sorry, it is 3894.

∂02-Oct-87  1213	JMC  	re: Research Mentor Information   
To:   VAL    
[In reply to message rcvd 02-Oct-87 11:58-PT.]

I think there should be two descriptions.  However, why don't you
ask Igor to do the Qlisp one.  Maybe there should be three - one
for program proving.  For the latter, you should ask Carolyn whether
she wants to do it or whether Shankar should be asked.  Carolyn's
phone number is 512 471-3874.

∂02-Oct-87  1204	JMC  	re: The Pope and Madonna
To:   H.HUSSEIN@LEAR.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU    
[In reply to message from H.HUSSEIN@lear.stanford.edu sent Thu 1 Oct 87 22:39:38-PDT.]

Perhaps the Pope had Madonna confused with someone else.

∂02-Oct-87  1155	JMC  	re: visiting professors 
To:   BUCHANAN@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU 
[In reply to message sent Fri, 2 Oct 87 06:48:51 PDT.]

Please see my latest to the faculty.  Is visiting professor better
for Reid Smith than industrial lecturer?

∂02-Oct-87  1153	JMC  	visiting professors and industrial lecturers
To:   faculty@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU 
In my previous message I should have said that visiting professors are not
the same as industrial lecturers.  The latter are one per quarter and are
from local industry.  The former, in my view, should primarily be
academics and will usually be from a distance.  The industry lecturers
have always been appointed for a quarter, and the it seems to me that
visiting professors should normally be here for an academic year.  I have
received two nominations for the visiting professor position, but both are
from local industry - Dick Duda and Reid Smith.  Is there a reason why the
visiting professor position is more desirable for us and more attractive
to the potential invitee in these cases or would industrial lecturer be
more appropriate?  We usually have settled the industrial lectureship
positions in January or February with negotiations opened in late fall and
this seems to suit both us and the candidates.  However, the visiting
professor positions usually have to be settled in late fall so that people
can apply for leave, etc.  I think we should try for some quite prominent
visiting professors.

∂01-Oct-87  1717	JMC  	re: visiting professors 
To:   FEIGENBAUM@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU
CC:   faculty@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Thu, 1 Oct 87 16:58:56 PDT.]

Ed asked to be reminded of the parameters regarding visiting
faculty, and I thought I'd better remind everyone.

	The faculty agreed some time ago that we ought to have about a
visiting professor a year, for example, a senior person we might consider
trying to recruit.  If we find a person the faculty considers suitable,
it's up to the Chairman to find the money, e.g. from the budget for
someone on unpaid leave.  Shapiro visited in this way.  I believe there's
no-one this year.

∂01-Oct-87  1643	JMC  	re: INS  
To:   SINGH@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU
CC:   su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from SINGH@Sierra.Stanford.EDU sent Thu 1 Oct 87 16:19:38-PDT.]

I'm sure that instances of bad behavior by INS can be multiplied
indefinitely.  However, your reply was not fully responsive to
my question.  Some things are Congress's fault.  For example,
perhaps Congress has required consular officials (they are
part of the State Department rather than INS) to try to
guess whether a visa applicant will try to take a job
and has also imposed inconsistent requirements on INS.
However, beyond defects imposed by Congress, there seems
to be rudeness that could be cured purely administratively.
Who is the present head of INS?  Is he a civil servant
or a political appointee?  What interests attempt to
influence his policy?  Are the immigration lawyers
a political force for good or evil?  The need for
their services might partially depend on the system
being bad.

∂01-Oct-87  1524	JMC  
To:   CLT@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU 
strange letter in telegram style from
	Graphnet
	329 Alfred Avenue
	Teaneck, N.J. 07666

	Lyngby
	Dines Bjorner

Thanks for your positive reply. We are delighted. Do you have a title
for keynote speech. When will you arrive. Flight no. Day Time. Similar
for your departure. We will book double room in Copenhagen for shoulder
days/nights.

If not otherwise instructed, willyou be in Copenhagen Monday Oct 26
or culd you be so moved. Danish IFIP group is organising a 3 speaker
evening with Ershov. Somebody from Icot and would like to see you as one
of the three. Would you be available Danish IFIP group.

Would fund all additional expenses etc. Sorry to give you all this to work
on.
Sincerely yours

∂01-Oct-87  1519	JMC  	re: visiting professors 
To:   nilsson@TENAYA.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Thu, 1 Oct 87 14:35:35 PDT.]

Do you think of him as a visiting professor or as an industrial lecturer?
Isn't there a rule that to be a visiting professor you have to be
visiting from somewhere where you have a professorial title.  If
we want Duda as a visiting professor, I suppose we'll have to call
him something else.

∂01-Oct-87  1516	JMC  	mail
To:   PHY    
North-Holland computer publications catalogue 1987
discard

Artificial Intelligence journal
file

Newsweek
discard whenever it comes

`Some recent applications of knowledge' by Rohit Parikh - comments welcome 
forward

An extremely lengthy letter from R. Thomas, Universite d'aix-Marseille
  with xerox copies of another lengthy letter. Something to do with
  `your speech in our University magazine when you taught here for a few
  days, a few years ago.' 
forward

∂01-Oct-87  1025	JMC  	re: non-monotonic reasoning  
To:   reiter%ai.toronto.edu@RELAY.CS.NET   
[In reply to message sent Wed, 30 Sep 87 00:42:22 EDT.]

Has your survey paper been published yet?

∂01-Oct-87  1404	JMC  	re: Committees
To:   RICHARDSON@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU   
[In reply to message sent Thu 1 Oct 87 11:39:57-PDT.]

I don't know what you are talking about.  I have no committees
this quarter, since I'm in Texas.

∂01-Oct-87  1410	JMC  	recursivity   
To:   su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU   
Rumor has it that someone in Jesse Jackson's campaign threatened
to reveal that someone in Dukakis's campaign was responsible for
revealing that Biden used material from Kinnock's campaign.
Kinnock is now accused of copying Thatcher's slogans.  She has
been accused of being a reincarnation of Genghis Khan.

∂01-Oct-87  1418	JMC  	visiting professors
To:   faculty@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU
CC:   richardson@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU    
Does anyone have proposals for a visiting professor for next year?
I seem to be in charge of this although away, and I suppose I can
collect proposals and suggestions by email.

∂01-Oct-87  1433	JMC   	Message of 1-Oct-87 14:23:53
To:   richardson@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU   
 ∂01-Oct-87  1425	Mailer@Score.Stanford.EDU 	Message of 1-Oct-87 14:23:53
Received: from SCORE.STANFORD.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 1 Oct 87  14:25:01 PDT
Date: Thu 1 Oct 87 14:24:25-PDT
From: The Mailer Daemon <Mailer@Score.Stanford.EDU>
To: JMC@Sail.Stanford.EDU
Subject: Message of 1-Oct-87 14:23:53

Message failed for the following:
GRAD-ADMIN@Score.Stanford.EDU.#Internet: File not found
	    ------------
Received: from labrea.stanford.edu by SCORE.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; Thu 1 Oct 87 14:24:04-PDT
Received: from Score.Stanford.EDU by labrea.stanford.edu with TCP; Thu, 1 Oct 87 14:07:55 PDT
Received: from SAIL.STANFORD.EDU by SCORE.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; Thu 1 Oct 87 14:18:37-PDT
Date: 01 Oct 87  1418 PDT
From: John McCarthy <JMC@sail.stanford.edu>
Subject: visiting professors
To: faculty@score.stanford.edu
Cc: richardson@score.stanford.edu

Does anyone have proposals for a visiting professor for next year?
I seem to be in charge of this although away, and I suppose I can
collect proposals and suggestions by email.

-------

∂01-Oct-87  1438	JMC  	INS 
To:   su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU   
It is indeed true that the INS is very bad to deal with.  It is my impression
that it is the worst of any U.S. Government agency.  Of course, the INS will
try to pass the buck by saying that it's Congress's faulty for not giving them
money for more staff.  Is there evidence to confirm my impression that the INS
could be a lot more polite even without a larger staff.

∂01-Oct-87  1455	JMC  	re: Reminder  
To:   BSCOTT@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU  
[In reply to message sent Thu 1 Oct 87 14:43:14-PDT.]

Thanks, I received your message and will take care of it.

∂01-Oct-87  1459	JMC  	re: Various Topics 
To:   RPG    
[In reply to message rcvd 01-Oct-87 14:47-PT.]

I can't commit myself to new writing this quarter.

I'm agreeable to taking on your Clinger's travel assuming DARPA will
pay.  Ask Les about appointing Clinger visiting scholar and to find
out whether that will do.

∂06-Oct-87  1444	JMC  	re: aids 
To:   PALLAS@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU 
[In reply to message from PALLAS@Sushi.Stanford.EDU sent Tue 6 Oct 87 10:46:43-PDT.]

	Like many other social groups, the homosexuals have leading
people.  I don't know much about it, and I was relying on what the A.P.
story said about the book in question including its author being a
"homosexual activist" and its reference to "gay community leaders".  It
said they initially regarded AIDS as a PR problem rather than as a medical
problem.  I did not regard myself as arguing a conspiracy.  However, it
was my opinion and still is, that this PR attitude has influenced the
medical community and the liberal community and has prevented AIDS from
being treated like other communicable diseases and especially sexually
transmitted communicable diseases.  This has increased its spread.

	As the article suggests, homosexual leaders have changed many of
their attitudes, presumably as a consequence of so many deaths.  It's hard
to identify hindsight as the reason, because the AIDS epidemic has
developed almost exactly as was predicted when the disease was first
identified and its viral nature suspected.  However, most still seem to
consider the danger of embarassment as more important than the danger of
death when they oppose, for example, tracing sexual contacts of AIDS
victims.  I consider exposing and opposing this attitude worthwhile, if
minor, in reducing the toll from AIDS.  Ibsen wrote a play, perhaps it was
"A Pillar of the Community", in which similar attitudes towards syphilis
had similar disastrous consequences.  While Ibsen complained about the
politics of respectability, the politics of victimization has had
similar effects in suppressing common sense.

	The view that Alzheimer's disease is unimportant, because it
affects the old is prejudiced.  Consider that George Polya contributed to
society well into his nineties while his colleague Gabor Szego did not.
The reason why not is that Szego had Alzheimer's disease.

∂06-Oct-87  2230	JMC  	re: Talk at Stanford    
To:   harnad@PRINCETON.EDU  
[In reply to message sent Wed, 7 Oct 87 00:55:20 EDT.]

It seems that a talk or series of talks based on these
abstracts would be interesting, but I'm not in a position
to do anything until I return to Stanford in January.  I'm
at the University of Texas in Austin until then.  Also the
people with whom you would probably have most in common are those
at CSLI.  Jon Barwise, John Perry and David Israel come to
mind.  I could make introductions, but perhaps you know
them already.  Suppes is also interested in the relations
between psychology and philosophy.

∂06-Oct-87  2338	JMC  	re: Talk at Stanford    
To:   harnad@PRINCETON.EDU  
[In reply to message sent Wed, 7 Oct 87 01:46:55 edt.]

Barwise and Perry are barwise@csli.stanford.edu and
john@csli.stanford.edu.  Suppes used to be pat@imsss.stanford.edu, but I'm
not sure he reads electronic mail.  His telephone number is 415 723-3111.

∂06-Oct-87  2352	JMC  	AIDS
To:   su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
I should explain that my present remarks are a revival of an argument of a
year or so ago in which I maintained that important public health measures
were being neglected.  I revived the issue, because I considered that the
Shilts book supported my previous opinions - both that the measures were
necessary - and my guess as to why they were opposed.  I wasn't attacking
any group, merely disagreeing with them.  My remarks about quarantines
were not a specific proposal, but quite rigorous quarantines confining
people with certain communicable diseases to their homes were a common and
effective public health measure before antibiotics.  They were not
considered discrimination.  AIDS presents a special psychological problem,
because large parts of the population perceive themselves, probably correctly,
as not enangered.

∂07-Oct-87  1005	JMC  	book the Green Library should get 
To:   library@Score.Stanford.EDU 
Today's NYT 1987 Oct 7, contains an article about
a Chinese author named Bo Yang and mentions a book
called The Ugly Chinaman and says it has been
translated into English.  The man spent nine years
in prison in Taiwan, and his book has been banned
on the mainland.  A Socrates search lists neither
the title nor the author.  Could you pass a request
to acquire the book to the appropriate person?
Unfortunately, the article doesn't list a publisher,
but I suppose librarians are good at that.

∂07-Oct-87  1014	JMC  	re: gorbachev and circumscription 
To:   perlis@YOOHOO.CS.UMD.EDU   
[In reply to message sent Wed, 7 Oct 87 13:09:00 EDT.]

I don't have a solution to the problem.  While some kind of non-monotonic
reasoning is certainly appropriate, and circumscription will probably
work, my problem is with the formalization of the required general facts
about knowledge, i.e. precedes the non-monotonic part.  I'm interested
in your ideas, and I'll think about it again now.

∂07-Oct-87  1318	JMC  	re: DAI Workshop Funding Request  
To:   gasser%pollux.usc.edu@OBERON.USC.EDU 
[In reply to message sent Wed, 7 Oct 87 11:58:00 PDT.]

This week.

∂07-Oct-87  1430	JMC  	knowledge
To:   halpern@IBM.COM  
I'm teaching Epistemological Problems of AI, and I would
like the reference to your work or that of the others
at IBM San Jose most relevant to formalizing knowledge,
especially problems like the wise men and Mr. S and Mr. P
and "all he knows is".

∂07-Oct-87  1442	JMC  	same message, better address 
To:   halpern@ALMVMA.IBM.COM
I'm teaching Epistemological Problems of AI, and I would
like the reference to your work or that of the others
at IBM San Jose most relevant to formalizing knowledge,
especially problems like the wise men and Mr. S and Mr. P
and "all he knows is".

∂07-Oct-87  1550	JMC  	wrong address 
To:   halpern@IBM.COM  
You might tell your secretary.  Either she gave me a wrong address
or I misheard her.  Thanks for the papers.
 ∂07-Oct-87  1540	mmdf@RELAY.CS.NET 	Failed mail  (msg.aa12928)
Received: from RELAY.CS.NET by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 7 Oct 87  15:40:29 PDT
Date:     Wed, 7 Oct 87 17:56:43 EDT
From:     RELAY Mail System (MMDF) <mmdf@RELAY.CS.NET>
Sender:   mmdf@RELAY.CS.NET
Subject:  Failed mail  (msg.aa12928)
To:       JMC@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU

    Your message could not be delivered to
'@ibm.com:halpern@almvma.ibm.com (host: ibm.com) (queue: ibm-sj)' for the following
reason:  ' Unknown Host 'almvma''


    Your message follows:

Received: from sail.stanford.edu by RELAY.CS.NET id aa12928; 7 Oct 87 17:43 EDT
Date: 07 Oct 87  1442 PDT
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
Subject: same message, better address 
To:   halpern@ALMVMA.IBM.COM

I'm teaching Epistemological Problems of AI, and I would
like the reference to your work or that of the others
at IBM San Jose most relevant to formalizing knowledge,
especially problems like the wise men and Mr. S and Mr. P
and "all he knows is".

∂07-Oct-87  1556	JMC  	re: more on gorbachev   
To:   perlis@YOOHOO.CS.UMD.EDU   
[In reply to message sent Wed, 7 Oct 87 18:09:40 EDT.]

Leaving the formalism aside, it seems to me that our beliefs about Gorbachev's
knowledge derives from two assumptions.
(1) Gorbachev's knowledge of specific events derives from his experience.
(2) The experience he can have is consistent with Reagan either sitting
or standing.
This avoids having to assume anything about Gorbachev's specific mental
processes.

∂07-Oct-87  1602	JMC  	receipt of paper   
To:   ft100%utep@FORSYTHE.Stanford.EDU
To: Teodor Przymusinski
Thanks for your Non-monotonic reasoning vs. ... .
I thought I had a disagreement, which is what induced me to ask
how to send you a message, but it went away.  Please acknowledge
receiving this.  Regards,

∂07-Oct-87  2232	JMC  	supreme court 
To:   su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   

     WASHINGTON (AP) - A Jewish group has hailed passage of the
 ''yarmulke amendment'' to a defense authorization bill, allowing
 military personel the right to wear ''neat and conservative''
 religious apparel.
     The legislation came after a Supreme Court decision upheld an Air
 Force policy forbidding a Jewish officer to wear a yarmulke.
     Rabbi David Saperstein, co-director of Reform Judaism's Religious
 Action Center, says the legislation ''will eliminate the conflict
 faced by observant Jews in the armed services between their religious
 obligations and military duties.''

	In my opinion the Supreme Court acted correctly in
declining to intervene in how the armed services regulate
uniforms on the grounds that there wasn't a constitutional
question.  Also Congress acted within its powers to regulate
the armed forces in agreeing to allow military personnel the
right to wear "neat and conservative" religious apparel.  They
also acted intelligently in not further defining "neat and
conservative" leaving that to the Defense Department.

	Presumably there could be a future dispute as to
whether the Defense Department is reasonably interpreting
"neat and conservative".  Only after administrative remedies
were exhausted, could the losers reasonably appeal to the
Federal Courts, where the judge would have Congresses law
to interpret with the record of the debate as a guide.

	I suppose it won't be very controversial that this
was the proper course of events.  Greater passions lead to
greater desires to get one's way at the cost of damaging
the constititutional system.

∂08-Oct-87  1625	JMC  	re: supreme court  
To:   HADDAD@SUSHI.Stanford.EDU  
[In reply to message sent Thu 8 Oct 87 14:32:30-PDT.]

I didn't pay attention to the part about the appropriation bill.
(In fact it was the authorization bill, not the appropriation bill.)
In general I agree that attaching unrelated issues to bills is a
bad practice.  I suspect that in this case it was getting around
Congress's own procedures, since the Armed Services committees still
haven't (I believe) finished this year's appropriation bill and wouldn't
have had time to take the yarmulke matter up separately, and it
probably went through without opposition.

∂08-Oct-87  1632	JMC  	re: NSF Centers    
To:   nilsson@TENAYA.STANFORD.EDU, DEK@SAIL.Stanford.EDU,
      guibas@Score.Stanford.EDU, ullman@Score.Stanford.EDU,
      RWF@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, goldberg@Score.Stanford.EDU,
      ZM@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, mayr@Score.Stanford.EDU, pratt@Score.Stanford.EDU  
[In reply to message from nilsson@Tenaya.Stanford.EDU sent Thu, 8 Oct 87 16:12:49 PDT.]

I would be interested in participating but couldn't be point man.

∂08-Oct-87  2044	JMC  
To:   ARK    
.bb Mr. S and Mr. P

	%2Two numbers ⊗m and ⊗n are chosen such that 2_≤_m_≤_n_≤_99.
Mr. S is told their sum and Mr. P is told their product.  The following
dialogue ensues:

%2Mr. P:	I don't know the numbers.

%2Mr. S:	I knew you didn't know.  I don't know either.

%2Mr. P:	Now I know the numbers.

%2Mr. S:	Now I know them too.

%2In view of the above dialogue, what are the numbers?"%1

∂08-Oct-87  2117	JMC  	report on ebos
To:   AIR    
I received a phone message from Mark Wegman saying that IBM
needs a final report on ebos before they will pay the final
bill.  It doesn't have to be long, and it needs to say that
it is the final report to IBM on the project.  Please do it
in the next couple of weeks.  Unfortunately, I haven't been
calling my answering machine at Stanford, so I don't know
how old the message is.  May be you should telephone Wegman
or try a message to wegman@ibm.com.

∂09-Oct-87  1106	JMC  	reference
To:   VAL    
Where was your Formal Theories of Action published.  Is that the IJCAI-87 paper?

∂09-Oct-87  1110	JMC  	re: Sept Auditron Readings   
To:   GILBERTSON@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU   
[In reply to message sent Fri 9 Oct 87 09:31:36-PDT.]

I am in Texas for the Fall and can't read them.  I suppose the 358 auditron
is in that secretary's office.  As for 356, I suppose my daughter Sarah,
who was acting as a secrretary during the summer packed it up with the
other things from my desk for storage till I return in January.  Her
home number is 916 758-6544 if you need to ask where it is.

∂09-Oct-87  1203	JMC  	please send paper  
To:   PHY    
In the file cabinet to the right of my office door is my reprint
collection.  Could you send a copy of a paper entitled Common
Business Communication Language to

Dr. Robert Weigle
U.S. Army Research Office
RTP
North Carolina, 27511

∂09-Oct-87  1225	JMC  	re:aids  
To:   bothner@PESCADERO.STANFORD.EDU  
[In reply to message sent 8 Oct 1987 1357-PDT.]

I have been puzzling over how I might make my postings less irritating to
people who disagree with my positions.  I would actually welcome
suggestions about how I might do it.  I was aware from the review that
Shilts also criticized the Reagan Administration, but it seeems to me that
I acted fairly in the matter by posting the entire article and not just
the part that supported my opinion.  My problem with your suggestion is
this.  I believe that the whole approach to AIDS, especially the
evaluation of uncertain factors has been affected by liberal ideology and
by positions taken by the leaders of the "gay community".  These include
the following.

	1. The relative importance assigned to preserving privacy vs.
reducing the spread of AIDS.  This has caused AIDS to be treated quite
differently from the much less serious venereal diseases with regard to
pre-marital tests and contact tracing.  The arguments about the
uncertainty of the tests and the effect of tracing on people coming in for
treatment are applicable to the other diseases and strike me as specious.

	2. There was the old argument about a hospital transferring a
doctor with AIDS from direct contact with patients.  I speculated on
bboard that this might be justified by the chance that his weakened immune
system would cause him to be a source of ordinary infections.  I was
assured by someone in contact with experts that this wouldn't happen and a
year later read that people with AIDS were involved in the somewhat
increased incidence of tuberculosis for essentially that reason.

It occurs to me that I could not estimate the relative importance of
general liberal ideology and the specific influence of the "gay
community" in these matters, and I may have overestimated the former.

Now I may be wrong, and what I regard as irrationalities caused
by ideology may indeed be entirely objective scientific judgments.
Indeed this is why I pay special attention to changed evaluations,
that indicate that uncertain matters were not treated prudently.

Finally, I should say that I am not in sympathy with the occasional
fundamentalist who says that AIDS is God's way of punishing
immorality.

∂09-Oct-87  1236	JMC  	re: One More About Your Lecture   
To:   kam%unsun.riec.tohoku.junet%utokyo-relay.csnet@RELAY.CS.NET   
[In reply to message sent Fri, 9 Oct 87 18:00:45+0900.]

Lifschitz's Formal Theories of Action was in IJCAI-87.

∂09-Oct-87  1445	JMC  
To:   aaai@SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU
Pending Proposals


Leslie Burkholder, cmu
"lb0q#"@andrew.cmu.edu
workshop material june 9

Les Gasser
msg.msg[1,jmc]/431p
John,

I sent you a previous note about funding, but perhaps it got lost. 

I'm organizing the 8th workshop on Distributed AI, and
am writing this note to request funding for it from AAAI. 

The workshop will be held at the University of California's Lake
Arrowhead Conference Center, May 22-25 1988, at a cost of
$75.00/person/night (inclusive). I expect to have no more than 40
people, which would bring the cost to $9,000, and would like to have
some extra to pay for airport transportation, preparation and mailing, 
xeroxing of papers, etc. I'd like to get $10,000 in support from
AAAI.

I'd like to know as soon as you can tell me when I might expect an
answer on AAAI support, as I must place a deposit of $1800.00 at the
Arrowhead Conf.  Center ASAP.

A preliminary description of the workshop appears below. The planning
committee has included:

  Miro Benda, (Boeing AI Center)
  Phil Cohen, (SRI)
  Lee Erman,  (Teknowledge)
  Mike Genesereth, (Stanford)
  Mike Georgeff, (SRI)
  Carl Hewitt, (MIT)
  Mike Huhns, (MCC)
  Victor Lesser, (UMASS)
  Nils Nilsson (Stanford)
  N.S. Sridharan, (FMC Corp)
  Michael Fehling, (Rockwell)

A tentative description follows.

If you need more information, please let me know. 

-- Les

Dr. Les Gasser

Computer Science Department
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA. 90089-0782

gasser@usc-cse.usc.edu
  
----------------------------------------------------------------

8th Workshop on Distributed AI

Lake Arrowhead Conference Center (Tentative)

Planned for May 1988


The 8th DAI workshop will focus on on issues of coordinating fairly
large-grain "agents," and not on issues of language-level concurrency,
fine-grained parallelism, concurrent machines, or "connectionist"
approaches. The driving focus will be be synthetic and pragmatic,
addressing questions of how we go about integrating theoretical and
experimental ideas about knowledge, planning, negotiation, action,
etc. so as to build working interacting agents?

Suggested topics:

  How to describe problems, decompose them, and allocate them among a
  collection of intelligent agents, including resource allocation,
  setting up communication channels, dynamic allocation, etc.  
  
  How to assure coherent, coordinated interaction among intelligent
  agents, including how is control allocated, how is coherence
  determined, what is the role of communication in coherence,
  plan synchronization, etc.  
  
  How to reason about other agents, the world, and the state of the
  coordinated process, including plan recognition, prospective
  reasoning (expectations), process, cognitive, knowledge, and belief
  models, representation techniques, what needs modeling in what 
  situations, etc.
  
  How to recognize and resolve disparities in viewpoints,
  representations, knowledge, and goals (including dealing with
  incomplete, inconsistent, and representationally incompatible
  viewpoints) using techniques such as communication, negotiation,
  conflict resolution, compromise, deal enforcement, specialization
  and credibility weighting, etc.
  
  Problems of language and communication, including interaction
  languages and protocols, reasoning about communication acts
  (e.g. when, what, how to communicate), dialogue coherence, etc. 
  
  Epistemological problems such as concept formation, mutual
  knowledge, the mutual construction of language and coherence,
  situation assessment with different frames of
  reference, the problem of "shared meanings," etc.
  
  Practical architectures for and real experiences with building
  interacting intelligent agents or distributed AI systems, including
  the limitations faced, resource bounded reasoning, etc.
  
  Appropriate methodologies, evaluation criteria, and techniques for
  DAI research, including comparability of results, basic assumptions,
  useful concepts, canonical problems, etc. 

Format:

Prospective participants should submit an extended abstract (8-10
pages) describing original work in DAI. Preference will be given to
work addressing basic research issues in DAI such as those outlined
above. A small number of "interested observers" will be selected for
participation and need only submit a request to attend with
some justification.

A number of submitted papers will be selected for full presentation,
critique, and discussion. Other participants will be able to present
their work in a "poster session." There will be ample time allowed for 
informal discussion. 

Participation will be limited to 35-40 people.






∂10-Oct-87  1737	JMC  	re: `America's Secret Wars Unveiled,' by Hodding Carter III
To:   SINGH@SIERRA.Stanford.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU 
[In reply to message from SINGH@Sierra.Stanford.EDU sent Sat 10 Oct 87 16:50:42-PDT.]

As I recall, Hodding Carter III had a fairly high position in the Carter
Administration, perhaps in charge of information for the State Department.
Most likely his views about the U.S. in world affairs today are not
enormously different from what they were then.  From a conservative point
of view, that men of his views held such high positions in the U.S. Government,
(he was one of many that held office under Carter) is frightening.
It is also surprising from that point of view that they didn't do more
damage than they did.  From a liberal point of view, I suppose it is
surprising that they didn't do more to diminish the influence of the
U.S. in world affairs.

It is not the purpose of this message to argue with Carter's point of view;
maybe I'll do that later.

Congratulations to Harinder on his typing; he probably didn't have our
opportunity to take typing in junior high school.

∂10-Oct-87  2041	JMC  
To:   suppes@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU   
U.S. - Soviet collaboration on computer education of mathematically talented
high school students.

	This is a potential project to which both sides make equal and large
contributions.  Americans have more experience with computers, but it is my
impression that more first class Soviet mathematicians and scientists have
paid attention to the education of high school students.  It is also more
suited for collaboration than computer education of high school students
in general, because the latter is extremely dependent on difficult to alter
institutional traditions and on the availability of money for hardware and
the kinds of hardware that are available.  Programs limited to mathematically
talented students will be smaller, and it will be easier to make them
comparable.  It is will also be easier to involve scientific organizations
that are more used to international collaboration than are the much larger
educational organizations.

	In so far as there are immediately interested people in other countries,
they might also be involved with less trouble.

∂10-Oct-87  2118	JMC  
To:   pat@IMSSS   
I forgot to say that if there is a successful summit, joint projects will be wanted.

∂13-Oct-87  2016	JMC  	re: DARPA Umbrella Contract  
To:   LES    
[In reply to message rcvd 12-Oct-87 15:49-PT.]

I am asking Vladimir to be my proxy, so please include him in subsequent
messages.  If you think qlisp needs representation at this time, please
ask Igor.

∂13-Oct-87  2018	JMC  
To:   VAL    
Please be my proxy at Les's meeting Oct. 15.  I have told him.
 ∂12-Oct-87  1549	LES  	DARPA Umbrella Contract 
To:   binford@WHITNEY.STANFORD.EDU, Buchanan@SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU,
      cheriton@PESCADERO.Stanford.EDU, Engelmore@SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU,
      Feigenbaum@SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU, Genesereth@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU,
      latombe@WHITNEY.STANFORD.EDU, DCL@SAIL.Stanford.EDU,
      JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, Nilsson@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU, BScott@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU,
      Rindfleisch@SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU, Wiederhold@SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU 

The planned extension to the DARPA umbrella contract that is currently
supporting a number of projects in the department, as well as Luckham's
group in EE, is scheduled to lapse 12/1/90.  KSL has another umbrella that
I understand finishes on 8/21/88; I trust that either it will be extended
or that the projects on that one will be moved to the extension of the
other umbrella before then.

We need to have a successor contract in place before the existing one(s)
finish or we will be in a lot of trouble.  As I understand it, DARPA would
like to have just one such contract in order to minimize administrative
complexity.

We have been less than impressed with SPAWASYSCOM as a contracting agency.
One possible contracting agent that Bill Scherlis suggests is NASA Ames.
Peter Friedland there says that he is willing to consider it if the
proposed work lies within the interet areas of his group.  I heard from
Bob Engelmore that DARPA is now doing some contrcts in-house, so that may
be another possibility.

In any case, we need to put together a proposal outlining the scope of
work and preliminary budgets for the various known component projects.
I propose that we aim for completion of this proposal by November 13
(which happens to be a Friday!).  In order to get organized, we should
have a meeting soon -- say on Thursday, 10/15 at 3:00pm in Nils'
conference room.  Please try to come or appoint a proxy.

	Les Earnest

∂13-Oct-87  2022	JMC  	reply to message   
To:   PHY    
[In reply to message rcvd 13-Oct-87 17:03-PT.]

Please reply to Bjorner that I can't stay till Monday.

∂14-Oct-87  1158	JMC  	re: Dangers of D & D    
To:   helen@PSYCH.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU  
[In reply to message from helen@psych.stanford.edu sent Wed, 14 Oct 87 04:06:03 PDT.]

Helen's grumble about D&D glorifying war is accompanied by "I don't think
it's gonadal, frankly.  I think it's learned, and as long as society teaches
people to get their kicks that way, war will be with us."  It seems to me
that Helen is expressing a personal opinion about a matter in which
psychology and sociology ought (but probably don't) have something
scientific to say.  I guess anthropology and history are also relevant.
My own opinion is that fighting is natural in the sense that primitives
fight a lot and so would children left to grow up unguided.  Modern
middle class society does very well in reducing the level of violence.
The number of well brought up middle class boys who kill anybody is
low enough to that this is a minor cause of death.  Certain subcultures,
e.g. the so-called "ghetto culture" are much worse, and murders in fights
and as a method of competition in illegal businesses is a major cause
of death.  In contrast to this, the American military maintains sufficient
discipline that murder is a minor hazard in the service, even though it
is full of young men, who are attracted by military values and taught
to kill.  I would also bet that the level of murder among men who have
been through the military is less than among those the military rejects
as unsuitable.

These theoretical remarks have the practical application is that the
way to reduce killing is to break the ghetto culture.  Probably it
would take a lot of arrests to eliminate the attractiveness of the
gangs to 12 to 15 year old boys.  There should be an experiment with
a massive anti-gang campaign is some "ghetto" small enough so that
the number of people who would have to be emprisoned wouldn't strain
the capacity of the penal system of the given state.  Of course, the
area chosen would have to be at some distance from othe gang-ridden
areas.

∂14-Oct-87  1203	JMC  	reply to message   
To:   PHY    
[In reply to message rcvd 14-Oct-87 07:55-PT.]

You're right.  Please reply to Steensgaard-Madsen.

∂14-Oct-87  1238	JMC  	re: References
To:   HALPERN@IBM.COM  
[In reply to message sent 13 October 1987, 17:50:21 PDT.]

Thanks for the papers.  The only published discussion I can cite
is in the old book "The Concept of Mind" by Gilbert Ryle.
However, that may have triggered further discussion among philosophers.
Ryle doesn't use logic.  I suppose Thomason would know if anyone
has formalized it.

∂14-Oct-87  1258	JMC  	re: Kyoto Prize    
To:   goguen@CSL.SRI.COM    
[In reply to message sent Tue, 13 Oct 87 15:53:23 -0700.]

Many thanks for your proposal to nominate me.  Prof. Takayasu Ito
of Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan nominated me the last time
the prize was offered in something like computer science and
communication.  I believe it was awarded to John Pierce for his
work on communication satellites.  Anyway you should send a message
to Ito, who is

Professor Takayasu Ito
Department of Information Engineering
Faculty of Engineering
Tohuku University
Sendai, JAPAN 980
*	(office: 0222 22-1800, x4269)
*	(home: 0222 79-2945)
*	(date: 1987 Jan)
*	(electronic: ito@aoba.tohoku.junet (date: 1986 Dec))

I suppose the 5 papers should be
1. Programs with Common Sense which started the logic approach to AI.
2. Computing with Symbolic Expressions, the first paper on LISP.
3. Time-sharing Computer Systems in Management and the Computer, the
first paper on time-sharing in the sense of many people simultaneously
using a computer for general purpose computing.
4. A Basis for a Mathematical Theory of Computation, proving properties
of programs regarded as equations relating functions
5. Circumscription - a method of non-monotonic reasoning.
In this I have chosen my first paper in each area, not the most
comprehensive paper.  If you leave out the time-sharing paper, because
it doesn't fully document my contribution, you might add Ascribing
Mental Qualities to Machines.

I'll send you a copy of my biography which has the other material you
asked for.
	Thanks again.
	John

∂14-Oct-87  1313	JMC  	Please print  
To:   PHY    
biojmc.dvi[f87,jmc] and send it to Joseph Goguen at SRI.

∂14-Oct-87  1325	JMC  	re: McCarthy's Anti-Gang Campaign 
To:   SIEGMAN@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU    
[In reply to message from SIEGMAN@Sierra.Stanford.EDU sent Wed 14 Oct 87 13:09:53-PDT.]

Maybe the social workers' approach will succeed if implemented vigorously enough,
but it hasn't yet.  There are enough gang-ridden communities in the U.S. to
simultaneously try approaches with quite opposite rationales on different ones.
I regard the the "ghetto culture" that makes heroes of gangsters, pimps with
fancy cars, and rich drug dealers as a predatory culture analogous to predatory
cultures of the past, e.g German robber barons, Norman knights and predatory
gangs on the fringes of various civilizations.  Sometimes these cultures have
conquered their victims and, over many generations, developed monarchies that
enforced order and developed civilization.  Perhaps Christianity was even a
civilizing force as is claimed.  Sometimes they were suppressed.  Since
the "ghetto" culture isn't going to conquer the U.S., the first alternative
is foreclosed.

∂14-Oct-87  1329	JMC  	re: LISP in mathematics 
To:   ILAN@Score.Stanford.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
[In reply to message from ILAN@Score.Stanford.EDU sent Wed 14 Oct 87 13:20:52-PDT.]

J. Wellington Tartaglia was a student of Allen Newell's, so I assume he
did it in IPL-V.

∂14-Oct-87  1359	JMC  	re: Les's meeting  
To:   VAL    
[In reply to message rcvd 14-Oct-87 13:49-PT.]

Yes, it does.  DARPA finds the contract award process very complicated,
because of all the relevant rules.  It is easier for them to add "tasks"
to an existing contract, i.e. it takes fewer months.  Therefore, there
is a broadly written umbrella contract written for considerably more
money than they have any immediate intention to award.  Our contract
is a task under a present umbrella; even then there are bureaucratic
problems.  Incidentally, we have NSF grants and DARPA contracts.
The difference is that Stanford undertakes to deliver something,
only reports, on a contract.  Les understands all this, including
any new developments, and I suggest you talk to him and get him
to explain it.

∂14-Oct-87  1516	JMC  	re: Kyoto Prize    
To:   goguen@CSL.SRI.COM    
[In reply to message sent Wed, 14 Oct 87 14:01:13 -0700.]

No, need to call back.  I phoned after seeing that I had a message
from you, but SAIL was down so I couldn't read it.
I'll send the papers.  I don't have a regular secretary at present,
but Don Knuth's secretary, Phyllis Winkler, if filling in temporarily.
I didn't know about the confidentiality, which I suppose is mainly
to keep the fact of nominations out of the press.  My idea was just
that Ito knows the ropes, but it certainly isn't necessary, and
I suppose independent nominations add some force.

∂14-Oct-87  1521	JMC  	more for Goguen    
To:   PHY    
Please send the six papers mentioned to Goguen.
I believe they're all in the file cabinet to the
right of the door in my office.
 ∂14-Oct-87  1258	JMC  	re: Kyoto Prize    
To:   goguen@CSL.SRI.COM    
[In reply to message sent Tue, 13 Oct 87 15:53:23 -0700.]

Many thanks for your proposal to nominate me.

I suppose the 5 papers should be
1. Programs with Common Sense which started the logic approach to AI.
2. Computing with Symbolic Expressions, the first paper on LISP.
3. Time-sharing Computer Systems in Management and the Computer, the
first paper on time-sharing in the sense of many people simultaneously
using a computer for general purpose computing.
4. A Basis for a Mathematical Theory of Computation, proving properties
of programs regarded as equations relating functions
5. Circumscription - a method of non-monotonic reasoning.
In this I have chosen my first paper in each area, not the most
comprehensive paper.  If you leave out the time-sharing paper, because
it doesn't fully document my contribution, you might add Ascribing
Mental Qualities to Machines.

I'll send you a copy of my biography which has the other material you
asked for.
	Thanks again.
	John

∂14-Oct-87  2035	JMC  	Brink's proposed modifications    
To:   hemenway@SCORE.Stanford.EDU
CC:   brink@SUSHI.Stanford.EDU   
in his Master's programs in his two messages for you and me seem
reasonable to me, and I hereby approve them.
		John McCarthy

∂14-Oct-87  2058	JMC  	reply to message   
To:   PHY    
[In reply to message rcvd 14-Oct-87 16:05-PT.]

Now I remember.  The title of that paper is Recursive Functions of Symbolic
Expressions and their Computation by Machine.  part I

discard the Bridge and forward the package.  I'll reward Kelly.

∂15-Oct-87  0820	JMC  
To:   PHY    
Notices of the American Math Society
fwd
News release: Information Interational and NeEASI-WEBER announce a better
  solution to ad management
disc
American Academy of Arts and Sciences - meeting schedule
disc
many advertisements about books from SEAI Technical Publications
disc
Call for papers nineteenth annual Pittsburgh Conference on Modeling and Simulation
  May 5-6, 1988
disc
AAAI-88 Seventh National Conference on A.I. call for papers Aug 22-26, 1988
  St. Paul, Minnesota
fwd
CRC Press 1987 New Titles Catalog
disc
Stanford News - The Centennial Campaign 
disc
Dean's Innovation Fund - invitation to apply
fwd
Values, Technology, Science, and Society
	Please check for any error - Virginia Mann  723-2565
		F Technological Opportunities for Humanity
		McCarthy  60-62P T Th  1:15  3 units
fwd
Science magazine
fwd
hardcopy of Report of the Workshop on Environments for Computational
  Mathematics, held July 30, 1987 during the ACM SIGgraph Conference in Anaheim
  from Xerox
file
letter from Artificial Intelligence journal - about a review by Nigel Ward
  on Computation and Cognition: Toward a foundation for cognitive science
  by Z. Pylyshyn. Mark Stefik, A.I., wants you to give another review of
  this book. If you are interested, and do not already have the book,
  Stefik will rush you a copy of it.
fwd
NTT Procurement Seminar announcement - 2 seminars this fall.
disc
A group of reports from (University of Goteborg and Chalmers University of
  Technology) Programming Methodology Group:
fil
`On a nonconstructive type theory and program derivation' by Jan Smith
  by Jan M Smith  
fil
`The Independence of Peano's fourth axiom from Martin-Lof's type theory
  without universes' by Jan M. Smith
fil
`Inverse Image analysis' by Peter Dybjer
fil
`An efficiency comparison of some representations of purely functional 
  arrays' by Annika Aasa, Soren Holmstrom, Christina Nilsson
fil
`Views: a way for pattern matching to cohabit with data abstraction'
   by Philip Wadler
fil
`Projections for strictness analysis' by P. Wadler, R.J.M. Hughes
fil
Invitation to nominate candidates for the Kyoto Prizes 1988 from 
  The Inamori Foundation
fwd

∂15-Oct-87  0854	JMC  	reply to message   
To:   PHY    
[In reply to message rcvd 15-Oct-87 08:37-PT.]

Hmm. I guess I ran out of reprints.  It was published in CACM, April 1960.
Could you make 10 copies from the library, send one to Goguen, and
put the rest in the reprint file cabinet suitably labelled?

∂15-Oct-87  1201	JMC  	class next week    
To:   VAL    
I told them you'd talk about computing circumscription and your theory of action.  They
were asked to read your Formal Theories of Action, Computing Circumscription and Semantics
of STRIPS in that priority.  Suezette Branton, AI.Branton@r20.utexas.edu, will help with
reservations, etc.  The class meets on Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-2pm, and it has some
very good students in it.  Many thanks for agreeing to do this. - John

∂15-Oct-87  1337	JMC  	re: class next week
To:   VAL    
[In reply to message rcvd 15-Oct-87 13:12-PT.]

Taylor 2.106.  Also is there anyone you would especially like me to alert
to your presence besides Woody and Bob?

∂15-Oct-87  1946	JMC  	re: [*,RA]    
To:   ME
[In reply to message rcvd 15-Oct-87 16:16-PT.]

I will not be able to look at them until about the end of the month.
However, there's no reason not to change the password immediately.
Probably you should ask her if she would like any of the files printed.

∂16-Oct-87  0836	JMC  	re: CIS vending machine.
To:   stantz@HELENS.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message from stantz@helens.stanford.edu sent Fri, 16 Oct 87 00:55:31 PDT.]

Now if you were to use the CSD vending machine in MJH and volunteer to be one
of the people who loads it, you could put the burritos in yourself.  Alas,
I suppose the CIS vending machine isn't eater-operated, because both the
level of technology and the level of co-operation are lower than they
were in the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

∂16-Oct-87  0841	JMC  	re: CIS vending machine.
To:   stantz@HELENS.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message from stantz@helens.stanford.edu sent Fri, 16 Oct 87 00:55:31 PDT.]

Addendum to previous message.  I have to point out that, at least
chronologically, it was Helen's generation that was responsible for
both the technology and the co-operation involved in initiating
the eater-operated vending machine.

∂16-Oct-87  0856	JMC  	Computer Forum
To:   RDZ@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, JJW@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
Ramin, how would you like to speak to the Computer Forum, which is being held
Feb. 10 and 11?  One of your present talks would be suitable.
Joe, have you spoken yet?  Do you have a talk different from what the Forum
has heard?

time table:

November 1		nominations must be received
November 15		student speakers will be notified
December 1		working titles due
January 15		abstract of talk and photo ready copies of viewgraphs
February 8		Forsythe Lecture
February 9	        Forsythe Lecture - Forum Twentieth Annual Meeting 
February 10		Meeting continues
February 11		conclusion:  reception at Faculty Club from 4:30-6

∂16-Oct-87  0857	JMC  
To:   VAL    
How is Gorbis surviving?

∂16-Oct-87  1519	JMC  	re: CIS vending machine.
To:   stantz@HELENS.STANFORD.EDU 
[In reply to message sent Fri, 16 Oct 87 14:45:44 PDT.]

Is the CIS vending machine an ordinary commercial machine or is it
operated by one of the CIS computers?

∂16-Oct-87  1533	JMC  	re: Helen's generation  
To:   WALT@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
[In reply to message from WALT@Sushi.Stanford.EDU sent Fri 16 Oct 87 15:01:52-PDT.]

The grumble about "the generation that endowed us with the threat of extinction
via nuclear war"  seems like wishful thinking.  Who do you think might have done
what differently, and how would this have avoided "the threat of extinction
via nuclear war"?  Stalin might have, but he wasn't a generation by himself,
and probably wasn't whom you had in mind.

∂16-Oct-87  2022	JMC  	re: Re: Helen's generation   
To:   WALT@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
[In reply to message from WALT@Sushi.Stanford.EDU sent Fri 16 Oct 87 16:15:07-PDT.]

Sorry to have misinterpreted.  It was the phrase "the generation that
endowed us with" that misled me.

∂16-Oct-87  2140	JMC  	(→20773 26-Oct-87) 
To:   "#___JMC.PLN[2,2]"    
I am at the University of Texas in Austin for Fall 1987 and
will return to Stanford for Winter Quarter.  However, I
will continue to receive email as JMC@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU.
My office number in Texas is 512 471-9558 and my home
number is 512 328-1625.  U.S. mail sent to Stanford is
forwarded, by my address in Texas is
Computer Science Department
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78712

I will be in Europe from October 17 thru October 25.

∂26-Oct-87  0000	JMC 	Expired plan   
To:   JMC    
Your plan has just expired.  You might want to make a new one.
Here is the text of the old plan:

I am at the University of Texas in Austin for Fall 1987 and
will return to Stanford for Winter Quarter.  However, I
will continue to receive email as JMC@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU.
My office number in Texas is 512 471-9558 and my home
number is 512 328-1625.  U.S. mail sent to Stanford is
forwarded, by my address in Texas is
Computer Science Department
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78712

I will be in Europe from October 17 thru October 25.

∂26-Oct-87  0818	JMC 	re: Forum 
To:   JSW    
[In reply to message rcvd 17-Oct-87 01:15-PT.]

I agree.

∂26-Oct-87  0822	JMC 	re: Gang of four    
To:   ILAN@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU    
[In reply to message sent Mon 19 Oct 87 00:27:16-PDT.]

No, I'm inhibited about such things.  All jokes get tiresome when one
has to repeat them at every login or message to someone on the machine,
but sex jokes especially.  If you think gang-of-four is getting boring,
perhaps we should change it to the name of a mountain, tree, city, famous
person or animal.

∂26-Oct-87  0855	JMC 	re: class next week 
To:   VAL    
[In reply to message rcvd 23-Oct-87 10:43-PT.]

The trip was fine.  Thanks for taking the class.  The subject of the
meeting, partial and mixed computation, seems to be developing in
interesting ways.  Carolyn probably followed much more than I did.
I'll phone you soon.

∂26-Oct-87  0900	JMC 	(→21101 4-Jan-88)   
To:   "#___JMC.PLN[2,2]"    
I am at the University of Texas in Austin for Fall 1987 and
will return to Stanford for Winter Quarter.  However, I
will continue to receive email as JMC@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU.
My office number in Texas is 512 471-9558 and my home
number is 512 328-1625.  U.S. mail sent to Stanford is
forwarded, by my address in Texas is
Computer Science Department
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78712

∂26-Oct-87  0908	JMC  
To:   LES    
Please phone when you get in 512 471-9558.

∂26-Oct-87  1200	Mailer 	failed mail returned  
To:   JMC    
In processing the following command:
    MAIL
The following message was aborted because of a command error,
namely, nonexistent recipient(s):
Yuri

------- Begin undelivered message: -------
 26-Oct-87  1200	JMC 	_Gurevich@um.cc.umich.edu
re: Operational semantics
[In reply to message sent Mon, 26 Oct 87 14:46:56 EST.]

You should ask someone who is more current in the various approaches,
for example, my wife, Carolyn Talcott, clt@sail.stanford.edu.

------- End undelivered message -------

∂26-Oct-87  1215	Mailer 	failed mail returned  
To:   JMC    
In processing the following command:
    MAIL
The following message was aborted because of a command error,
namely, nonexistent recipient(s):
Yuri

------- Begin undelivered message: -------
 26-Oct-87  1215	JMC 	_Gurevich@um.cc.umich.edu
re: Operational semantics
[In reply to message sent Mon, 26 Oct 87 14:46:56 EST.]

You should ask someone who is more current in the various approaches,
for example, my wife, Carolyn Talcott, clt@sail.stanford.edu.

------- End undelivered message -------

∂26-Oct-87  1219	JMC  	Operational semantics   
To:   JSW    
 ∂26-Oct-87  1147	Yuri_Gurevich@um.cc.umich.edu  	Operational semantics  
Received: from UMIX.CC.UMICH.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 26 Oct 87  11:47:05 PST
Received: by umix.cc.umich.edu (5.54/umix-2.0)
	id AA16637; Mon, 26 Oct 87 14:50:31 EST
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 87 14:46:56 EST
From: Yuri_Gurevich@um.cc.umich.edu
To: JMC@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
Message-Id: <2417186@um.cc.umich.edu>
Subject: Operational semantics

John,
 
Do you know any operational approaches that are substantially
different from those of yourself, Landin, VDL, Plotkin ?
 
Thank you very much,
-Yuri

∂26-Oct-87  1221	JMC  
To:   JSW    
 ∂26-Oct-87  1215	Mailer 	failed mail returned  
In processing the following command:
    MAIL
The following message was aborted because of a command error,
namely, nonexistent recipient(s):
Yuri

------- Begin undelivered message: -------
 26-Oct-87  1215	JMC 	_Gurevich@um.cc.umich.edu
re: Operational semantics
[In reply to message sent Mon, 26 Oct 87 14:46:56 EST.]

You should ask someone who is more current in the various approaches,
for example, my wife, Carolyn Talcott, clt@sail.stanford.edu.

------- End undelivered message -------

∂26-Oct-87  1225	JMC 	re: Operational semantics
To:   "Yuri_Gurevich"@UM.CC.UMICH.EDU 
[In reply to message sent Mon, 26 Oct 87 14:46:56 EST.]

You should ask someone who is more current in the various approaches,
for example, my wife, Carolyn Talcott, clt@sail.stanford.edu.

∂26-Oct-87  1227	JMC  
To:   nilsson@Score.Stanford.EDU 
I believe that's Schwartz, not Schwarz.  I agree we prepare proposal.

∂26-Oct-87  1258	JMC 	re: Winter CS101 text    
To:   STAGER@Score.Stanford.EDU  
[In reply to message sent Mon 26 Oct 87 10:18:40-PST.]

Who taught cs101 last?

∂26-Oct-87  1327	JMC 	conference
To:   danny@THINK.COM  
I have no immediate suggestions about invitees but may later.
My own paper will contain proposals for how conventional AI systems
could think fast enough with millisecond times for suitable complex operations.
It might appropriately be in the same session with someone presenting
arguments that this is impossible, if someone will make such a
presentation his main business, rather than just a preliminary to
a counterproposal.
I have no scheduling constraint.

∂26-Oct-87  1357	JMC  
To:   LES    
Simpson didn't return my call and will be gone till Friday.

∂27-Oct-87  0823	JMC 	reply to message    
To:   JK
[In reply to message rcvd 26-Oct-87 21:35-PT.]

Glad to hear about the proposal.

The database consultant that comes to mind is Wiederhold, but
I'm not sure about how close he is to currently marketed systems
and whether his relations with Rudi Baier (sp?) might be
too close for objectivity.  As to a Lisp consultant, I have an
idea of someone here, but I need to check on possible
incompatible commitments.

Yes, separating the logical content from the combinatorics is
precisely what I had in mind.  I have recently been thinking about an
approach to the problem, but it isn't ready for discussion yet -
might never be.

∂27-Oct-87  0922	JMC 	re: Paper available 
To:   ULLMAN@SCORE.Stanford.EDU  
[In reply to message sent Tue 20 Oct 87 09:59:15-PDT.]

I'd like a copy of the latest NAIL!.  If you give it to Phyllis Winkler,
she'll put it in the next packet of mail.

∂27-Oct-87  0925	JMC 	re: TV students
To:   REGES@SCORE.Stanford.EDU   
[In reply to message sent Tue 20 Oct 87 20:42:49-PDT.]

Can't say I know much about it, but I tend to agree with you.

∂27-Oct-87  0933	JMC 	re: Oct 27 lunch    
To:   nilsson@TENAYA.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Mon, 26 Oct 87 08:37:27 PST.]

I hope it will be someone who will emphasize basic research
in computer science more than quick fixes to the competitiveness
problem.

∂27-Oct-87  1921	JMC 	re: your Participation in the High Noon Lecture Series 
To:   REIS@SIERRA.Stanford.EDU   
[In reply to message sent Wed 21 Oct 87 12:00:21-PDT.]

Any of the dates you mention are possible, but because of returning
from Texas at beginning of January, I prefer Jan 29 or later.

∂27-Oct-87  2117	Mailer 	re: Garrison Keillor on Hog Slaughter
To:   SINGH@SIERRA.Stanford.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU 
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from SINGH@Sierra.Stanford.EDU sent Tue 27 Oct 87 20:45:47-PST.]

Rather standard, except the part about the dog feeling sorry
for the pigs.  Reminds me of the part in "100 years of solitude"
in which the 3,000 bodies of the peasants killed in the demo
against the United Fruit Company are loaded onto the freight
cars.  When the author, Marquez, was asked about it in relation
to the fact that the real village referred to in the novel had
a population much less than 3,000, he said he supposed the
number killed in suppressing the strike in question was
about ten, but the image of freight car loads of bodies
appealed to him.  It's the kind of thing that can get you
the Nobel prize for literature - at least it got it for
Marquez.  Somebody making an anti-abortion movie will surely
think of having the baby plead for mercy.

∂28-Oct-87  1423	JMC 	re: report on ebos  
To:   AIR    
[In reply to message rcvd 28-Oct-87 14:10-PT.]

That sounds like a good idea.

∂28-Oct-87  1853	JMC 	re: A question about circumscription.   
To:   dlpoole%watdragon.waterloo.edu@RELAY.CS.NET    
[In reply to message sent Wed, 28 Oct 87 16:43:04 EST.]

I understand your emu example and expect to formulate a reply shortly.
However, I don't understand the dingo example, which as written has
no abs at all.  Is there a misprint?

∂28-Oct-87  2100	JMC 	for Christos Papadimitriou    
To:   mcvax!hra!thh@SEISMO.CSS.GOV, papa@SCORE.Stanford.EDU    
I talked with Andrei Ershov in Moscow in August and in
Denmark last week about the possibility of U.S.-Soviet
collaboration on the computer education of mathematically
talented high school students.  No definite proposal was
made, but, as you know, the Soviets have some excellent
special high schools for the mathematically talented, and
some good mathematicians have put effort into the mathematical
education of such students.  We're ahead in the computing
part.  Suppes is interested, and I talked to Don Knuth.  He
hasn't time to do anything, but he suggested that the
idea might fit in with some of your activities.  The time
scale for doing anything is likely to be slow, but if
a successful summit meeting occurs, there is some probability
that there will be a desire for appropriate collaborative
projects, and prompt proposals are likely to be supported.

∂29-Oct-87  0734	JMC 	re: A question about circumscription.   
To:   dlpoole%watdragon.waterloo.edu@RELAY.CS.NET    
[In reply to message sent Wed, 28 Oct 87 23:24:44 EST.]

I now understand the point about dingos.  It confirms my immediate reaction
to your set of flying birds axioms (a subset of mine but a reasonable subset)
that one doesn't want to be varying the predicate bird or emu in this bit
of reasoning.  The right form of prioritized circumscription will allow
these predicates to be varied at the right time, but I need to think more
about it.

∂29-Oct-87  0912	JMC 	re: AAAI grant request   
To:   reiter@AI.TORONTO.EDU
CC:   aaai@SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU 
[In reply to message sent Wed, 28 Oct 87 15:57:45 EST.]

Sorry, I thought I approved that one.  Anyway, AAAI will grant $10K to
	                 FIRST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
		 PRINCIPLES OF KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATION AND REASONING 

Please arrange details with Claudia.

∂29-Oct-87  1332	JMC 	re: What I've been doing 
To:   JDP@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, AIR@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
CC:   IGS@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
CC:   CLT@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
CC:   LES@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, RPG@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
[In reply to message rcvd 29-Oct-87 10:24-PT.]

Many thanks to both of you for the mini-reports.  I think they show that
you are doing what we told DARPA we would do.  I suppose we need still a
bit more experience before we consider asking for any difficult perturbations
of what Lucid is doing.

∂29-Oct-87  1400	JMC 	Mikhailov 
To:   VAL    
Zohar declines, so I guess there isn't enough match of interests.
Please tell Mints that there aren't any objections in principle
so far as I know.

∂29-Oct-87  1419	JMC 	re: Mikhailov  
To:   VAL    
[In reply to message rcvd 29-Oct-87 14:06-PT.]

For a regular visitor, we would arrange office space and computer access.
For that to be justified, we would require that someone declare that he
wants the person as a visitor and expects to interact with him significantly.
Without that experience shows that we will regret it.  In the case of
a Soviet visitor, I imagine that some people will look askance at a visitor
who isn't working with anyone in particular; they'll worry that he might
be from the KGB as some in the past have been (I knew one).

Here is what Zohar said.

 ∂28-Oct-87  1333	ZM 	Mihailov's visit

Hi John,
I delayed my reply to you concerning Mihailov's visit, because I had a hard 
time making up my mind. I have had bad experiences with visitors whom I had 
not met before they came to Stanford. They took a lot of my time and did not 
contribute much to my projects. 
I would be happy to talk with Mihailov and (if it works out) to work with
him, but I would hesitate to be his official host.
Zohar

If you have some definite view of what Mikhailov would contribute to our
project I could reconsider, but it seems doubtful that we could find
a desk for him.

∂29-Oct-87  1453	JMC 	letter    
To:   PHY    
Please TEX, print and mail the following letter.  It
is sufficiently urgent that it should go out today
or tommorrow.

Professor Joel Moses:
Department of Computer Science  and Electrical Engine
M.I.T.
Cambridge, MA 01239

Dear Professor Moses:

	Sorry for the delay.  I thought I'd sent the letter, but
the system must have crashed or something, because I found the file,
and it had nothing in it.

	Anyway I have a good opinion of Halstead and am glad to
recommend him for tenure.  I know him, because he gave a paper
on his Multilisp at the same Lisp conference at which Dick Gabriel
and I gave a paper on our Qlisp (then called Qlambda), and the
approaches were similar.  I agree with the approach to parallel
processing in Lisp he is taking.  It can be characterized as
conservative from the point of view of the Lisp system programmer.
It puts considerable demands on the hardware designer in order
to make sure the machine is programmable.

	Halstead's project is more ambitious than ours, since
he is designing and building his parallel processor, whereas
we are using a commercially available machine.  There is only
one other project using this approach --- Takayasu Ito's
Pailisp project at Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan.
I would say that Halstead's project is ahead of the other two
in implementation.

	Naturally I don't know about his teaching, but his lectures
are clear and so are his papers.

	I have no hesitation in recommending him for tenure.

Sincerely,

John McCarthy

∂30-Oct-87  0901	JMC 	re: Ramin Zabih
To:   TAJNAI@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU  
[In reply to message sent Thu 29 Oct 87 15:36:23-PST.]

Zabih has given many talks and received a "best paper" award at
the last AAAI.  He can be expected to give an excellent talk.

∂30-Oct-87  0903	JMC 	re: Poole 
To:   VAL    
[In reply to message rcvd 29-Oct-87 17:31-PT.]

Good idea.  The honorarium we have been giving is $200.  Ask Les
or Betty Scott how to make it happen.

∂30-Oct-87  0909	JMC 	reply to message    
To:   PHY    
[In reply to message rcvd 30-Oct-87 07:33-PT.]

No, just send another copy of the first one and a copy marked
Attention: Mibsy Brooks.  I thought I had sent it, but since
I couldn't find it, I concluded I had somehow dropped the ball
when she phoned last week.  Even better, telephone her at
617 253-4642 to see if she has received it finally.

∂30-Oct-87  0916	JMC 	re: Who's Who? 
To:   RWF    
[In reply to message rcvd 29-Oct-87 16:49-PT.]

When Who's Who in America first listed me, I bought one and have found
use for it, but I like reference books.  I haven't been motivated to
buy the updates.  Who's Who in America doesn't require you to buy one
to be listed.  I would imagine that anything with Who's Who in the title
would be one of their subsidiaries and would behave similarly.  Out of
laziness, I haven't responded to the requests from subsidiaries.

∂30-Oct-87  0950	JMC 	Prediction-producing Algorithms    
To:   AIList@SRI.COM, mind!eliot@PRINCETON.EDU  
	Eliot Handleman's request for information on prediction has
inspired me to inflict the following considerations on the community.

Roofs and Boxes

	Many people have proposed sequence extrapolation as a prototype AI
problem.  The idea is that a person's life is a sequence of sensory
stimuli, and that science consists of inventing ways of predicting the
future of this sequence.  To this end many sequence extrapolating programs
have been written starting with those that predict sequences of integers
by taking differences and determining the co-efficients of a polynomial.

	It has always seemed to me that starting this way distorts the
heuristic character of both common sense and science.  Both of them think
about permanent aspects of the world and use the sequence of sense data
only to design and confirm hypotheses about these permanent aspects.  The
following sequence problem seems to me to typify the break between
hypotheses about the world and sequence extrapolation.

The ball bouncing in the rectilinear world - roofs and boxes

	Suppose there is a rectangular two dimensional room.  In this room
are a number of objects having the form of rectangles.  A ball moves in
the room with constant velocity but bounces with angle of incidence equal
to angle of reflection whenever it hits a wall or an object.  The observer
cannot see the objects or the walls.  All he sees is the x-co-ordinate of
the ball at integer times but only when the ball is visible from the front
of the room.  This provides him with a sequence of numbers which he can
try to extrapolate.  Until the ball bounces off something or goes under
something, linear extrapolation works.

	Suppose first that the observer knows that he is dealing with this
kind of ball-in-room problem and only doesn't know the locations of the
objects and the walls.  After he has observed the situation for a while he
will have partial information about the objects and their locations.  For
example, he may note that he has never been in a certain part of the room
so there may be unknown objects there.  Also he may have three sides of a
certain rectangle but may not know the fourth side, because he has never
bounced of that side yet.  He may extrapolate that he won't have the
opportunity of bouncing off that side for a long time.

	Alternatively we may suppose that the observer doesn't
initially know about balls bouncing off rectangles but only knows
the sequence and must infer this using a general sequence extrapolation
mechanism.  Our view is that this observer, whether human or machine,
can make progress only by guessing the underlying model.  At first
he may imagine a one dimensional bouncing model, but this will be
refuted the first time the ball doesn't bounce at an x-co-ordinate
where it has previously bounced.  Indeed he has to keep open
the possibility that the room is really 3  or more dimensional or that
more general objects than rectangles exist.

	We can elaborate the problem by supposing that when the ball
bounces off the front wall, the experimenter can put a paddle at an angle
and determine the angly of bounce so as to cause the ball to enter regions
where more information is wanted.

	Assuming the rectangles having edges parallel to the axes makes
the problem easier in an obvious sense but more difficult in the sense
that there is less interaction between the observable x-co-ordinate and
the unobservable y-co-ordinate.

	It would be interesting to determine the condition on the x-path
that distinguishes 2-dimensional from 3-dimensional worlds, if there is
one.  Unless we assume that the room has some limited size, there need be
no distinction.  Thus we must make the never-fully-verified assumption
that some of the repetititions in sequences of bounces are because the
ball hit the front or back wall and bounced again off the same surfaces
rather than similar surfaces further back.

	A tougher problem arises when the observer doesn't get the
sequence of x-coordinates but only 1 or 0 according to whether the
ball is visible or invisible.

	I am skeptical that an AI program fundamentally based on the idea
of sequence extrapolation is the right idea.  Donald Michie suggested
that the "domain experts" for this kind of problem of inferring a
mechanism that produces a sequence are cryptanalysts.

∂30-Oct-87  1144	JMC 	reply to message    
To:   PHY    
[In reply to message rcvd 30-Oct-87 11:17-PT.]

The Moscow paper was joint with Vladimir Lifschitz; he has the abstract.
He's VAL@sail and is in room 362 (in case you don't know him).

∂30-Oct-87  1337	JMC 	basic research in AI
To:   schwartz@VAX.DARPA.MIL
Bob Simpson told me that you are reviewing our renewal proposal
from scratch.  That's appropriate, but I hope the review can be
expedited.  The renewal proposal is almost a year old, anyway
more than nine months.  It first got held up because of a view
that DARPA was in procurement mode rather than investment mode.
In January, Vladimir Lifschitz and I visited and were told this
and then visited nsf in some alarm where we received some
encouragement.  While we were at nsf, Bob Simpson phoned and asked
us to come back which we did.  We were then assured by him and Saul
Amarel of the continued appropriateness of our particular level of
basic and applied research.  However, money had been committed
already and we might have to wait.  Again in June I was assured
by Bob and Saul that they would request funding and that I should
not go into desperation mode.

Now that you have taken over, I agree that it is appropriate for
you to review all the proposals, but I have had difficulty supporting
Vladimir's work in the meantime.  Indeed one of my reasons for going
to Texas this Fall was to free some money to support him.  Therefore,
I would appreciate a fast review.  To this end, I would like to come
to Washington and explain it.  I would also like to offer references
to people who will tell you how our work in AI.  Let me brag that
I received the IJCAI award for Research Excellence in 1985 and that
that award was not given in 1987 because the 1987 nominations were
below the previous standard.  However, the prize for the best paper
was awarded at the 1987 IJCAI, and Lifschitz got it.

I will phone Monday to ask what I can do to expedite matters.

∂30-Oct-87  1338	JMC  
To:   LES    
There's a good chance the message didn't go out at all.

∂01-Nov-87  1201	Mailer 	re: HBR Review of `Endless Enemies: The Making of an Unfriendly World'  
To:   SINGH@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU 
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from SINGH@Sierra.Stanford.EDU sent Wed 10 Jun 87 00:58:12-PDT.]

I'm tempted to buy Kwitny's book and look for errors of fact as well as errors of
argument and interpretation.  For now I'll say only the following:

1. Someone cited the fact that Kwitny works for the Wall Street Journal
to give particular credibility to his assertions as "an admission
contrary to interest".  Kwitny also publishes in the Nation.  If the
editors of the WSJ hear about people regarding Kwitny's work as
an admission contrary to interest by the WSJ, this might tempt them
to fire Kwitny on the grounds that his extra-curricular activities
give the Journal a bad name.  Many years ago, firing him would have
been routine even if he published his other stuff under a different
name.  Today the right is more tolerant and accepts a certain amount
of misunderstanding of this kind.

2. My opinion is that the U.S. has unjustifiably intervened in the affairs
of other nations on many occasions.  I also think it has justifiably
intervened on many occasions and that these interventions have
occasionally saved the countries in question from very bad fates -
hundreds of thousands of murders and communist rule.  Even the justified
interventions have doubtless had unjustified and harmful aspects.  Many of
these harmful aspects are connected with character defects and self
interest of our people as well as with bureaucratic squabbling.  There are
now plenty of examples and no counter-examples that communist rule is very
bad for a country and I can think of no cases where there weren't better
alternatives available.  We should think how to get people into the White
House, the State Department, the Defense Department and the CIA who would
be better at deciding which interventions are worthwhile and how to do
them better.

3. Would one of the readers of Kwitny's book tell us whether Kwitny
would be expected to prefer our not helping the Afghan fighters against Soviet
occupation or would fault us for not supplying Stinger missiles
five years earlier than we did.  As regular BBOARD readers would imagine,
I incline to the latter view, but I haven't tried to get a job
managing CIA covert operations.

∂02-Nov-87  0830	JMC 	annual report  
To:   richardson@SCORE.Stanford.EDU   
I don't have either the form or the time to fill it out fully, but I
have two publications in press. "Generality in Artificial Intelligence"
in Comm. ACM and "Logic in 
AI" to be published in Daedalus.

∂03-Nov-87  1016	JMC 	re: DARPA umbrella proposal   
To:   VAL    
[In reply to message rcvd 02-Nov-87 13:53-PT.]

Looks  good.  I suggest a sentence in the last paragraph or even just a
phrase mentioning operationg system research for parallel systems.  This
would enable us to include EBOS.  Maybe you should mention "advanced
interaction" and couple it with the AI work.

∂03-Nov-87  1159	JMC 	re: DARPA umbrella proposal   
To:   VAL    
[In reply to message rcvd 03-Nov-87 10:29-PT.]

Thas should do it.

∂03-Nov-87  1200	JMC 	re: Winter CS101 text    
To:   STAGER@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU  
[In reply to message sent Tue 3 Nov 87 11:51:32-PST.]

Ed Feigenbaum promised me copies of the previous texts, and I'm still
waiting.  Regardless, I'll make a decision next week.

∂03-Nov-87  1202	JMC  
To:   atp.cohen@r20.utexas.edu   
Ma Xiwen's axioms for Mr. S and Mr. P which are a variant of an
earlier version by McCarthy.

 	 This is an approach to the axiomatization of Mr.S and Mr.P.
      	Its basic idea is the same of KNOW[E78,JMC].                  
	 These are some diffrent symbols:
 
		k	for a PAIR of NATNUMs
		s(k)    for the sum of the two NATNUM in k
		p(k)    for the product of the two NATNUM in k
	
	 We have introduced a few of PREDCONSTs, for abbreviation only.
    	 But there are some important differences between the two 
	axiomatizations: our axiom SP is weaker, but our axioms LP
	and LS are stronger.
 	 The PREDCONSTs R1 R2 and R3 are slightly different,too.
	
	 Next follws a complete list of commands of the FOL proof of
	R3(k0). The subsequent proof that k0=<4,13> will be purely
	arithmetic, and a computer search has been done to confirm
	it.

	 


I have changed the learning axioms LP and LS, and I have removed
the redundant predicate OK.  Where I have times 1 and 2 in
A(RW,w,SP,n), Ma had 0.  I think these axioms are too strong and
may even make the system inconsistent.  I don't know whether Ma's
proof will work with the weaker axioms.  - JMC
!DECLARE INDVAR t ε NATNUM;
DECLARE INDCONST k0 ε PAIR;
DECLARE INDVAR k k1 k2 k3 ε PAIR;
DECLARE INDCONST RW ε WORLD;
DECLARE INDVAR w w1 w2 w3 ε WORLD;
DECLARE INDCONST S P SP ε PERSON;
DECLARE INDVAR r ε PERSON;
DECLARE OPCONST K(WORLD)=PAIR;  
DECLARE OPCONST s(PAIR)=NATNUM;
DECLARE OPCONST p(PAIR)=NATNUM;
DECLARE PREDCONST A(WORLD,WORLD,PERSON,NATNUM);
DECLARE PREDCONST Qs(PAIR) Qp(PAIR) Q1(PAIR) Q2(PAIR) Q3(PAIR);
DECLARE PREDCONST Bs(WORLD) Bp(WORLD) B1(WORLD) B2(WORLD);
DECLARE PREDCONST R1(PAIR) R2(PAIR) R3(PAIR);
DECLARE PREDCONST C1(WORLD) C2(WORLD);

AXIOM AR: ∀w r t.A(w,w,r,t);;
AXIOM AT: ∀w1 w2 w3 r t.(A(w1,w2,r,t)∧A(w2,w3,r,t)⊃A(w1,w3,r,t));;
AXIOM SP: ∀w1 w2 t.(A(w1,w2,S,t)∨A(w1,w2,P,t)⊃A(w1,w2,SP,t));;
AXIOM RW: k0=K(RW);;
AXIOM INIT:
    	∀w w1.(A(RW,w,SP,0)∧A(w,w1,S,0)⊃s(K(w))=s(K(w1))),
	∀w w1.(A(RW,w,SP,0)∧A(w,w1,P,0)⊃p(K(w))=p(K(w1))),
    	∀w k.(A(RW,w,SP,0)∧s(K(w))=s(k)⊃∃w1.(A(w,w1,S,0)∧k=K(w1))),
	∀w k.(A(RW,w,SP,0)∧p(K(w))=p(k)⊃∃w1.(A(w,w1,P,0)∧k=K(w1)));;

AXIOM R:
	∀k.(R1(k)≡Qs(k)∧Q1(k)),
	∀k.(R2(k)≡R1(k)∧Q2(k)),
	∀k.(R3(k)≡R2(k)∧Q3(k));;
AXIOM BS: ∀w.(Bs(w)≡∃w1.(A(w,w1,S,0)∧¬(K(w)=K(w1))));;
AXIOM BP: ∀w.(Bp(w)≡∃w1.(A(w,w1,P,0)∧¬(K(w)=K(w1))));;
AXIOM B:
	∀w.(B1(w)≡∀w1.(A(w,w1,S,0)⊃Bp(w1))),
	∀w.(B2(w)≡∀w1.(A(w,w1,P,1)⊃K(w)=K(w1)));;
AXIOM C:
	∀w.(C1(w)≡Bs(w)∧B1(w)),
	∀w.(C2(w)≡C1(w)∧B2(w));;
AXIOM SKNPK: B1(RW);;
AXIOM NSK:   Bs(RW);;
AXIOM PK:    B2(RW);;
AXIOM SK:    ∀w.(A(RW,w,S,2)⊃K(RW)=K(w));;
AXIOM LP: ∀w w1.(A(RW,w,SP,1)⊃(A(w,w1,P,1)≡A(w,w1,P,0)∧C1(w1)));;
AXIOM LS: ∀w w1.(A(RW,w,SP,2)⊃(A(w,w1,S,2)≡A(w,w1,S,1)∧C2(w1)));;

AXIOM QS: ∀k.(Qs(k)≡∃k1.(s(k)=s(k1)∧¬(k=k1)));;
AXIOM QP: ∀k.(Qp(k)≡∃k1.(p(k)=p(k1)∧¬(k=k1)));;
AXIOM Q:
	∀k.(Q1(k)≡∀k1.(s(k)=s(k1)⊃Qp(k1))),
	∀k.(Q2(k)≡∀k1.(R1(k1)∧p(k)=p(k1)⊃k=k1)),
	∀k.(Q3(k)≡∀k1.(R2(k1)∧s(k)=s(k1)⊃k=k1));;

!COMMENT # LEMMA 1
	∀w k.(A(RW,w,SP,0)∧k=K(w)⊃(Qs(k)≡Bs(w))) 
COMMENT # LEMMA 2
        ∀w k.(A(RW,w,SP,0)∧k=K(w)→(Qp(k)≡Bp(w)))
COMMENT # LEMMA 3
	∀w k.(A(RW.w.SP,0)∧k=K(w)→(Q1(k)≡B1(w)))
COMMENT # LEMMA 4
	∀w k.(A(RW,w,SP,0)∧k=K(w)⊃(R1(k)≡C1(w)))
COMMENT # LEMMA 5
	R2(k0)
COMMENT # LEMMA 6
	∀w k.(A(RW,w,SP,0)∧k=K(w)⊃(R2(k)⊃C2(w)))
COMMENT # LEMMA 7
      	Q3(k0)
COMMENT # MAIN THEOREM
	R3(k0)

∂03-Nov-87  1228	JMC 	conversation with Jack Schwartz    
To:   LES@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, VAL@SAIL.Stanford.EDU,
      CLT@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
I talked to him yesterday about funding for basic research in AI.
He said he would talk to Simpson, and I could call him next week
again if I hadn't heard.

∂03-Nov-87  1241	JMC 	addendum to previous
To:   schwartz@VAX.DARPA.MIL
CC:   simpson@VAX.DARPA.MIL 
I should mention that I have 3 DARPA projects.
1. The qlisp project to make Lisp for parallel
processors.  This is monitored by Steve Squires
and is proceeding ok.


2. Math theory of computation.  This is monitored
by Bill Scherlis and is proceeding ok.

3. Basic research in AI.  This has been the long
term project and to me is much more important than the
other two.  It should be the most important to DARPA,
because it is unique in its approach to AI.  (I repeat
my offer to explain its uniqueness and value).  Its
funding expired at the end of last January and it's
what I phoned you about.  I also have some NSF money
for this kind of work, but  that is intended to cover
my time only.  My being in Texas has released some
money to cover Lifschitz.  This is the one monitored
by Bob Simpson about which I anxiously phoned.

As you proposed I'll phone next week if I haven't heard.

∂03-Nov-87  1522	JMC 	In view of our conversations, this puzzles me.    
To:   simpson@VAX.DARPA.MIL 
 ∂03-Nov-87  1511	LES 	re: conversation with Jack Schwartz
[In reply to message rcvd 03-Nov-87 12:28-PT.]

As I mentioned earlier, DARPA already put up $250k for the basic AI
project but SPAWASYSCOM accidentally added it to Qlisp funds.  Pucci then
told us they were going to move it to the right place, but later changed
his mind and didn't tell us.  When I asked last week when the basic AI
project would be funded, he said "soon" but was evasive about the date.

∂03-Nov-87  1620	Mailer 	re: more jokes   
To:   TALEEN@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU 
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from TALEEN@score.stanford.edu sent Mon 2 Nov 87 10:19:18-PST.]

From what I can see, some of the brokers are crying all the way
to the bank.  If 600 million shares changed hands on some days,
there were a lot of comissions.

∂03-Nov-87  2102	JMC 	re: JMC   
To:   LES    
[In reply to message sent Mon 2 Nov 87 09:12:15-PST.]

All the papers you list except for the second are in the file cabinet
to the right of my office door.  By the way, is anyone using that office?
The second would have to be retrieved from the Library's list of
Stanford AI memos.

∂03-Nov-87  2112	Mailer 	Inder,McMillen,Bowman,mrc,and critics
To:   su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>


"For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh
at them in our turn." - Jane Austen's Mr. Bennet.

I inadvertently clobbered a bunch of messages on the SAIL bulletin
board, for which I apologize.  Mostly they concerned the squabble
about ad hominem remarks.

∂04-Nov-87  1158	Mailer 	re: Chain letters
To:   CLAIRE@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU  
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from CLAIRE@CSLI.Stanford.EDU sent Wed 4 Nov 87 11:02:04-PST.]

The Post Office has banned chain letters for a very long time.  I suppose
the ban was triggered by the "send a dollar to the previous people on
the list, and bad luck awaits whoever breaks the chain".  This was often
a form of deliberate fraud, all the previous people on the list being
the same.  There are many kinds of pyramid club fraud, dating at least
to the eighteenth century.  I think the South Sea Bubble was such a
scheme.  The basic idea is promise high rates of return on an investment
and get good word-of-mouth publicity by paying off early investors out
of the investments of the later investors and leave town when the
expansion stops.  If the population were infinite, pyramid clubs would
be sound investments.  Anyway such frauds were common in the nineteenth 
and early 20th century.  I read an O'Henry short story about some
grafters running such a scheme.

Of course, you may choose to "think of it as evolution in action".

∂04-Nov-87  1443	JMC 	flak on overhead rate    
To:   nilsson@Score.Stanford.EDU 
Please transmit to the proper authorities the fact that the Stanford
overhead rate is meeting with resistance.
 ∂04-Nov-87  1432	NSH  
To:   JK@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, LES@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, cs.talcott@R20.UTEXAS.EDU,
      JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU  
The word on the NSF proposal.

I just talked to Dr. Macon, Dr. Keenan's successor at NSF,
about our NSF proposal.  Coincidentally, he had the proposal
on his desk and said he was trying to have his part of the
work on it completed today.  He said it would be upto
six weeks before we got any definitive word on it since it
has to trickle through various administrative channels.
He gave me his thoughts on the matter with the disclaimer  that
they were purely his personal thoughts.

1.  He thought that the amount requested was too large, especially
with Stanford's 73% overhead.  With the resources at his disposal,
he felt he could only afford to fund Ketonen for 6 months (rather
than a year), myself for 3 months (rather than 6), and Carolyn for
3 months (as requested).  He felt that the requested Sun workstation
was dispensable as there are enough of those around (?).  He thought
the single graduate student slot was reasonable.

2.  His opinion was that with the Stanford's overhead, Stanford
should bear part of the cost.

3.  He said the reviews of our proposal were unusually thorough
compared to those for other proposals he had seen.

His phone number is: (202)357-7375; his arpa address should be
macon@nsf.arpa.

Shankar

∂04-Nov-87  1551	Mailer 	Gorbachev speech 
To:   su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

Unfortunately, it represents no qualitative change in the official Soviet
view of Soviet history.  One of the old Communist Party leaders, Bukharin,
is depicted as being right about a few things.  Nothing was said about
Bukharin being tortured into confessing he was a British spy and nothing
said about the other Politburo members also forced to confess and
executed.  Thus the large gap in Soviet history remains undiscussable.
(For those who don't know, since Khrushchev's time, it hasn't been said in
Soviet publications whether these people were guilty or not).  Perhaps
Gorbachev's speech represents a compromise intended to stick, or perhaps
merely an agreement to wait until the commission appointed to look into
the matter reports - if it is ever allowed to do so.  The opponents of
telling the truth don't say that any particular person was guilty of the
crimes to which he confessed, they merely say that the "purges" were
necessary and don't mention details.

	Liberals should be reminded that the American Ambassador to the
Soviet Union at the time of the trials, Joseph Davies, perhaps out of a
desire to show good will, said he believed the confessions were authentic.
Most likely his desire to show good will was so strong that he really did
believe the confessions were authentic.  The phenomenon persists to this
very day, compounded by many people being so sure that Reagan is bad that
they are eager to believe that Gorbachev or Castro or the Sandinistas are
good.

	Conjecture on SDI: The Soviets will double-cross the Western
liberals on SDI just as they did on intermediate range missiles.  The
American and West European opponents of installing these missiles in
Western Europe said the only result would be that the Soviets would
install even more SS-20s (the missiles the Pershings and cruise missiles
were intended to counter).  After a short delay Soviet propaganda echoed
what the Western opponents of the missiles were saying.  Now the Soviets
have agreed to demolish the SS-20s in exchange for removal of the Western
intermediate range missiles.

	On SDI, the Soviets have been saying the same thing as the Western
peaceniks, but recently their statements have begun to waver.  In the end
they may go along with Reagan's proposal that everyone will be safer if
both the U.S. and the Soviet Union have reduced missile forces and
strategic defenses.

∂04-Nov-87  1634	JMC 	report on September ttac meeting   
To:   larsen@UMDC.UMD.EDU   
Thanks for the report.  I missed the meetin only because of another
commitment I couldn't avoid and expect to attend the March 15 and 16
meeting.  Since I wasn't there, I can't comment substantially on the
contents except for one remark.  NASA provides a shirt sleeves
environment for astronauts, and I think they should try to do the
same for computers.  The costs to NASA a qualifying computers for
space is very high and bound to go higher as computers become more
elaborate and is bound to impose increasing obsolescence penalties.
It seems to me that NASA should impose quite much lower requirements
for computers to be carried inside the space station and for which
spares can be carried than it requires for unmanned spacecraft.
As computers get smaller, carrying spares becomes easier.  Perhaps
NASA can use mil-spec computers if they aren't also too obsolete.

∂05-Nov-87  1031	JMC 	re: Gorbachev speech     
To:   FRANTS@SUSHI.Stanford.EDU  
[In reply to message sent Wed 4 Nov 87 19:50:18-PST.]

I had tried to be analytical and not merely cynical.
Here's your message.

Just as I did a few months back, I would like to applaud JMC's cynicism
towards the Soviet's goodwill and honorable intentions. His views are a
welcome deviation from the standards around Universities set by the 
Liberals. They are based on the history and experience, which most liberals,
however fair their ideas may appear, fail to appreciate and take into account.
Needless to say my views are identical to his and if Russians ever get here 
we will probably both be hung on the same tree. In order to avoid this 
sorry ending to our existence I would urge people to listen more to his
opinions. Thank you,
Leonid.
-------

∂05-Nov-87  1320	JMC 	re: EBOS etc.  
To:   LES    
[In reply to message rcvd 05-Nov-87 12:54-PT.]

All these are ok.  I haven't submitted my Moscow expenses yet for no
good reason.  Shankar's request was later than Vladimir's and mine;
check if Vladimir has got his money.  I agreed to back Shankar's
trip to the extent of $1,500 from unrestricted and will hold it to
that.  I take it that when you come back you will be fully charged
to my contracts.  Can I afford that?

∂06-Nov-87  1032	JMC 	Re: addendum to previous 
To:   LES    
 ∂06-Nov-87  1031	simpson@vax.darpa.mil 	Re: addendum to previous   
Received: from VAX.DARPA.MIL by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 6 Nov 87  10:31:30 PST
Posted-Date: Fri 6 Nov 87 13:31:47-EST
Received: by vax.darpa.mil (5.54/5.51)
	id AA02952; Fri, 6 Nov 87 13:31:49 EST
Date: Fri 6 Nov 87 13:31:47-EST
From: Bob Simpson <SIMPSON@vax.darpa.mil>
Subject: Re: addendum to previous
To: JMC@sail.stanford.edu
Cc: schwartz@vax.darpa.mil, simpson@vax.darpa.mil
Message-Id: <563221907.0.SIMPSON@VAX.DARPA.MIL>
In-Reply-To: <8711032044.AA03297@vax.darpa.mil>
Mail-System-Version: <VAX-MM(215)+TOPSLIB(128)@VAX.DARPA.MIL>

John: Jack and I have determined that we will be able to support your proposal
but not at the requested funding levels. Could you please send an updated
budget that is no higher than $400K for the first year and grows to no higher
than $450K in the third year of support? I hope this is not an extreme 
difficulty. Hopefully this will allow us to get this moving. -- Bob
-------

∂06-Nov-87  1035	JMC 	re: addendum to previous 
To:   SIMPSON@VAX.DARPA.MIL
CC:   LES@SAIL.Stanford.EDU  
[In reply to message sent Fri 6 Nov 87 13:31:47-EST.]

Thanks, we'll submit a new budget promptly.

∂06-Nov-87  1051	JMC 	Re: addendum to previous 
To:   VAL    
 ∂06-Nov-87  1031	simpson@vax.darpa.mil 	Re: addendum to previous   
Received: from VAX.DARPA.MIL by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 6 Nov 87  10:31:30 PST
Posted-Date: Fri 6 Nov 87 13:31:47-EST
Received: by vax.darpa.mil (5.54/5.51)
	id AA02952; Fri, 6 Nov 87 13:31:49 EST
Date: Fri 6 Nov 87 13:31:47-EST
From: Bob Simpson <SIMPSON@vax.darpa.mil>
Subject: Re: addendum to previous
To: JMC@sail.stanford.edu
Cc: schwartz@vax.darpa.mil, simpson@vax.darpa.mil
Message-Id: <563221907.0.SIMPSON@VAX.DARPA.MIL>
In-Reply-To: <8711032044.AA03297@vax.darpa.mil>
Mail-System-Version: <VAX-MM(215)+TOPSLIB(128)@VAX.DARPA.MIL>

John: Jack and I have determined that we will be able to support your proposal
but not at the requested funding levels. Could you please send an updated
budget that is no higher than $400K for the first year and grows to no higher
than $450K in the third year of support? I hope this is not an extreme 
difficulty. Hopefully this will allow us to get this moving. -- Bob
-------

∂06-Nov-87  1051	JMC 	basic research contract  
To:   LES
CC:   VAL   
Les, please phone as soon as you have had a chance to look at
the budget.  Also discuss it with Vladimir.

∂06-Nov-87  1335	Mailer 	re: San Diego's Market/MLK street    
To:   RWF@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from RWF sent 06 Nov 87 1133 PST.]

Soviet Encyclopedias are not loose leaf.  There is the famous case of their
offering the readers an article on the Bering Sea to replace the one on
Beria (the head of the secret police at the time of Stalin's death) when
he was executed.  I haven't read of any replacement pages being offered
for the 1968 edition that I own.

∂06-Nov-87  1340	Mailer 	re:  largest state.   
To:   D.DOUG@MACBETH.STANFORD.EDU, SU-ETC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU    
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from D.DOUG@macbeth.stanford.edu sent Fri 6 Nov 87 12:00:47-PST.]

I don't believe anyone has ever driven from Juneau (the capital of Alaska)
to Anchorage (its largest city) or from Anchorage to Nome.

∂06-Nov-87  1430	JMC  
To:   atp.cohen@r20.utexas.edu   
.require "memo.pub[let,jmc]" source;
.CB FORMALIZATION OF TWO PUZZLES INVOLVING KNOWLEDGE


	This paper describes a formal system and uses it to
express the puzzle of the three wise men and the puzzle of Mr. S
and Mr. P.  Four innovations in the axiomatization of knowledge
were required: the ability to express joint knowledge of several
people, the ability to express the initial non-knowledge,
the ability to describe knowing what rather than merely knowing that,
and the ability to express the change which occurs when someone
learns something.  Our axioms are written in first order logic
and use Kripke-style possible worlds directly rather than modal
operators or imitations thereof.  We intend to use functions
imitating modal operators and taking "propositions" and "individual
concepts" as operands, but we haven't yet solved the problem
of how to treat learning in such a formalism.

	The puzzles to be treated are the following:

.bb The three wise men

	%2"A certain king wishes to test his three wise men.  He
arranges them in a circle so that they can see and hear each other and tells
them that he will put a white or black spot on each of their foreheads
but that at least one spot will be white.  In fact all three spots
are white.  He then repeatedly asks them, "Do you know the cclor of
your spot".  What do they answer?"%1

	The solution is that they answer, %2"No"%1, the first two
times the question is asked and answer %2"Yes"%1 thereafter.

	This is a variant form of the puzzle.  The traditional form
is

	%2"A certain king wishes to determine which of his three
wise men is the wisest.  He
arranges them in a circle so that they can see and hear each other and tells
them that he will put a white or black spot on each of their foreheads
but that at least one spot will be white.  In fact all three spots
are white.  He then offers his favor to the one who will first tell
him the color of his spot.  After a while, the wisest announces
that his spot his white.  How does he know?"%1

	The intended solution is that the wisest reasons that if
his spot were black, the second would see a black and a white and
would reason that if his spot were black, the third would have seen
two black spot and reasoned from the king's announcement that his
spot was white.  This traditional version  requires
the wise men to reason about how fast their colleagues reason, and
we don't wish to try to formalize this.

.bb Mr. S and Mr. P

	%2Two numbers ⊗m and ⊗n are chosen such that 2_≤_m_≤_n_≤_99.
Mr. S is told their sum and Mr. P is told their product.  The following
dialogue ensues:

%2Mr. P:	I don't know the numbers.

%2Mr. S:	I knew you didn't know.  I don't know either.

%2Mr. P:	Now I know the numbers.

%2Mr. S:	Now I know them too.

%2In view of the above dialogue, what are the numbers?"%1


.bb Simple axiomatization of the wise men

	If we can assume that the first and second wisemen don't
know the colors of their spots, that the second knows that the
first doesn't know, and the third knows this, then a simple
axiomatization that doesn't explicitly treat learning works.

[In this draft, we omit this section.  Instead we include an
older self-contained memo written when this was our main approach
to the problem].


.bb Full axiomatization of the wise men

	The axioms are given in a form acceptable to FOL, the proof
checker computer program for an extended first order logic at the
Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.  FOL uses a sorted
logic and constants and variables are declared to have given sorts,
and quantifiers on these variables are interpreted as ranging over
the sorts corresponding to the variables.

	The axiomatization has the following features:
.item←0
	#. It is entirely in first order logic rather than in a modal
logic.

	#. The Kripke accessibility relation is axiomatized.  No knowledge
operator or function is used.  We hope to present a second axiomatization
using a knowledge function, but we haven't yet decided how to handle time
and learning in such an axiomatization.

	#. We are essentially treating "knowing what" rather than "knowing
that".  We say that p knows the color of his spot in world w by saying
that in all worlds accessible from w, the color of the spot is the same
as in w.

	#. We treat learning by giving the accessibility relation a time
parameter.  To say that someone learns something is done by saying that
the worlds accessible to him at time n+1 are the subset of those accessible
at time n in which the something is true.

	#. The problems treated are complicated by the need to treat
joint knowledge and joint learning.  This is done by introducing
fictitious persons who know what a group of people know jointly.

.nofill

declare INDCONST RW ε WORLD;
declare INDVAR w w1 w2 w3 w4 w5 ε WORLD;
.fill

	RW denotes the real world, and w, w1, ... , w5 are variables
ranging over worlds.

declare INDVAR m n m1 m2 m3 n1 n2 n3 ε NATNUM;

	We use natural numbers for times.

.nofill

declare INDCONST W1 W2 W3 W123 ε PERSON;
declare INDVAR p p0 p1 p2 ε PERSON;
.fill

	W1, W2 and W3 are the three wisemen.  W123 is a fictitious person
who knows whatever W1, W2 and W3 know jointly.  The joint knowledge of several
people is typified by events that occur in their joint presence.  Not only do
they all know it, but W1 knows that W2 knows that W1 knows that W3 knows etc.
Instead of introducing W123, we could introduce prefixes of like "W1
knows that W2 knows" as objects and quantify over prefixes.

declare PREDCONST A(WORLD,WORLD,PERSON,NATNUM);

	This Kripke-style accessibility relation has two more arguments than
is usual in modal logic - a person and a time.

.nofill

declare INDVAR c c1 c2 c3 c4 ε COLORS;
declare INDCONST W B ε COLORS;
.fill

	There are two colors - white and black.

declare OPCONST color(PERSON,WORLD) = COLORS;

	A person has a color in a world.  Note that the previous
axiomatization was simpler.  We merely had three propositions WISE1, WISE2
and WISE3 asserting that the respective wise men had white spots.  We need
the colors, because we want to quantify over colors.

axiom reflex:	∀w p m.A(w,w,p,m);;

	The accessibility relation is reflexive as is usual in Kripke the
semantics of M.

axiom transitive:	∀w1 w2 w3 p m.(A(w1,w2,p,m) ∧ A(w2,w3,p,m) ⊃ A(w1,w3,p,m));;

	Making the accessibility relation transitive gives an S4 like system.
We use transitivity in the proof, but we aren't sure it is necessary.

axiom who:	∀p.(p=W1 ∨ p=W2 ∨ p=W3 ∨ p=W123);;

	We need to delimit the set of wise men.

axiom w123:	∀w1 w2 m.(A(w1,w2,W1,m) ∨ A(w1,w2,W2,m) ∨ A(w1,w2,W3,m)
⊃ A(w1,w2,W123,m));;

	This says that anything the wise men know jointly, they
know individually.

axiom foolspot:	∀w.(color(W123,w)=W);;

	This ad hoc axiom is the penalty for introducing W123 as an
ordinary individual whose spot must therefore have a color.  It would have
been better to distinguish between real persons with spots and the
fictitious person(s) who only know things.  Anyway, we give W123 a white
spot and make it generally known, e.g. true in all possible worlds.

.nofill

axiom color:	¬(W=B)
		∀c.(c=W ∨ c=B)
;;
.fill

	Both of these axioms about the colors are used in the proof.

axiom rw:	color(W1,RW) = W ∧ color(W2,RW) = W ∧ color(W3,RW) = W;;

	In fact all spots are white.

axiom king:	∀w.(A(RW,w,W123,0) ⊃ color(W1,w)=W ∨ color(W2,w)=W
∨ color(W3,w)=W);;

	They jointly know that at least one spot is white, since
the king stated it in their mutual presence.  We use the consequence
that W3 knows that W2 knows that W1 knows this fact.

.nofill

axiom initial:	∀c w.(A(RW,w,W123,0) ⊃
	(c=W ∨ color(W2,w)=W ∨ color(W3,w)=W
		⊃ ∃w1.(A(w,w1,W1,0) ∧ color(W1,w1) = c)) ∧
	(c=W ∨ color(W1,w)=W ∨ color(W3,w)=W
		⊃ ∃w1.(A(w,w1,W2,0) ∧ color(W2,w1) = c)) ∧
	(c=W ∨ color(W1,w)=W ∨ color(W2,w)=W
		⊃ ∃w1.(A(w,w1,W3,0) ∧ color(W3,w1) = c)))
.fill

	∀w w1.(A(RW,w,W123,0) ∧ A(w,w1,W1,0)
⊃ color(W2,w1) = color(W2,w) ∧ color(W3,w1) = color(W3,w))

	∀w w1.(A(RW,w,W123,0) ∧ A(w,w1,W2,0)
⊃ color(W1,w1) = color(W1,w) ∧ color(W3,w1) = color(W3,w))

	∀w w1.(A(RW,w,W123,0) ∧ A(w,w1,W3,0)
 color(W1,w1) = color(W1,w) ∧ color(W2,w1) = color(W2,w))
;;

	These are actually four axioms.  The last three say that every one
knows that each knows the colors of the other men's spots.
The first part says that they all know that no-one knows anything
more than what he can see and what the king told them.  We establish
non-knowledge by asserting the existence of enough possible worlds.
The ability to quantify over colors is convenient for expressing this axiom
in a natural way.  In the S and P problem it is essential, because
we would otherwise need a conjunction of 4753 terms.

axiom elwek1:	∀w.(A(RW,w,W123,1) ≡ A(RW,w,W123,0) ∧
∀p.(∀w1.(A(w,w1,p,0) ⊃ color(p,w1)=color(p,w)) ≡ ∀w1.(A(RW,w1,p,0)
⊃ color(p,w1)=color(p,RW))))

	∀w1 w2.(A(w1,w2,W1,1) ≡ A(w1,w2,W1,0) ∧ A(w1,w2,W123,1))

	∀w1 w2.(A(w1,w2,W2,1) ≡ A(w1,w2,W2,0) ∧ A(w1,w2,W123,1))

	∀w1 w2.(A(w1,w2,W3,1) ≡ A(w1,w2,W3,0) ∧ A(w1,w2,W123,1))
;;

	This axiom and the next one are the same except that one
deals with the transition from time 0 to time 1 and the other deals
with the transition from time 1 to time 2.
Each says that
they jointly learn who (if anyone) knows the color of his spot.  The
quantifier ∀p in this axiom covers W123 also and forced us to say
that they jointly know the color of W123's spot.

axiom elwek2:	∀w.(A(RW,w,W123,2) ≡ A(RW,w,W123,1) ∧
∀p.(∀w1.(A(w,w1,p,1) ⊃ color(p,w1)=color(p,w)) ≡ ∀w1.(A(RW,w1,p,1)
⊃ color(p,w1)=color(p,RW))))

	∀w1 w2.(A(w1,w2,W1,2) ≡ A(w1,w2,W1,1) ∧ A(w1,w2,W123,1))

	∀w1 w2.(A(w1,w2,W2,2) ≡ A(w1,w2,W2,1) ∧ A(w1,w2,W123,1))

	∀w1 w2.(A(w1,w2,W3,2) ≡ A(w1,w2,W3,1) ∧ A(w1,w2,W123,1))
;;

	The file WISEMA.PRF[S78,JMC] at the Stanford AI Lab contains
a computer checked proof from these axioms of

∀w.(A(RW,w,W3,2) ⊃ color(W3,w) = color(W3,RW))

which is the assertion that at time 2, the third wise man knows the
color of his spot.  As intermediate results we had to prove that
previous to time 2, the other wise men did not know the colors of
their spots.  In this symmetrical axiomatization, we could have made
the proof with a variable wise man instead of the constant W3.


.bb "Axiomatization of Mr. S and Mr. P"

	These axioms involve the same ideas as the second wise man
axiomatization.  In fact, we derived them first.

.nofill

declare INDCONST m0 n0 ε NATNUM;
declare INDVAR m n m1 m2 m3 n1 n2 n3 ε NATNUM;

declare INDCONST RW ε WORLD;
declare INDVAR w w1 w2 w3 ε WORLD;

declare OPCONST M(WORLD) = NATNUM;
declare OPCONST N(WORLD) = NATNUM;

declare INDCONST S P SP ε PERSON;
declare INDVAR s s0 s1 s2 ε PERSON;

declare PREDCONST A(WORLD,WORLD,PERSON,NATNUM);
declare PREDCONST ok(NATNUM,NATNUM);

declare PREDCONST agree(WORLD,WORLD);

declare PREDPAR phi(WORLD,WORLD);

COMMENT : The predicate agree is used to abbreviate subsequent axioms. :

axiom agree:	∀w1 w2.(agree(w1,w2) ≡ M(w1) = M(w2) ∧ N(w1) = N(w2));;

axiom reflex:	∀w s m.A(w,w,s,m);;

axiom transitive:	∀w1 w2 w3 s m.(A(w1,w2,s,m) ∧ A(w2,w3,s,m) ⊃ A(w1,w3,s,m));;

COMMENT : The axiom sp characterizes the fictious person SP as knowing
what S and P know jointly, i.e. S knows that P knows that S knows, etc. :

axiom sp:	∀w1 w2 m.(A(w1,w2,S,m) ∨ A(w1,w2,P,m) ⊃ A(w1,w2,SP,m))

		∀m.(
		∀w1 w2.(A(w1,w2,S,m) ∨ A(w1,w2,P,m) ⊃ phi(w1,w2)) ∧
		∀w1 w2 w3.(phi(w1,w2) ∧ phi(w2,w3) ⊃ phi(w1,w3))
⊃	∀w1 w2.(phi(w1,w2) ⊃ A(w1,w2,SP,m)))
;;


axiom rw:	m0 = M(RW)
		n0 = N(RW)
;;

axiom ok:	∀m n.(ok(m,n) ≡ 1<m ∧ 1<n ∧ m≤n ∧ m<100 ∧ n<100)
		∀w.ok(M(w),N(w))
;;

COMMENT : initial establishes the existence of enough possible worlds
to express that S and P initially know only what follows from their
knowledge of the sum and product respectively, and that they jointly
know this ignorance. :

axiom initial:
	∀w w1.(A(RW,w,SP,0) ∧ A(w,w1,S,0) ⊃ M(w1)+N(w1) = M(w)+N(w))
	∀w w1.(A(RW,w,SP,0) ∧ A(w,w1,P,0) ⊃ M(w1)*N(w1) = M(w)*N(w))
	∀w m n.(A(RW,w,SP,0) ∧ ok(m,n) ∧ M(w) + N(w) = m + n ⊃
∃w1.(A(w,w1,S,0) ∧ M(w1) = m ∧ N(w1) = n))
	∀w m n.(A(RW,w,SP,0) ∧ ok(m,n) ∧ M(w) * N(w) = m * n ⊃
∃w1.(A(w,w1,P,0) ∧ M(w1) = m ∧ N(w1) = n))
;;

COMMENT : Mr. P doesn't know the numbers. :

axiom npk:
	∃w.(A(RW,w,P,0) ∧ ¬agree(RW,w))
;;

COMMENT : Mr. S knew that Mr. P didn't know. :

axiom sknpk:
	∀w.(A(RW,w,S,0) ⊃ ∃w1.(A(w,w1,P,0) ∧ ¬agree(w,w1)))
;;

COMMENT : Mr. S doesn't know either. :

axiom nsk:
	∃w.(A(RW,w,S,0) ∧ ¬agree(RW,w))
;;

COMMENT : They jointly learn that Mr. S knows that Mr. P doesn't know and
that Mr. S doesn't know either. :

axiom elsknpkansk:
	∀w.(A(RW,w,SP,1) ≡ A(RW,w,SP,0) ∧ 
∀w1.(A(w,w1,S,0) ⊃ ∃w2.(A(w1,w2,P,0) ∧ ¬agree(w1,w2))) ∧
∃w1.(A(w,w1,S,0) ∧ ¬agree(w,w1)))

	∀w1 w2.(A(w1,w2,S,1) ≡ A(w1,w2,S,0) ∧ A(w1,w2,SP,1))

	∀w1 w2.(A(w1,w2,P,1) ≡ A(w1,w2,P,0) ∧ A(w1,w2,SP,1))
;;

COMMENT : In this new situation, Mr. P knows the numbers. :

axiom pk:
	∀w.(A(RW,w,P,1) ⊃ agree(RW,w))
;;

COMMENT : Everyone learns that Mr. P now knows. :

axiom elpk:
	∀w.(A(RW,w,SP,2) ≡ A(RW,w,SP,1)
∧ ∀w1.(A(w,w1,P,1) ⊃ agree(w,w1)))

	∀w1 w2.(A(w1,w2,S,2) ≡ A(w1,w2,S,1) ∧ A(w1,w2,SP,2))

	∀w1 w2.(A(w1,w2,P,2) ≡ A(w1,w2,P,1) ∧ A(w1,w2,SP,2))
;;

COMMENT : In this new situation Mr. S knows too. :

axiom sk:	∀w.(A(RW,w,S,2) ⊃ agree(RW,w));;
	
COMMENT : The following are purely arithmetic definitions and are intended
to be used in expressing the translation of the problem from the
modal form to a purely arithmetic form.  Completing the proof
that m0 = 4 and n0 = 13 will require
using a set of axioms for arithmetic, but that is not of interest here :

declare PREDCONST R0(NATNUM,NATNUM) R1(NATNUM,NATNUM)
R2(NATNUM,NATNUM) R3(NATNUM,NATNUM);

axiom R0:	∀m n.(R0(m,n) ≡ ok(m,n) ∧ ∃m1 n1.(ok(m1,n1) ∧ m1*n1 = m*n
∧ ¬(m1=m ∧ n1=n)))
;;

axiom R1:	∀m n.(R1(m,n) ≡ ok(m,n) ∧
			∀m1 n1.(ok(m1,n1) ∧ m1+n1 = m+n ⊃ R0(m1,n1)) ∧
			∃m1 n1.(m1+n1 = m+n ∧ ¬(m1=m ∧ n1=n)));;


axiom R2:	∀m n.(R2(m,n) ≡ ok(m,n) ∧ 
			∀m1 n1.(m1*n1 = m*n ∧ R1(m1,n1) ⊃ m1=m ∧ n1=n));;

axiom R3:	∀m n.(R3(m,n) ≡ ok(m,n) ∧
			∀m1 n1.(m1+n1 = m+n ∧ R2(m1,n1) ⊃ m1=m ∧ n1=n));;

.fill

	We should be able to prove %2R3(m0,n0)%1 from the above axioms.
The subsequent proof that %2m0_=_4_∧_n0_=_13%1 should not involve the
knowledge axioms and should be purely arithmetic.

	There may still be a bug in the S and P axioms, since the proof
has not been carried out on the computer.

∂06-Nov-87  1458	JMC 	re: San Diego's Market/MLK street  
To:   RWF    
[In reply to message rcvd 06-Nov-87 14:55-PT.]

There may well have been - depending on when the encyclopedia came out.
Maybe Vladimir knows.

∂07-Nov-87  1124	JMC 	re: Technological Opportunities for Humanity 
To:   bellcore!ulysses!ihlpm!tracy@RUTGERS.EDU  
[In reply to message sent Sat, 7 Nov 87 02:52:38 EST.]

Thanks for the encouragement.  The book has not appreciably
advanced toward publication.

∂09-Nov-87  0853	JMC 	re: Visit to MIT    
To:   JSW, LES    
[In reply to message from JSW rcvd 07-Nov-87 22:35-PT.]

Yes, if we can afford it.  Is any other source paying part of the
expense?  Otherwise, we might pay for transportation too.

∂09-Nov-87  0857	JMC 	re: Advice needed   
To:   VAL    
[In reply to message rcvd 08-Nov-87 13:22-PT.]

I don't know any of the relevant facts but offer one piece of advice in
principle.  This is that it can't do him any harm to ask.  However, it
is better to ask professors and department chairmen (or admissions
committee chairmen) than to ask administrative staff.  If he is shy or
needs help with language you could go with him or ask for him.

∂09-Nov-87  1254	JMC 	reply to message    
To:   JDP    
[In reply to message rcvd 09-Nov-87 09:29-PT.]

Please send your message to all concerned, especially Igor.  I'd like
to know the consensus.  Why is gang-of-four inadequate?  I like the
Symbolics.

∂09-Nov-87  1353	Mailer 	re: Tarantulas and also giant cockroaches 
To:   su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from CWILLIAMSON@Sushi.Stanford.EDU sent Mon 9 Nov 87 12:36:21-PST.]

Sleepily coming downstairs about 2am one night in September for a little
something, I saw on the floor in front of the refrigerator a medium
sized tarantula.  Not wishing to deal with the matter then and there,
I put a transparent plastic bowl over the beast and went back to bed.
When Carolyn came down in the morning, she assumed that Timothy
(2 today) had left the bowl on the floor picked it up.  She promptly
put the bowl back on the beast.  The baby sitter came down next, assumed
the same, picked up the bowl and dealt with the matter summarily.  She
got the broom, swept the tarantula out the kitchen door and dispatched
it with the broom.  She remarked later that there are bigger spiders
in Nicaragua.

When Timothy gets up in the morning, he sometimes demands to go outside
and play with the cockroaches.  There are lots of giant cockroaches here
in Austin, and while they come into the house in small numbers, they
fortunately don't seem to breed in the house unlike Periplaneta Americana.

∂09-Nov-87  1359	Mailer 	re: cardinal and white night    
To:   TEICH@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU  
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from TEICH@Sushi.Stanford.EDU sent Sat 7 Nov 87 18:05:14-PST.]

In northern Europe and especially Russia, white nights refer to the summer
nights when it doesn't really get dark.  I confess never having heard of
any other usage.  It appears that the number of people wishing to guard
other people's morals by changing their language doesn't change.  If it's
not the religious guarding us against profanity, it's the liberals guarding
us against racism, sexism and homophobia.  I suppose there's an ecological
niche here that always gets filled by someone.

∂09-Nov-87  1406	Mailer 	re: Connections - Silkwood, Iran-Contra, Teilhard de Chardin  
To:   SINGH@SIERRA.Stanford.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU 
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from SINGH@Sierra.Stanford.EDU sent Sun 8 Nov 87 09:16:40-PST.]

Since I'm rather certain that the Christic Institute sponsored suit against
Kerr-McGee was unjustified and only won by appeals to prejudice, and I'm
even more sure that Teilhard de Chardin was a crank, quite apart from
his quarrels with the Catholic Church and his implication in the Piltdown
fraud, I have to regard them as ideologically motivated crooks.

∂10-Nov-87  1201	JMC 	user disk pack 
To:   ME, LES
I have one in my office with old files on it, and I would like its contents
move to tape before the UDPs disappear.  I don't know to what extent
it duplicates already saved files, but I think it should be copied to
tape anyway.

∂10-Nov-87  1209	JMC 	reply to message    
To:   JDP@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, CLT@SAIL.Stanford.EDU,
      IGS@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, JSW@SAIL.Stanford.EDU,
      LES@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, JDP@SAIL.Stanford.EDU  
[In reply to message from JDP rcvd 10-Nov-87 08:50-PT.]

OK, please develop a cost and configuration proposal.  How many will
we eventually want?  What will that cost?  Please answer whatever
additional questions anyone considers relevant.

∂10-Nov-87  1219	JMC 	re: Where is JMC?   
To:   PASTERNACK@KL.SRI.COM 
[In reply to message sent Mon 9 Nov 87 17:43:29-PST.]

I'm on SAIL and I mail my bboard comments to su-etc at SAIL.  I suspect
that SRI-KL is not on the list to which SAIL forwards BBOARD messages.
Maybe they'll put it on if someone requests it.

∂10-Nov-87  1326	JMC 	re: qlisp interface 
To:   CLT@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, IGS@SAIL.Stanford.EDU,
      JSW@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, LES@SAIL.Stanford.EDU,
      JDP@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message from CLT rcvd 10-Nov-87 12:57-PT.]

OK, I'm for it, on the basis that we aren't buying the machines
and can probably back out later with reasonable notice.

∂10-Nov-87  1400	JMC 	re: WICS  
To:   VAL    
[In reply to message rcvd 10-Nov-87 13:44-PT.]

I'm agreeable to giving the WICS course again if you are.  However, if
the number of students was marginal, then perhaps it should be given
every other year.  I have no conflict with the dates except AAAI, which
we should avoid in any case.

∂10-Nov-87  1517	JMC 	re: SPO Advisory Committee    
To:   Rindfleisch@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU,
      KSL-Exec@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU,
      Faculty@Score.Stanford.EDU,
      SrStaff@Score.Stanford.EDU, KSL-Admin@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU,
      Keep@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU
CC:   Rindfleisch@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU 
[In reply to message from Rindfleisch@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU sent Tue, 10 Nov 87 15:02:21 PST.]

I am at a loss to respond, because I don't know exactly what SPO does.
When you know, perhaps you could send this list a message outlining what
it is and what are the issues.  By the way it isn't clear to me whether
Senior Research Associates are on your list; they should be.  One further
remark.  When a bureaucrat is contemplating how to enlarge his empire,
an excellent strategy is to ask the public his empire serves to think
up new things it could do.  Responsiveness to public needs then justifies
requests for more staff.  The Advisory Committee should also be alert
to the possibility of finding some of what SPO does to be unnecessary.

∂10-Nov-87  1526	JMC 	re: Ginsburg and pot
To:   BOUSSE@SIERRA.Stanford.EDU, su-etc@SIERRA.Stanford.EDU   
[In reply to message from BOUSSE@sierra.stanford.edu sent Tue 10 Nov 87 11:01:23-PST.]

Many of the leading authorities on Constitutional law including liberal
stalwarts like Lawrence Tribe and Ronald Dworkin haven't been judges.
They have been mentioned as Supreme Court candidates in case the Democrats
get in.  Gerald Gunther of Stanford, who got the most votes in some poll
of New York lawyers for the best qualified Supreme Court possibility, also
hasn't been a judge.

∂10-Nov-87  1530	JMC 	re: WICS  
To:   VAL    
[In reply to message rcvd 10-Nov-87 15:10-PT.]

There ought to be time between now and August to argue about the regulation
preventing your being paid directly.  Aug. 8-12 is ok with me if it doesn't
conflict with AAAI.

∂10-Nov-87  1600	JMC 	re: user disk pack  
To:   ME
[In reply to message rcvd 10-Nov-87 15:51-PT.]

Thanks.  Come to think of it there's a tape up there also that has further
files.  It would be good to transfer its contents to nine track tape if
this can be done.

∂10-Nov-87  1619	JMC 	re: SPO Advisory Committee    
To:   Rindfleisch@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU   
[In reply to message sent Tue, 10 Nov 87 16:15:43 PST.]

I know that much about the Sponsored Projects Office, but I don't know
what the current issues are.

∂10-Nov-87  1621	JMC  
To:   VAL    
Did you get a message from Tom Rindfleisch about SPO

∂10-Nov-87  1644	JMC 	re: Ginsburg and pot
To:   R.ROLAND@LEAR.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@Score.Stanford.EDU    
[In reply to message from R.ROLAND@lear.stanford.edu sent Tue 10 Nov 87 16:05:57-PST.]

As a law school professor, Ginsburg must have published quite a bit.
It's just that he didn't hit some of the points that concerned the
Senate liberals.

	Incidentally, yesterday's Wall Street Journal has
an indignant editorial commenting on the anonymous character of
accusations against Ginsburg apparently from some of his Harvard
Law School colleagues.  The editorial sees this as typifying a
two-faced attitude on privacy by liberals.

∂11-Nov-87  0837	Mailer 	re: Question of clarification on Ginsburg 
To:   helen@WHITE.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
CC:   helen@LABREA.STANFORD.EDU    
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from helen@white.stanford.edu sent Tue, 10 Nov 87 22:14:07 PST.]

Helen, you have caught me and the Wall Street Journal jumping to
a conclusion.  The WSJ implied that it was liberals at Harvard Law
School zapping Ginsburg.  Here's the relevant passage.

"Suddenly Harvard Law School - the sanctum sanctorum of individual
privacy rights - has become a dangerous place for future Supreme
Court justices.  Judge Ginsburg's accusers no doubt spoke only on
the understanding that their names would not be used.  They made
clear that Harvard Law School believes in privacy rights but only
some of the time.  After the accusations surfaced, his former
colleagues watched in silence as Douglas Ginsburg twisted in the
wind.  In the pragmatic world of modern liberal theory, individual
rights such as privacy or confronting your accuser take second
place to political results, especially if the individual is a
conservative Presdident's nominee to the Supreme Court."

The editorial finishes with a fine Sodom-and-Gomorrah flourish.

"Washington, D.C. is a city lying in the gutter, wallowing in
hypocrisy.  It has become a bizarre sinkhole of character
assassination and smirking self-righteousness.  It will eagerly
cast not only the first stone, but any other rocks it can lay
its hands on."

My opinion is that there is probable cause to suspect liberals,
but certainly not evidence that would convict anyone.  My guess
is that the reason the White House wanted Ginsburg to bow out
is that the ACLU asked Biden to take at least 60 days before
holding hearings on  the nomination, and there was reason to
believe that he would do it.  This would delay Reagan's next
chance by a probable three months.

∂11-Nov-87  0842	Mailer 	thought for today
To:   su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

We modern Marxists regard socialism as a historically brief transitional
stage between feudalism and capitalism, necessary only in backward
countries.

∂11-Nov-87  0847	JMC  
To:   LES
CC:   VAL   
How is the new budget coming?

∂11-Nov-87  0952	JMC  
To:   PHY    
Here's what to do with the mail.  Also, please Boise two copies of
phon[1,jmc] and forward them to me.
 ∂11-Nov-87  0842	PHY  
mail:

request for you to review `An artificial intelligence approach to legal
  reasoning' by Anne von der Lieth Gardner. SIAM REVIEW - if you cannot,
  suggest an alternate please.
suggest either Carole Hafner, Northeastern University or Thorne McCarty
Rutgers, don't remember departments

`Approximate polynomial preconditioning applied to biharmonic equations on
  vector supercomputers' by Yau Shu Wong and Hong Jiang  (report)
discard

Neil D. Jones - request to be a guest professor here. Vita, many reports.
Pleas hold, I may want it distributed at Stanford.  Please forward a copy of
the vita and the letter.

request for comments on `Towad Hypertext Publishing: Preserving Rights in a 
  Distributed System'  and  `Toward Hypertext Publishing: Issues and
  Choices in Database Design'
file

The Inamori Foundation requests you to nominate candidates for the Kyotot
  Prize 1988 in Advanced Technology and in Basic Sciences
file

memo from Jim Gibbons - Joe Goodman new chairman of the Elec. Eng. Dept.
discard

High Frontier Newswatch
forward

NSF listings of awards in Information, Robotics, and Intelligent Systems
forward

`Levels of Knowledge in Distributed Computing' by Rohit Parikh and Paul Krasucki
forward

Annual graduate division Decline Study 
forward

batch of technical reports from Linkoping University - which I've put in
  your office for filing

ACM membership renewal 
forward

thank you or evaluation of Donald Perlis - from U of Maryland
   put in your office for filing

2 reports from J.B. Paris and A. Vencovska
   put in your office for filing
forward

∂11-Nov-87  0955	JMC 	re: Are you there?  
To:   Bobrow.pa@XEROX.COM   
[In reply to message sent 11 Nov 87 09:47 PST.]

This is the right email address.  However, I'm physically in Texas till
about Jan. 1.

∂11-Nov-87  1159	JMC 	re: Nils' Newsletter to Alumni and Friends of the Dept.
To:   TAJNAI@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU  
[In reply to message sent Wed 11 Nov 87 10:23:15-PST.]

You might include, if you feel like it, that John McCarthy is visiting
professor at the U. of Texas Fall 1987.

∂11-Nov-87  1347	JMC 	misguided missive   
To:   helen@PSYCH.Stanford.EDU   

!A reply to one of your messages to bboard got sent to helen@labrea,
evidently because you had it on your cc line.  It came back to me,
and the system claims you are unknown there.

By the way, I would like to invite you for lunch sometime after
I return to Stanford at the beginning of January.

∂11-Nov-87  1422	JMC 	re: Formal Reasoning budget   
To:   LES    
[In reply to message rcvd 11-Nov-87 14:16-PT.]

OK, ship it to Simpson, but maybe you could put in a small Sun terminal
in the third year to bring the total to the allowed $450K.

∂11-Nov-87  1634	JMC 	re: Joe Weening
To:   HEMENWAY@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Wed 11 Nov 87 15:49:14-PST.]

I approve.

∂11-Nov-87  1637	JMC 	re: Revised Formal Reasoning budget
To:   LES    
[In reply to message rcvd 11-Nov-87 16:08-PT.]

No, you ship it remarking that I approved.
It occurrs to me that the computer time costs in the last year won't be
applied to SAIL if it disappears on schedule.  Therefore, it might be
better to apply the money to hardware.  If you think this is a good
idea, you should explain that in your message to Simpson.

∂12-Nov-87  1337	JMC 	re: Revised Formal Reasoning budget
To:   LES    
[In reply to message rcvd 11-Nov-87 16:58-PT.]

Is sending the budget by net mail adequate or must it also go through
Stanford channels?

∂12-Nov-87  1342	Mailer 	re: poison vs. venom  
To:   POSER@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from POSER@CSLI.Stanford.EDU sent Wed 11 Nov 87 17:54:29-PST.]

Who knows how much political naivete comes from eating fugu?

∂12-Nov-87  1422	Mailer 	re: Polygraph testing, acerbic remarks    
To:   HOLSTEGE@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU    
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from HOLSTEGE@Sushi.Stanford.EDU sent Thu 12 Nov 87 12:18:11-PST.]

	When one thinks of a measure that forbids something, it is as well
to try to think of possible undesirable side effects.  I see no evidence
that Mary Holstege has tried, since she is sure who are the bad guys,
namely "business folks".  With 30 seconds effort, I can think of two.

	First, the law will presumably be written broadly and will forbid
any future technique based on physiological measurements for determining
whether someone is lying, however improved it might be.  It would
certainly forbid any improved way of interpreting the present polygraph
measurements, e.g.  a fancy computer program.  It would forbid any formal
technique that would combine polygraph and other information.

	Second, it forbids someone against whom there is presumptive
evidence of some disqualification from offering to take a polygraph
test, whether a present test or a future improvement.

	Incidentally, the common belief that polygraph tests are ineffective
is not, so far as I know, supported by evidence.

	This seems to be one more lynch mob attitude towards a technology,
to which the liberals have been prone recently.  There may also be a
residue of the counterculture view that anything that prevents cheating
the system is bad.

∂12-Nov-87  1424	JMC 	re: Revised Formal Reasoning budget
To:   LES    
[In reply to message rcvd 12-Nov-87 14:09-PT.]

I assume you already emailed a copy.  If I have to sign something, use
express enough mail so that isn't a source of delay.

∂12-Nov-87  1618	Mailer 	burden of proof on polygraphs   
To:   POSER@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from POSER@CSLI.Stanford.EDU sent Thu 12 Nov 87 15:07:47-PST.]

1. Wall Street Journal editorials aren't perfect, but they generally seem
well-reasoned to me.

2. The burden of proof is different when you propose to forbid something.
Then it's on those who propose to do the forbidding.  I don't advise
the use of polygraphs, because then the burden of proof would indeed
be on me as an advocate.

3. The biggest single business use of polygraphs was in trying to track
down who was stealing.  Is that considered legitimate?
I don't believe it is legal for an employer to require an employee
to answer questions about labor activity or political views
with or without a polygraph.  I think that's part of the National
Labor Relations Act of the 1930s.

4. My remarks about the motivation of the anti-polygraph movement
were based on anti-polygraph articles I read and the accompanying
other opinions expressed.  Probably I should have left them out,
because years later I cannot remember specific sources.

5. What about the people who will be denied employment or fired
who will not be allowed to offer to take a polygraph test?

∂12-Nov-87  1632	Mailer 	re: Polygraphs and the liberal/conservative boundary
To:   helen@PSYCH.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU  
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from helen@psych.stanford.edu sent Thu, 12 Nov 87 15:46:46 PST.]

I think the same rules should apply to everyone.  At present no-one can
be legally compelled to take a polygraph test.  I'm afraid this excludes most
of the cases Helen proposes, e.g. the executives being investigated by
Congress just as in the 1950s it excluded the alleged communists being
investigated by Congress.  It certainly excludes giving the press or
consumer interest groups from requiring anyone to take a polygraph
test.  However, if Congress or an Administration wishes to require
polygraph tests for applicants for some Government positions, they
can choose to require them.  There is nothing presently illegal about
a newspaper or other organization from asking someone to take such
a test and then commenting on a refusal.

∂12-Nov-87  1652	JMC 	re: Revised Formal Reasoning budget
To:   LES    
[In reply to message rcvd 12-Nov-87 16:44-PT.]

A phone conversation will be needed sooner or later.  Let's see what
answer you get first.

∂12-Nov-87  1659	Mailer 	re: polygraph    
To:   poser@CRYSTALS.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU    
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from poser@crystals.STANFORD.EDU sent Thu, 12 Nov 87 16:44:24 pst.]

I would not advocate marijuana being illegal on the basis of what I saw
of its effects, and the evidence I have read suggests that it's only
somewhat worse than tobacco.  Indeed I'm dubious about heroin being
illegal but not inclined to make it one of my issues.

I believe that business can be oppressive and agree with making yellow dog
contracts illegal and the restrictions mentioned previously on what
employers can ask.  I'm just dubious about the anti-polygraph law, but
I don't think it's likely to harm the country as much as anti-nuclear
laws.  Incidentally, I note a news story saying that the CO2 problem
has made an environmentalist Congressman reverse himself.

I agree with the remark that too many laws is a menace almost independent
of their content.

∂13-Nov-87  0926	Mailer 	re: Polygraph and the press
To:   ILAN@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from ILAN@score.stanford.edu sent Thu 12 Nov 87 16:35:24-PST.]

"I agree with Mary Holstege that polygraph tests will ultimately protect
the best liars." - Ilan Vardi.

If the word "ultimately" has its customary meaning, this strikes me as
ideologically motivated scientific wishful thinking.  The wish is that
one's ideological position be supported by science.  What can ultimately
be done by polygraph tests of some kind is quite unknown.

I have no definite opinion on the effectiveness of present polygraph
tests.  There is ideology on one side, and business interests plus
the use of the polygraph as a way of scaring people out of lying on
the other.  I agree that the test of polygraph companies is highly
relevant.

∂13-Nov-87  0928	Mailer 	re: Question
To:   luke@GLACIER.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU 
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message sent 13 Nov 1987 0924-PST.]

A yellow dog contract agreement by an employee accepted as a condition of
employment not to join a union.

∂13-Nov-87  1202	Mailer 	re: Polygraph testing, acerbic remarks    
To:   HOLSTEGE@SUSHI.Stanford.EDU
CC:   su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from HOLSTEGE@Sushi.Stanford.EDU sent Fri 13 Nov 87 09:23:30-PST.]

Mary Holstege was offended by my attributing certain views to certain
proponents of a law to prohibit use of polygraphs.  Her message supposed
that I was attributing specific views to her that were not in her message.
Since I often attribute certain views to advocates of certain opinions,
let me make the following general announcement.  My opinion of the views
common in certain groups is more likely to be based on the reading I have
done over a period of years than to a specific bboard message.  If I want
to attribute views to the author of a message, I usually support the
attribution by a quotation from the message.

I repeat that I am not an advocate of polygraphs - merely an opponent
of a proposed law prohibiting them.

∂13-Nov-87  1207	Mailer 	Double Blind Studies  
To:   su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis is an exciting 1920s novel making the moral
case for controlled studies.  It would be interesting to compare what it
says with the considerations being advanced today.

∂13-Nov-87  1619	JMC 	re: Simpson discussion   
To:   LES    
[In reply to message rcvd 13-Nov-87 13:52-PT.]

Yes, resubmit as stated.  I'll phone Schwartz on Monday.

∂13-Nov-87  1627	JMC 	re: Ginsburg   
To:   PATASHNIK@SUSHI.Stanford.EDU    
[In reply to message sent Fri 13 Nov 87 06:13:42-PST.]

The WSJ editorial certainly didn't take into account the information
you cited.  I wonder if it appeared before or after the information
became available.  I think I agree with most of your points.

∂14-Nov-87  1129	JMC 	re: 1st IWoLES 
To:   mcvax!inria.inria.fr!queinnec@UUNET.UU.NET
[In reply to message sent 13 Nov 1987 21:23-EST.]

I am presently at the University of Texas at Austin.  I will return to
Stanford about Jan 1.  Electronic mail should still be sent to
JMC@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU as was the present message.  Ordinary mail sent
to Stanford will be forwarded, so if want just one address, it's

John McCarthy
Computer Science Department
Stanford, CA 94305

For the time being, however, mail addressed to

John McCarthy
Computer Science Department
University of Texas
Austin, TX 78712

will arrive quicker.

∂14-Nov-87  1152	Mailer 	re: Memories
To:   berglund@NAVAJO.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from berglund@navajo.stanford.edu sent Fri, 13 Nov 87 20:24:13 PST.]

When is it possible to cut taxes and balance the budget simultaneously?
Eric Berglund suggests "Some economist should characterize these
circumstances".  My opinion is that some political scientist should
characterize these circumstances.  For example, both houses of Congress
and the President being of the same party may be a necesary condition.

∂14-Nov-87  1309	Mailer 	re: traffic safety    
To:   LYN@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from LYN@sierra.stanford.edu sent Sat 14 Nov 87 11:21:35-PST.]

The alcoholic legislator's might foolishly imagine that the
breathalyzers linked to ignitions might not work any more reliably
than the seatbelts linked to the ignitions did.  I leave you to
imagine the various things that might go wrong.

∂14-Nov-87  1626	JMC 	phone call
To:   schwartz@VAX.DARPA.MIL
I will try to phone you on Monday to discuss the long term prospects
of our basic research in AI and its DARPA support.  I would like to
understand why you don't want to support Lifschitz's work on a long
term basis.  He gave up a tenured position in order to work with me,
although I can't say that I had made any specific promises.  I regard
his work as excellent, and I'm quite sure this is the general opinion
among AI scientists.

In case you should prefer to telephone me, my numbers are
(home: 512 328-1625) and (office: 512 471-9558).  I'll be in
L.A. on Wednesday.

∂16-Nov-87  0920	JMC 	re: German vs. American road fatalities 
To:   TEICH@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU, P.PRATT@MACBETH.STANFORD.EDU
CC:   su-etc@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from TEICH@Sushi.Stanford.EDU sent Sun 15 Nov 87 16:55:08-PST.]

Are there any substantial number of people who want to drive in Germany
but can't get licenses over a period of some years?  I'll bet there is
little correlation between accident record and performance on the driver's
license exam.  Only a few accidents are caused by weakness in the skills
tested, I would think.

∂16-Nov-87  1255	JMC 	expenses  
To:   bergman@Score.Stanford.EDU 
I have some travel expenses to report for Stanford
trips that I made after leaving Stanford.  Should I
send the information to you or to Phyllis who is
forwarding my mail and doing a bit of other
secretarial work for me?

∂16-Nov-87  1305	JMC 	regards from Nepeivoda   
To:   VAL    
I forget whether I already transmitted this from
the Denmark meeting.

∂16-Nov-87  1321	JMC 	re: Are you there?  
To:   Bobrow.pa@XEROX.COM   
[In reply to message sent 16 Nov 87 13:18 PST.]

Yes, please phone 512 471-9558.

∂17-Nov-87  0933	JMC 	re: UDP?  
To:   ME
[In reply to message rcvd 16-Nov-87 19:07-PT.]

Probably that was it.

∂17-Nov-87  0943	Mailer 	re: A gripping trivia question  
To:   WRMANN@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU 
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from WRMANN@score.stanford.edu sent Mon 16 Nov 87 15:50:45-PST.]

My guess is that train stations have high ceilings for essentially the
same reason that Hyatt Regency hotels have high lobbies.  I approve.

∂17-Nov-87  1341	Mailer 	re: deficites and Treasury Bills
To:   LYN@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from LYN@sierra.stanford.edu sent Mon 16 Nov 87 17:35:08-PST.]

When in doubt about a piece of information that you think every citizen
should know or have available, try first the Statistical Abstract of the
United States, published every year for about $30 and available from the
Government Bookstore in SF and which answers its telephone.  When it has
insufficient detail for your purposes, it will often have references to
other sources.

∂19-Nov-87  1257	JMC 	re: QUERRY: Is there anyway to get books electronically??   
To:   gluck@PSYCH.STANFORD.EDU   
[In reply to message sent Thu, 19 Nov 87 11:19:12 PST.]

In answer to your query, there are two books on line on SAIL, Wuthering
Heights by Emily Bronte and Grimm's Fairy Tales.  CSLI has Webster's
Collegiate Dictionary.  I believe that Dialog keeps Harvard Business
Review on-line.

∂19-Nov-87  1747	JMC 	re: QUERRY: Is there anyway to get books electronically??   
To:   gluck@PSYCH.STANFORD.EDU   
[In reply to message sent Thu, 19 Nov 87 16:35:46 PST.]

The names of the files are wuther[lib,doc] and grimm[lib,doc].  They can be
ftped, but I suggest you ask Martin Frost (ME@SAIL) how to transfer them.
wuther came from Information International in L.A. and was taken from
the book by OCR, and grimm came from IBM, both many years ago.  I have
no idea whether there is a copyright problem.

∂19-Nov-87  1900	Mailer 	moral responsibility for the Sandinistas  
To:   su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

It seems likely that the liberals will succeed in ending military
aid to the Contras with the result that Sandinista power will
be consolidated.  Part of the reason for the liberal success
will be convincing enough people that the Sandinistas are not
classical Marxist-Leninists bent on consolidating a one party
repressive regime as in Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia, China or
the Soviet Union but are something more democratic.  We
advocates of help to the Contras quote Ortega as saying that
the Sandinistas are Marxist-Leninists and we see no reason
not to believe it.  Hence we expect something rather bad if
the Sandinistas consolidate their power.  Bad in poverty,
bad in human rights and bad in aggressiveness.
My question to the opponents of aid to the contras is the
following.

Do you take any moral responsibility for the consequences
of the policy you advocate?  If the Sandinista regime turns
out badly, should the Congressmen who vote against aid to
the Contras be defeated for re-election?

It seems to me that the liberals take no responsibility for
the liberal advocacy of the previous such regimes.  They are
inclined, first of all, to ignore any mention of the matter,
and if sufficiently pressed to say that if only the U.S. had
treated (say) Castro better he wouldn't have been so anti-U.S.,
ignoring whether he would still have put political opponents
in prison for 20 years like Armando Valladares.

I suppose that instead of an answer to the question asked,
I'll get a blast on some other point.  That's ok, but also
answer the question.

∂19-Nov-87  1936	JMC 	Searle essay   
To:   vijay@ERNIE.BERKELEY.EDU   
I now have a text for my essay related to the work of John Searle.
If it's not too late, I'll send it electronically.

∂19-Nov-87  2109	JMC 	Austin    
To:   VAL    
I'm having a dinner to which you are invited Wednesday night
Dec. 2.  Also I would be grateful if you would tell my class about
your current theory of action, Tuesday and/or Thursday.
I have some new ideas, and I hope we can discuss them, even though
they're somewhat vague.

∂20-Nov-87  1210	Mailer 	re: moral responsibility for the Sandinistas   
To:   GOLDBERG@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from GOLDBERG@CSLI.Stanford.EDU sent Thu 19 Nov 87 22:34:56-PST.]

I regard your response as evading of my question of whether those
Americans who praise the Sandinistas and help them win by successfully
advocating cutting off the Contras have any moral responsibility if the
Sandinistas consolidate their power and it turns out badly.

∂20-Nov-87  1213	Mailer 	re: tight security at Narita    
To:   Crispin@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU, SU-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU 
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from Crispin@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU sent Fri, 20 Nov 87 09:09:38 PST.]

I doubt it's the local farmers who have been the primary physical
attackers of the airport.  It's radicals from all over Japan.

∂20-Nov-87  1611	JMC 	re: Austin
To:   VAL    
[In reply to message rcvd 20-Nov-87 15:56-PT.]

Meeting for dinner sounds good.  I assume you're renting a car, otherwise
I'd offer to pick you up.  The Wednesday dinner will be rather fancy,
so for Monday let me suggest Katz's at 6th and Rio Grande, a New
York Jewish style place.  Given the uncertainty in airplanes, I suggest
you phone, trying both home 328-1625 and office 471-9558 when you
come in.  Przymusinski will be here on Thursday, and we'll offer to
include him and Apt in the Wednesday dinner if he comes on time.

∂20-Nov-87  1639	JMC 	re: Austin
To:   VAL    
[In reply to message rcvd 20-Nov-87 16:35-PT.]

I'm sure they'd pay.  It's up to you, and I'll pick you up if you aren't
renting a car.  The only occasion for the Wednesday dinner is returning
some of the hospitality we have received.

∂23-Nov-87  0945	JMC 	re: nmr-workshop    
To:   liuida!mre@UUNET.UU.NET    
[In reply to message sent Mon 23 Nov 87 11:36:22.]

Yes, I received the invitation, and I think I replied.  I'll certainly
come.  Please acknowledge this acceptance, because perhaps my other
message didn't get through.

∂23-Nov-87  1149	JMC  
To:   PHY    
 ∂23-Nov-87  0923	PHY  
RESENT MAIL MSG...
 ∂18-Nov-87  0811	PHY  
To:   JMC    
mail:

hardcopy version of the electronic mail sent to you by Gerry Altmann 
  on speech processing: cognitive and computational perspectives 
  workshop
FORWARD

cc: to referee -- letter to Prof. T. Krishnaprasad accepting his paper for IPL
FILE

membership dues request for Princeton Alumni
DISCARD

Letter from Moshe Vardi, inviting you to attend Second Conference on
  theoretical Aspects of Reasoning about Knowledge, March 6-9, 1988
  at Asilomar Conference Center.  Must register before December 24.
  If not registered by then, will be assumed that you are NOT coming.
  Lots of info about conference.
FORWARD

AMS MAA SIAM 1987-1988 Membership List
FILE

Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
FILE

Princeton Today
DISCARD

International Federation for Information Processing - invitation to next meeting
  in Warsaw  June 20-24, 1988
FILE

To: Committee to study international developments in CS and technology
  from National Research Council 
  regarding Dec 3-4, 1987 committee meeting at National Academy of Sciences
  Georgetwon Facility, Washington D.C.
FORWARD

Retirement plan for staff members of MIT - re: variable fund
FORWARD

carbon copy of letter from Sponsored Projects to Space and Naval Warfare
  Systems Command re your contract - 
FILE

letter from WICS - brochure description of Giving Programs Common Sense
  course .. needs updating. cc to Vlad  tentative dates are August 8-12
FILE

Computers in Science  
FORWARD

Center for Democracy, copies of reports to the NED.  from Yuri Yarim-Agaev
FORWARD

Readings in Nonmonotonic Reasoning  by Matt Ginsberg
FORWARD

Algorithmic Information Theory  by G. J. Ghaitin
FILE

proposal from  Office of Grants and Contracts of 
  New Mexico State University for AAAI  by Dr. Jordan Pollack
  sent Airborne Express
FORWARD

LISP - the programming language of artificial intelligence,
  written in Romanian, plus letter (English), paper `Explicit
  computation of a Godel independent sentence in a theory of pure
  LISP programs' by Ileana Streinu
FILE

cc of letter from Sponsored Projects Office to DARPA re revision of your
  research proposal Basic Research inmathematical theory of computation
  and in artificial intelligence and formal reasoning
FILE

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences  Annual report 1987
DISCARD

request for article for Techne: Journal of Technology Studies
   VTSS office, bldg 370, room 372
FORWARD

first announcement and call for papers Summer School and Conference
  on Mathematical Logic - Sep 13-23, Bulgaria
DISCARD

letter from Stanford Computer Forum - transfer of funds  Company Inference
  to McCarthy $500.00
FILE

∂23-Nov-87  1613	JMC 	re: Lady Godiva Chocolates    
To:   HEWETT@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU   
[In reply to message sent Mon, 23 Nov 87 13:09:42 PST.]

Seems to me I saw them in Neiman-Marcus in the Stanford Shopping
Center, but I'm not sure since I don't buy them.

∂23-Nov-87  1626	Mailer 	moral responsibility  
To:   su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

I have found the responses to my restated inquiry illuminating.  The
anti-Contra side really does find the history of what happened previously
when people who call themselves Marxist-Leninists took power entirely
irrelevant.  Some don't even seem to have heard that the Carter
Administration gave the Sandinistas $75 million in the hopes of mitigating
their hostility.  At least they make the same proposal again as though it
had never been tried.  The assurances that these Marxist-Leninists were
different from previous Marxist-Leninists were given in the case of China,
Cuba and Vietnam.  If the Sandinistas consolidate their dictatorship and
the liberals become disenchanted with them as they did with the Soviets,
Cubans, Chinese and Vietnamese communists, doubtless a new generation of
liberals will tell the same tales about whatever country the communists
take power in next.

∂24-Nov-87  1223	JMC 	re: High Noon Lecture Series  
To:   REIS@SIERRA.Stanford.EDU   
[In reply to message sent Tue 24 Nov 87 09:56:05-PST.]

ok

∂24-Nov-87  1233	JMC 	send bio  
To:   PHY    
Please tex biojmc.tex[1,jmc] and mail it to

Kowalski, Robert Dept. of Computing, Imperial College, University of London,
                180 Queen's Gate, London SW72BZ, UK

∂26-Nov-87  1935	JMC 	re: ai courses 
To:   SHOHAM@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU  
[In reply to message sent Wed 25 Nov 87 10:29:19-PST.]

Yes, I'll be back.

∂26-Nov-87  1938	JMC 	reply to message    
To:   VAL    
[In reply to message rcvd 25-Nov-87 11:11-PT.]

I haven't been able to reach Schwartz to discuss what he has in mind.  Les
speculated that he might think you are a faculty member, and faculty
members are not ordinarily supported full time.  More likley, he has
had a fit of appliedness, and thinks we should get you some NSF support,
and two years is certainly time enough to do that.

∂26-Nov-87  1941	JMC 	reference 
To:   narain%pluto@RAND-UNIX.ARPA
Can you MAIL me a reference to Rabin's paper?

∂26-Nov-87  1954	JMC 	re: Nicaragua & Carter   
To:   PEYTON@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU  
[In reply to message sent Tue 24 Nov 87 19:23:13-PST.]

It's Somoza not Samoza.  Substantive comment will be in another message.

∂26-Nov-87  1958	Mailer 	re: coffee house service getting better   
To:   ILAN@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from ILAN@score.stanford.edu sent Wed 25 Nov 87 11:40:57-PST.]

You are sampling a random variable, considering the rapid turnover
of employees, managers and even companies operating the Coffee House.

∂26-Nov-87  2235	Mailer 	next   
To:   su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

The only way of adhering to the nominal case rules of English is to
say something like ``May I help him, who is next?''  This isn't done
any more in English, although the equivalent is done in some European
languages.  Perhaps the case, e.g. he and him, are on their way out.

∂26-Nov-87  2253	Mailer 	re: History and JMC   
To:   goldberg@RUSSELL.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU  
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from goldberg@russell.stanford.edu sent Mon, 23 Nov 87 18:06:36 PST.]

Goldberg says I have failed to learn the lesson of history, and
in his next paragraph says it is impossible to know whether being
nice to Ho Chi Minh might have produced a friendly communist
country.  The Vietnamese communist party had a history like other
communist parties and similar doctrines.  Goldberg exaggerates the
ability of the U.S. to influence other countries, especially
communist countries by showing friendship, especially the Soviet
Union.  Communist leaders are quarrelsome and even get into wars
with each other.  Communist doctrine regards all non-communist
countries as intrinsically hostile, with this hostility being
modified only by popular pressure, by having a common enemy,
or by fear.  When a Western leader does something the communists
like, he is called ``realistic'' and usually takes it as a
complement.  However, the internal Soviet interpretation of
``realistic'' is that the leader realizes the futility of resisting
the Soviet or other communist demand.  Maybe Gorbachev and Deng
will change this, but it can't be seen yet.  Pravda is now
tranlated in full and there is a magazine Current Digest of the
Soviet Press available in Stanford libraries.  Take a look.

I have a bunch of quotes from Sandinista leaders in a State Department
pamphlet.  Perhaps I'll type in some relating to their adherence to
Marxism-Leninism.  Perhaps Jeff Mogul will regard this as U.S.
``disinformation'', but the sources are given, and so they can
be checked, albeit with some difficulty.

∂27-Nov-87  0902	JMC 	re: for Christos Papadimitriou     
To:   mcvax!ermhs!.thh%hra@UUNET.UU.NET    
[In reply to message sent Thu, 26 Nov 87 09:01:22-0200.]

How can I reach you by phone?

∂27-Nov-87  1446	JMC 	re: reference  
To:   narain%pluto@RAND-UNIX.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Fri, 27 Nov 87 14:01:28 PST.]

Many thanks.  Please mail it to

John McCarthy
Computer Science Dept.
University of Texas
Austin, TX 78712

I'm in Texas till about Christmas.

∂27-Nov-87  1455	Mailer 	re: Traffic menaces on bikes    
To:   ANDY@SUSHI.Stanford.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from ANDY@Sushi.Stanford.EDU sent Fri 27 Nov 87 13:28:16-PST.]

Regulating traffic is legally considered a matter of the ``police power''
and regulatable by legislation at all levels.  Moreover, no-one has yet
tried to claim that although the Constitution doesn't say bicycles and
cars have to be subject to the same regulations, it is implied in the
Constitution.  Therefore, it would be astonishing if some states, counties
and cities haven't chosen to treat them differently in some respects.

∂28-Nov-87  1522	JMC 	re: History and JMC      
To:   SCOTT@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU  
[In reply to message sent Sat 28 Nov 87 14:47:25-PST.]

It's 14 short columns.  I'll mail you a copy if you'll type it.

∂30-Nov-87  0834	JMC  
To:   RPG    
I'm getting a request for a paper in Kowalik collection.  What is it?

∂30-Nov-87  0834	JMC 	visit to Washington 
To:   schwartz@VAX.DARPA.MIL
I'll be in Washington Friday.  Any chance of seeing you
in late afternoon?  After 5pm would be best.

∂30-Nov-87  0858	JMC 	Please send reprint 
To:   PHY    
Map Coloring and the Kowalski doctrine
to
Stephen Owen
HP Labs
Filton Road
Stoke Gifford
Bristol, England

∂30-Nov-87  0920	JMC 	re: Searle essay    
To:   vijay@ernie.berkeley.edu   
[In reply to message sent Tue, 24 Nov 87 18:00:14 PST.]

I wonder if you can find something out for me.  I was invited to
contribute to a volume of essays about John Searle's thought.
The essays were due at the end of September.  Unfortunately,
I'm not at Stanford this Fall and can't find any trace of the
letter, and I don't know who wrote me.  Early in September I
had my secretary, since gone, phone John about it and he referred
me to you, but possibly there was a misunderstanding between her
and John about what was referred to, sicne you are now puzzled.
Anyway can you find out for me?  By asking John or otherwise?

∂30-Nov-87  1124	JMC 	re: Looking for a first name  
To:   Engelmore@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Mon, 30 Nov 87 11:02:17 PST.]

No reason not to suppose Corby isn't still alive; he got his
PhD around 1955.  He's a professor in the M.I.T. computer
science dept. and his first name is Fernando.

∂30-Nov-87  1143	JMC 	visiting professors 
To:   nilsson@TENAYA.Stanford.EDU
Here are the proposals:
1. I propose Neil Jones of the University of Copenhagen,
who works in theory of computation and compiler generation.
He is interested precisely in Winter 1989.  I'll send his vita.

2. Bruce Buchanan proposes Reid Smith of Schlumberger, Palo Alto.

3. Feigenbaum proposed Duda, now dropped, and secondarily Johan
deKleer.  Dekleer turned down an industrial lecturer position
last year.  Feigenbaum's top candidate, however, is Ken Forbus
of U. Illinois.

4. Vaughan Pratt proposed Yuri Gurevich of U. Michigan, a logician
turned computer scientist and also Gordon Plotkin, now at CSLI,
but basically at one of the British universities.

None of the proposers, except me, gave any indication that
their proposees were interested.  I suppose Reid Smith would
have to be called something else, since he's not a professor
somewhere else.

∂30-Nov-87  1228	JMC 	resignation    
To:   reddy@FAS.RI.CMU.EDU
CC:   aaai@SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU  
Thanks for accepting my resignation as Workshops
approver.  It isn't a lot of work, but the number
of applications is increasing, and I found myself
falling behind.  I'll try to clean up the backlog
by the end of the year.  Let me recommend that you
again get a single person to do the job rather than
a committee.  It will be a lot more work if it is
a committee.  If Peter Hart is willing to take over
the science-oriented workshops that will be good.
Also I have a policy statement for my successor
that Peter has adopted also.

I'll try to clean up the current backlog in 1987,
but I won't be able to consider any applications
arriving after the end of the year.
Workshop applications are supposed to go to Claudia
first, but it doesn't always happen.

∂30-Nov-87  1404	Mailer 	re: Math puzzler 
To:   ROKICKI@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from ROKICKI@Sushi.Stanford.EDU sent Mon 30 Nov 87 13:06:15-PST.]

My opinion is that the problem is ill-stated, but the answer is 1/8.

∂01-Dec-87  0036	JMC  
To:   RPG    
Is it the original paper or a revised version?

∂01-Dec-87  1156	JMC 	paper for Codevilla 
To:   JSW    
If he hasn't got it already, I would be very grateful if it
got to him today, because he needs to take it to Washington
with him tomorrow.

∂01-Dec-87  1300	JMC 	re: Paper for Codevilla  
To:   JSW    
[In reply to message rcvd 01-Dec-87 12:28-PT.]

Many thanks.

∂01-Dec-87  1602	JMC  
To:   mhs@HT.AI.MIT.EDU
\input macro.tex[let,jmc]
\ctrline{\bf FORMALIZATION OF TWO PUZZLES INVOLVING KNOWLEDGE}
\yyskip

	This paper describes a formal system and uses it to
express the puzzle of the three wise men and the puzzle of Mr. S
and Mr. P.  Four innovations in the axiomatization of knowledge
were required: the ability to express joint knowledge of several
people, the ability to express the initial non-knowledge,
the ability to describe knowing what rather than merely knowing that,
and the ability to express the change which occurs when someone
learns something.  Our axioms are written in first order logic
and use Kripke-style possible worlds directly rather than modal
operators or imitations thereof.  We intend to use functions
imitating modal operators and taking "propositions" and "individual
concepts" as operands, but we haven't yet solved the problem
of how to treat learning in such a formalism.

	The puzzles to be treated are the following:

\noindent {\bf The three wise men}

	{\it ``A certain king wishes to test his three wise men.  He
arranges them in a circle so that they can see and hear each other and tells
them that he will put a white or black spot on each of their foreheads
but that at least one spot will be white.  In fact all three spots
are white.  He then repeatedly asks them, ``Do you know the cclor of
your spot".  What do they answer?''}

	The solution is that they answer, {\it ``No''}, the first two
times the question is asked and answer {\it ``Yes''} thereafter.

	This is a variant form of the puzzle.  The traditional form
is

	{\it ``A certain king wishes to determine which of his three
wise men is the wisest.  He
arranges them in a circle so that they can see and hear each other and tells
them that he will put a white or black spot on each of their foreheads
but that at least one spot will be white.  In fact all three spots
are white.  He then offers his favor to the one who will first tell
him the color of his spot.  After a while, the wisest announces
that his spot his white.  How does he know?''}

	The intended solution is that the wisest reasons that if
his spot were black, the second would see a black and a white and
would reason that if his spot were black, the third would have seen
two black spot and reasoned from the king's announcement that his
spot was white.  This traditional version  requires
the wise men to reason about how fast their colleagues reason, and
we don't wish to try to formalize this.

\noindent {\bf Mr. S and Mr. P}

	{\it Two numbers $m$ and $n$ are chosen such that $2 ≤ m ≤ n ≤ 99$.
Mr. S is told their sum and Mr. P is told their product.  The following
dialogue ensues:}

\halign {\it Mr. P:	I don't know the numbers.\cr 
Mr. S:	I knew you didn't know.  I don't know either.\cr 

Mr. P:	Now I know the numbers.\cr 

Mr. S:	Now I know them too.\cr 

In view of the above dialogue, what are the numbers?\cr}

\yyskip
\noindent {\bf Simple axiomatization of the wise men}

	If we can assume that the first and second wisemen don't
know the colors of their spots, that the second knows that the
first doesn't know, and the third knows this, then a simple
axiomatization that doesn't explicitly treat learning works.

[In this draft, we omit this section.  Instead we include an
older self-contained memo written when this was our main approach
to the problem].

\yyskip
\noindent {\bf Full axiomatization of the wise men}

	The axioms are given in a form acceptable to FOL, the proof
checker computer program for an extended first order logic at the
Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.  FOL uses a sorted
logic and constants and variables are declared to have given sorts,
and quantifiers on these variables are interpreted as ranging over
the sorts corresponding to the variables.

	The axiomatization has the following features:

	\a . It is entirely in first order logic rather than in a modal
logic.

	\a . The Kripke accessibility relation is axiomatized.  No knowledge
operator or function is used.  We hope to present a second axiomatization
using a knowledge function, but we haven't yet decided how to handle time
and learning in such an axiomatization.

	\a . We are essentially treating ``knowing what'' rather than ``knowing
that''.  We say that p knows the color of his spot in world $w$ by saying
that in all worlds accessible from $w$, the color of the spot is the same
as in $w$.

	\a . We treat learning by giving the accessibility relation a time
parameter.  To say that someone learns something is done by saying that
the worlds accessible to him at time $n+1$ are the subset of those accessible
at time $n$ in which the something is true.

	\a . The problems treated are complicated by the need to treat
joint knowledge and joint learning.  This is done by introducing
fictitious persons who know what a group of people know jointly.

\yyskip

$$declare INDCONST RW ε WORLD;$$

declare INDVAR w w1 w2 w3 w4 w5 $ε$ WORLD;

\yskip
	$RW$ denotes the real world, and $w, w1, \ldots , w5$ are variables
ranging over worlds.

declare INDVAR m n m1 m2 m3 n1 n2 n3 $ε$ NATNUM;

	We use natural numbers for times.

\yskip

declare INDCONST S1 S2 S3 S123 $ε$ PERSON;

declare INDVAR p p0 p1 p2 $ε$ PERSON;

\yskip
	$S1$, $S2$ and $S3$ are the three wisemen.  $S123$
 is a fictitious person
who knows whatever $S1$, $S2$ and $S3$ know jointly.
  The joint knowledge of several
people is typified by events that occur in their joint presence.  Not only do
they all know it, but $S1$ knows that $S2$ knows that $S1$ knows that $S3$
 knows etc.
Instead of introducing $S123$, we could introduce prefixes of like ``$S1$
knows that $S2$ knows'' as objects and quantify over prefixes.

declare PREDCONST A(WORLD,WORLD,PERSON,NATNUM);

	This Kripke-style accessibility relation has two more arguments than
is usual in modal logic - a person and a time.

\yskip
declare INDVAR c c1 c2 c3 c4 $ε$ COLORS;

declare INDCONST W B $ε$ COLORS;

	There are two colors - white and black.

declare OPCONST color(PERSON,WORLD) = COLORS;

	A person has a color in a world.  Note that the previous
axiomatization was simpler.  We merely had three propositions WISE1, WISE2
and WISE3 asserting that the respective wise men had white spots.  We need
the colors, because we want to quantify over colors.

axiom reflex:	$∀w p m.A(w,w,p,m)$;;

	The accessibility relation is reflexive as is usual in the Kripke
semantics of M.

axiom transitive:	$∀w1 w2 w3 p m.(A(w1,w2,p,m)
 ∧ A(w2,w3,p,m) ⊃ A(w1,w3,p,m));;$

	Making the accessibility relation transitive gives an S4 like system.
We use transitivity in the proof, but we aren't sure it is necessary.

axiom who:	$∀p.(p=S1 ∨ p=S2 ∨ p=S3 ∨ p=S123);;$

	We need to delimit the set of wise men.

axiom w123:	$∀w1 w2 m.(A(w1,w2,S1,m) ∨ A(w1,w2,S2,m) ∨ A(w1,w2,S3,m)
⊃ A(w1,w2,S123,m));;$

	This says that anything the wise men know jointly, they
know individually.

axiom foolspot:	$∀w.(color(S123,w)=W);;$

	This ad hoc axiom is the penalty for introducing $S123$ as an
ordinary individual whose spot must therefore have a color.  It would have
been better to distinguish between real persons with spots and the
fictitious person(s) who only know things.  Anyway, we give $S123$ a white
spot and make it generally known, e.g. true in all possible worlds.


axiom color:	$¬(W=B)$

		$∀c.(c=W ∨ c=B)$

;;

	Both of these axioms about the colors are used in the proof.

axiom rw:	$color(S1,RW) = W ∧ color(S2,RW) = W ∧ color(S3,RW) = W;;$

	In fact all spots are white.

axiom king:	$∀w.(A(RW,w,S123,0) ⊃ color(S1,w)=W ∨ color(S2,w)=W
∨ color(S3,w)=W);;$

	They jointly know that at least one spot is white, since
the king stated it in their mutual presence.  We use the consequence
that S3 knows that S2 knows that S1 knows this fact.


axiom initial:	$∀c w.(A(RW,w,S123,0) ⊃
	(c=W ∨ color(S2,w)=W ∨ color(S3,w)=W
		⊃ ∃w1.(A(w,w1,S1,0) ∧ color(S1,w1) = c)) ∧
	(c=W ∨ color(S1,w)=W ∨ color(S3,w)=W
		⊃ ∃w1.(A(w,w1,S2,0) ∧ color(S2,w1) = c)) ∧
	(c=W ∨ color(S1,w)=W ∨ color(S2,w)=W
		⊃ ∃w1.(A(w,w1,S3,0) ∧ color(S3,w1) = c)))$

	$∀w w1.(A(RW,w,S123,0) ∧ A(w,w1,S1,0)
⊃ color(S2,w1) = color(S2,w) ∧ color(S3,w1) = color(S3,w))$

	$∀w w1.(A(RW,w,S123,0) ∧ A(w,w1,S2,0)
⊃ color(S1,w1) = color(S1,w) ∧ color(S3,w1) = color(S3,w))$

	$∀w w1.(A(RW,w,S123,0) ∧ A(w,w1,S3,0)
 color(S1,w1) = color(S1,w) ∧ color(S2,w1) = color(S2,w))$
;;

	These are actually four axioms.  The last three say that every one
knows that each knows the colors of the other men's spots.
The first part says that they all know that no-one knows anything
more than what he can see and what the king told them.  We establish
non-knowledge by asserting the existence of enough possible worlds.
The ability to quantify over colors is convenient for expressing this axiom
in a natural way.  In the S and P problem it is essential, because
we would otherwise need a conjunction of 4753 terms.

axiom elwek1:	$∀w.(A(RW,w,S123,1) ≡ A(RW,w,S123,0) ∧
∀p.(∀w1.(A(w,w1,p,0) ⊃ color(p,w1)=color(p,w)) ≡ ∀w1.(A(RW,w1,p,0)
⊃ color(p,w1)=color(p,RW))))$

	$∀w1 w2.(A(w1,w2,S1,1) ≡ A(w1,w2,S1,0) ∧ A(w1,w2,S123,1))$

	$∀w1 w2.(A(w1,w2,S2,1) ≡ A(w1,w2,S2,0) ∧ A(w1,w2,S123,1))$

	$∀w1 w2.(A(w1,w2,S3,1) ≡ A(w1,w2,S3,0) ∧ A(w1,w2,S123,1))$
;;

	This axiom and the next one are the same except that one
deals with the transition from time $0$ to time $1$ and the other deals
with the transition from time $1$ to time $2$.
Each says that
they jointly learn who (if anyone) knows the color of his spot.  The
quantifier $∀p$ in this axiom covers $S123$ also and forced us to say
that they jointly know the color of $S123$'s spot.

axiom elwek2:	$∀w.(A(RW,w,S123,2) ≡ A(RW,w,S123,1) ∧
∀p.(∀w1.(A(w,w1,p,1) ⊃ color(p,w1)=color(p,w)) ≡ ∀w1.(A(RW,w1,p,1)
⊃ color(p,w1)=color(p,RW))))$

	$∀w1 w2.(A(w1,w2,S1,2) ≡ A(w1,w2,S1,1) ∧ A(w1,w2,S123,1))$

	$∀w1 w2.(A(w1,w2,S2,2) ≡ A(w1,w2,S2,1) ∧ A(w1,w2,S123,1))$

	$∀w1 w2.(A(w1,w2,S3,2) ≡ A(w1,w2,S3,1) ∧ A(w1,w2,S123,1))$
;;

	The file WISEMA.PRF[S78,JMC] at the Stanford AI Lab contains
a computer checked proof from these axioms of

$$∀w.(A(RW,w,S3,2) ⊃ color(S3,w) = color(S3,RW))$$

which is the assertion that at time $2$, the third wise man knows the
color of his spot.  As intermediate results we had to prove that
previous to time $2$, the other wise men did not know the colors of
their spots.  In this symmetrical axiomatization, we could have proved
the theorem with a variable wise man instead of the constant $S3$.


\noindent {\bf Axiomatization of Mr. S and Mr. P}

	These axioms involve the same ideas as the second wise man
axiomatization.  In fact, we derived them first.  The following modified
version of some axioms by Ma Xiwen of Peking University separates the
knowledge part of the problem from the arithmetic
part in a neat way.

!Ma Xiwen's axioms for Mr. S and Mr. P which are a variant of an
earlier version by McCarthy.

 	 This is an approach to the axiomatization of Mr.S and Mr.P.
      	Its basic idea is the same of KNOW[E78,JMC].                  
	 These are some diffrent symbols:
 
		k	for a PAIR of NATNUMs
		s(k)    for the sum of the two NATNUM in k
		p(k)    for the product of the two NATNUM in k
	
	 We have introduced a few of PREDCONSTs, for abbreviation only.
    	 But there are some important differences between the two 
	axiomatizations: our axiom SP is weaker, but our axioms LP
	and LS are stronger.
 	 The PREDCONSTs R1 R2 and R3 are slightly different,too.
	
	 Next follws a complete list of commands of the FOL proof of
	R3(k0). The subsequent proof that k0=<4,13> will be purely
	arithmetic, and a computer search has been done to confirm
	it.

	 


I have changed the learning axioms LP and LS, and I have removed
the redundant predicate OK.  Where I have times 1 and 2 in
A(RW,w,SP,n), Ma had 0.  I think these axioms are too strong and
may even make the system inconsistent.  I don't know whether Ma's
proof will work with the weaker axioms.  - JMC
!DECLARE INDVAR t ε NATNUM;
DECLARE INDCONST k0 ε PAIR;
DECLARE INDVAR k k1 k2 k3 ε PAIR;
DECLARE INDCONST RW ε WORLD;
DECLARE INDVAR w w1 w2 w3 ε WORLD;
DECLARE INDCONST S P SP ε PERSON;
DECLARE INDVAR r ε PERSON;
DECLARE OPCONST K(WORLD)=PAIR;  
DECLARE OPCONST s(PAIR)=NATNUM;
DECLARE OPCONST p(PAIR)=NATNUM;
DECLARE PREDCONST A(WORLD,WORLD,PERSON,NATNUM);
DECLARE PREDCONST Qs(PAIR) Qp(PAIR) Q1(PAIR) Q2(PAIR) Q3(PAIR);
DECLARE PREDCONST Bs(WORLD) Bp(WORLD) B1(WORLD) B2(WORLD);
DECLARE PREDCONST R1(PAIR) R2(PAIR) R3(PAIR);
DECLARE PREDCONST C1(WORLD) C2(WORLD);

AXIOM AR: ∀w r t.A(w,w,r,t);;
AXIOM AT: ∀w1 w2 w3 r t.(A(w1,w2,r,t)∧A(w2,w3,r,t)⊃A(w1,w3,r,t));;
AXIOM SP: ∀w1 w2 t.(A(w1,w2,S,t)∨A(w1,w2,P,t)⊃A(w1,w2,SP,t));;
AXIOM RW: k0=K(RW);;
AXIOM INIT:
    	∀w w1.(A(RW,w,SP,0)∧A(w,w1,S,0)⊃s(K(w))=s(K(w1))),
	∀w w1.(A(RW,w,SP,0)∧A(w,w1,P,0)⊃p(K(w))=p(K(w1))),
    	∀w k.(A(RW,w,SP,0)∧s(K(w))=s(k)⊃∃w1.(A(w,w1,S,0)∧k=K(w1))),
	∀w k.(A(RW,w,SP,0)∧p(K(w))=p(k)⊃∃w1.(A(w,w1,P,0)∧k=K(w1)));;

AXIOM R:
	∀k.(R1(k)≡Qs(k)∧Q1(k)),
	∀k.(R2(k)≡R1(k)∧Q2(k)),
	∀k.(R3(k)≡R2(k)∧Q3(k));;
AXIOM BS: ∀w.(Bs(w)≡∃w1.(A(w,w1,S,0)∧¬(K(w)=K(w1))));;
AXIOM BP: ∀w.(Bp(w)≡∃w1.(A(w,w1,P,0)∧¬(K(w)=K(w1))));;
AXIOM B:
	∀w.(B1(w)≡∀w1.(A(w,w1,S,0)⊃Bp(w1))),
	∀w.(B2(w)≡∀w1.(A(w,w1,P,1)⊃K(w)=K(w1)));;
AXIOM C:
	∀w.(C1(w)≡Bs(w)∧B1(w)),
	∀w.(C2(w)≡C1(w)∧B2(w));;
AXIOM SKNPK: B1(RW);;
AXIOM NSK:   Bs(RW);;
AXIOM PK:    B2(RW);;
AXIOM SK:    ∀w.(A(RW,w,S,2)⊃K(RW)=K(w));;
AXIOM LP: ∀w w1.(A(RW,w,SP,1)⊃(A(w,w1,P,1)≡A(w,w1,P,0)∧C1(w1)));;
AXIOM LS: ∀w w1.(A(RW,w,SP,2)⊃(A(w,w1,S,2)≡A(w,w1,S,1)∧C2(w1)));;

AXIOM QS: ∀k.(Qs(k)≡∃k1.(s(k)=s(k1)∧¬(k=k1)));;
AXIOM QP: ∀k.(Qp(k)≡∃k1.(p(k)=p(k1)∧¬(k=k1)));;
AXIOM Q:
	∀k.(Q1(k)≡∀k1.(s(k)=s(k1)⊃Qp(k1))),
	∀k.(Q2(k)≡∀k1.(R1(k1)∧p(k)=p(k1)⊃k=k1)),
	∀k.(Q3(k)≡∀k1.(R2(k1)∧s(k)=s(k1)⊃k=k1));;

!COMMENT # LEMMA 1
	∀w k.(A(RW,w,SP,0)∧k=K(w)⊃(Qs(k)≡Bs(w))) 
COMMENT # LEMMA 2
        ∀w k.(A(RW,w,SP,0)∧k=K(w)→(Qp(k)≡Bp(w)))
COMMENT # LEMMA 3
	∀w k.(A(RW.w.SP,0)∧k=K(w)→(Q1(k)≡B1(w)))
COMMENT # LEMMA 4
	∀w k.(A(RW,w,SP,0)∧k=K(w)⊃(R1(k)≡C1(w)))
COMMENT # LEMMA 5
	R2(k0)
COMMENT # LEMMA 6
	∀w k.(A(RW,w,SP,0)∧k=K(w)⊃(R2(k)⊃C2(w)))
COMMENT # LEMMA 7
      	Q3(k0)
COMMENT # MAIN THEOREM
	R3(k0)
!
\yyskip
John McCarthy

Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

Computer Science Department

Stanford University

Stanford, California 94305

ARPANET: MCCARTHY@SU-AI

This file is KNOW.2[W81,JMC].

\vfill\end

∂01-Dec-87  1635	Mailer 	random points and lines in the plane 
To:   su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

The parts of the problem are ill posed, since there is no obvious
interpretation of choosing a line or a point randomly in the plane,
since with no particular probability distribution given, a uniform
distribution seems to be what is wanted.  Nevertheless, the problem as
a whole may have an interpretation in that if we solve the problem
with bounded distributions, there may be a definite limit to the
probability of the point being in the triangle as the distributions
approach uniformity in the right way.  Clearly the distribution
associated with the point must somehow be correlated with the
distribution associated with the line; otherwise the limiting answer could be
varied somewhat at will.  I don't see what would be a natural
relation between these distributions to maintain as they
approach uniformity.

There is one way of approaching a limit that maintains
a nice symmetry.  Imagine the lines to be represented by great
circles on a sphere.  Three lines in general (i.e. unless there
are probability zero symmetries) form eight triangles.  If we
make all distributions uniform in the usual metric, the point
is as likely to be in any triangle as any other, i.e. it is
in any particular triangle with probability 1/8.  As we imagine
the sphere to expand its surface approaches planarity.  Thus we
get 1/8 as an answer by this limiting process.

However, someone my come up with another equally plausible limiting
process that gives a different answer, although I don't know of one.

I am reminded of scattering problems in physics in which symmetry
suggests wave functions that aren't square integrable over the
whole space, thus violating the nice axiom systems for quantum
mechanics.  I believe the mathematics of the way these problems
are solved has been made rigorous by suitable ways of going
to the limit.

∂01-Dec-87  1639	JMC 	re: Topologix transputers
To:   LES    
[In reply to message rcvd 30-Nov-87 15:56-PT.]

Please get more literature, and I'll look when I'm back.

∂01-Dec-87  1641	JMC 	re: Winter CS101 text    
To:   STAGER@SCORE.Stanford.EDU  
[In reply to message sent Tue 1 Dec 87 15:11:24-PST.]

I'll try to look at books available here and mail you a choice tomorrow.

∂01-Dec-87  1643	JMC 	possible visit Friday    
To:   schwartz@VAX.DARPA.MIL
I have a meeting in Washington Friday at NAS and would
like to see you in late afternoon after it if possible.
The latest flight leaves at 7:25 from National, so
I wouldn't take too much of your time.  I could bring
Vladimir Lifschitz, and he could come earlier if his
showing that what we are doing is good AI, good mathematics
and good computer science is relevant.  If this is
inconvenient, we could postpone it, since there has
been a meeting of minds on a budget for the next two
years.
I'll phone in the morning or you can phone 512 328-1625 home
or 512-471-9558 office.

∂02-Dec-87  1318	JMC  
To:   PHY    
 ∂02-Dec-87  1257	PHY  
mail:

American Airlines Program Mileage Summary

I returned to Behavioral Sciences a manuscript they wanted to you to
  comment on - said you were unavailable. 

letter from Hajime Yoshino wanting to know if you've received his letters
  sent since September regarding LESA symposium. wants your report of `86
  to be put in the LESA 86-87 published reports 
forward

request for your comments on a paper `Cardinalities and well orderings
  in a common-sense set theory' by W. Zadrozny
forward

Faculty night Janury 27  from Rosse
forward

photo of your induction into the National Academy of Engineering
file

additional material from National Research Council to: Committee to
  Study International Developments in CS and Technology
forward

request for you to apply for Chairmanship at Illinois Inst of Technology
  Dept of Electrical and Computer Engineering
tell them no

Computing Reviews  - TO BE FILED
and several journals which I've put in your office

Technology Transfer Institute - computer seminars of excellence winter 1988
file

contract award notice from Sponsored Projects  ONR  $241,302
forward

∂02-Dec-87  1533	JMC 	re: Winter CS101 text    
To:   STAGER@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU  
[In reply to message sent Tue 1 Dec 87 15:11:24-PST.]

Thanks for keeping after me.  here are the books I want them to buy.

The Computer Age - A 20 year view, Dertouzos and Moses, M.I.T. Press
$10.95 paper back edition

Fifth Generation Computers - Peter Barlow, Ellis Horwood, a subsidiary of
Wiley

Computers, their structure and influence, Slotnick and Slotnick, Prentice Hall

There will also be some course notes.

∂04-Dec-87  2128	JMC 	re: Winter CS101 text    
To:   STAGER@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU  
[In reply to message sent Fri 4 Dec 87 10:39:56-PST.]

The title page says gives the publisher as Ellis Horwood Ltd.
Halsted Press: A division of John Wiley and Sons.

∂04-Dec-87  2141	JMC 	re: `Radfem' - etymology and equivalence [was Re: Plus ca change]
To:   SINGH@SIERRA.Stanford.EDU  
[In reply to message sent Thu 3 Dec 87 23:38:11-PST.]

You even find yourself in agreement on the spelling of Ginsberg's name.

∂05-Dec-87  1609	JMC 	address for Firdman 
To:   goodman@arizmis  
I would like to ask him about recent Soviet work in AI.
He emigrated fairly recently and worked in AI.
What is his address and phone? Net address too if it
exists.

∂05-Dec-87  1613	JMC 	Address for Henry Firdman
To:   blumenthal@A.ISI.EDU  
I need his address and phone to ask him about recent
Soviet work on AI.  Sy talked about him, so I know
he has the address, but the electronic address I have
for him from the old mailing list is incomplete for
our mailer, and I just realize that I gave you my copy
of the new one when I corrected my own phone numbers.

∂07-Dec-87  0931	JMC 	arpanet   
To:   ME
I have been unable to reach sail by arpanet from texas for the last day,
although I can reach score and sail through it.  Please reply to
mccarthy@r20.utexas.edu.

∂08-Dec-87  1302	JMC 	re: Oliver Radkey   
To:   JULIA@Score.Stanford.EDU   
[In reply to message sent Tue 8 Dec 87 12:55:16-PST.]

Your message about Oliver Radkey says only "Pleass".

∂08-Dec-87  1307	JMC 	re: Oliver Radkey   
To:   JULIA@Score.Stanford.EDU   
[In reply to message sent Tue 8 Dec 87 12:57:13-PST.]

The UT directory lists

Radkey, Oliver, Professor Emeritus History,
MAIL ADDR:History
GAR 318		471-7134
1305 West 22nd St.	477-7915

The area code will be 512.

∂08-Dec-87  2023	JMC 	re:  Your invited talk at the Canton, China conference, July 1988
To:   MEERSMAN%HTIKUB5.BITNET@FORSYTHE.STANFORD.EDU  
[In reply to message sent Tue, 8 Dec 87 14:26 N.]

title:	Knowledge about knowledge in databases

∂08-Dec-87  2024	JMC 	re: Sept. expenditure statement    
To:   littell@NAVAJO.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message sent 8 Dec 1987 0953-PST.]

I returned at least two batches of expenditure statements.  I have
none here now.

∂08-Dec-87  2034	JMC  
To:   PHY    
 ∂08-Dec-87  1626	PHY  
mail:

`Theoretical analysis of circumscription' by Frank M. Brown
  (abstract starts off with  An analysis is made of McCarthy's circumscription...'
forward

letter from Stanford Alumni Association - requesting a review of a favorite
  book  for `The Literary Corner' of the Stanford Magazine, similar to personal
  review in `Summer Reading' put out by H&S.
forward

Roy Jones resume
file

grade needed for  Weening, Joe   N (satisfactory progress), N- (unsatisfactory
  progress);  P (satisfactory completion of final quarter).
  I'll get someone to forge your signature.
N

∂08-Dec-87  2036	JMC 	Please mail    
To:   PHY    
to Jack Schwartz at DARPA a copy of my "Some Expert Systems Need Common Sense"

∂08-Dec-87  2132	Mailer 	Project Voltaire 
To:   su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>


MRC has said that while he disagreed with Hussein's views he would
defend to the death Hussein's right to express them.  Various people
have expressed skepticism about this, supposing that there is no way
MRC's assertion could be tested, and therefore MRC's commitment is
meaningless.  It has long been my opinion that philosophy and social
science are too quick to condemn scientific theories as meaningless.
Just because you can't immediately figure out how a proposition can be
tested, it doesn't follow that no-one else can.

It seems to me that this hypothesis is testable, and the cost is
moderate.  It might be done for as little as the price of two one-way
fares to the Middle East and one round trip for the observer.  It seems
unlikely to me that Hussein's views on what behavior the Koran requires
can be compatible with the views dominant in Iran and and also with the
views dominant in Iraq.  Therefore, in one country or the other, MRC
would be able to fulfill his commitment, and Hussein could probably tell
us which.  If not, at slightly more expense, both could be tried and
also Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.  Indeed a suitable testing ground surely
can be reached by an inexpensive taxi journey from Beirut airport in one
direction or another.  In any case a travel agency could provide a
package tour of the Middle East with a provision for returning some of
the price when the tour was broken off part way through.

For the observer we need a social science graduate student or research
associate.  I am willing to be the nominal Principal Investigator under
my usual stipulation that someone else write the proposal and conduct
the actual negotiations with the funding agency.  These negotiations
shouldn't be too difficult, because foundations and other funding
agencies are all more receptive to proposals that provide for a
substantial part of the costs to be raised locally.  Judging from some
of the complaints we have heard over the years about certain BBOARD
postings, substantial local contributions can be expected, and I will be
happy to provide him or her, who undertakes to raise the money with a
list of prospective donors.  It occurs to me that if Lynn Bowman will
agree to be the observer, it might be possible to raise all the costs
locally.  Some churlish people may want to get by with three one way
tickets.  I believe that such local financing would meet the conditions
under which Stanford would forgo its usual overhead.

∂10-Dec-87  1236	Mailer 	re: Rumor   
To:   goldberg@RUSSELL.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU  
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from goldberg@russell.stanford.edu sent Thu, 10 Dec 87 12:24:23 PST.]

Nothing has been heard to confirm this rumor in Austin, Texas.

∂10-Dec-87  1429	Mailer 	re: Project Voltaire  
To:   Crispin@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU, SU-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU 
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from Crispin@SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU sent Thu, 10 Dec 87 13:22:59 PST.]

Now we see that MRC's commitment to defending to the death Hussein's
right to express views that MRC disagrees with depends on Hussein
renouncing these views and becoming an atheist.  Surely, MRC, you
can give up this one of your nine preconditions.  (Aside: once we've
got him to give up this precondition, we'll work on the others).

∂12-Dec-87  1057	JMC 	re: Forwarding messages  
To:   HUSSEIN@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Fri 11 Dec 87 16:14:51-PST.]

Alas, your message contains no indication of her name.

∂12-Dec-87  1101	Mailer 	Mencken
To:   PLAMBECK@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU    
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from PLAMBECK@Sushi.Stanford.EDU sent Fri 11 Dec 87 17:07:35-PST.]

It certainly seems that Mencken didn't like his fellow Americans.  Of course,
it would be well to check whether he thought well of anyone else.  What is
your opinion, Mr. Plambeck?

∂12-Dec-87  1107	Mailer 	re: Info wanted on Belize (formerly British Honduras)    
To:   gluck@PSYCH.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU  
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from gluck@psych.stanford.edu sent Fri, 11 Dec 87 20:04:28 PST.]

I visited Belize in 1977, and we visited one Mayan ruin near the Guatemalan
border.  We shared it with three or four British soldiers with telescopes
looking to see if the Guatemalans across the border were about to do anything
about their claim that Belize ought to be part of Guatemala.  We didn't go
into the jungle, but nothing special was said about it.  The native language
is English, and I don't recall any special problems.  My impression is that
the Belizean Maya ruins were considered to be less impressive than those in
Yucatan.

∂12-Dec-87  1120	JMC 	re: ssp   
To:   faculty@SCORE.Stanford.EDU 
[In reply to message from SHOHAM@Score.Stanford.EDU sent Fri 11 Dec 87 18:04:01-PST.]

I also think the blast at SSP requires more justification.

While I'm at it, let me express doubt about affirmative action.
In the main it's just reshuffling the qualified and interested
women.  However, the role model business worries me.  In the
first place it's dubious psychology and sociology.  In the second
place, I remember when a woman candidate was criticized on the
grounds that while she was ok scientifically, she wasn't suitable
as a role model for the female graduate students.

∂12-Dec-87  1617	Mailer 	re: Info wanted on Belize (formerly British Honduras)    
To:   Crew@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from Crew@Sushi.Stanford.EDU sent Sat 12 Dec 87 15:52:51-PST.]

The inhabitants of Belize are mostly blacks.  So far as I know, few of them
speak any language but English - with a Caribbean accent.  There is also a
Spanish speaking minority.  Perhaps there are also people speaking Indian
languages, but I don't recall hearing about them.  The last I heard, Belize
was still somewhat of a British colony, because its inhabitants don't want to be taken
over by Guatemala.  But for that, the British would long be rid of it.

∂13-Dec-87  1122	Mailer 	where much modern religion seems to lead  
To:   su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

Miguel d'Escoto, Nicargua's Foreign Minister and the former director
of Orbis Press, the Maryknoll publishing house, went to Moscow earlier
this year to receive the Lenin Peace Prize.  Excerpts from his remarks
on that occasion: ``I believe the Soviet Union is a great torch which
emits hope for the preservation of peace on our planet.  Always in the
vanguard of the overall struggle for peace, the Soviet Union has become
the personification of ethical and moral norms in international
relations.  I admire the revolutionary principles and consistencey of the
fraternal Soviet Union.'' - National Review / December 4, 1987.

Unfortunately, National Review rarely gives further sources for its
quotes, but I haven't heard that they have been accused of misquoting.
Perhaps this is quoted out of context, however.  I offer ten dollars for
the best context in which this quote might be surrounded that would
substantially change its meaning.  Nothing will be paid for a context
that amounts to "Our enemies accuse us of saying ` ...'".

∂14-Dec-87  0904	JMC 	reply to message    
To:   PHY    
[In reply to message rcvd 14-Dec-87 08:47-PT.]

Thanks very much.  Everything in this last batch should be filed for my return.

∂14-Dec-87  1148	Mailer 	re: Ruminations on air travel   
To:   WRMANN@Score.Stanford.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU 
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from WRMANN@score.stanford.edu sent Mon 14 Dec 87 11:31:41-PST.]

I believe the 737 is a newer design than the 747; the 727 is older.  I'm sure
any babble about "giving it the old college try" is contrary to airline
regulations, and remember that the captain is on the airplane too, and
the law of averages has a much greater chance of catching up with him.
However, it is certainly true that one's fears can be raised permanently
by a few close calls or apparent close calls.  I have noticed an increase
in my fears about certain specific situations in driving.

∂14-Dec-87  1536	Qlisp-mailer 	re: Fibonacci   
To:   qlisp@SAIL.Stanford.EDU    
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from RPG rcvd 14-Dec-87 13:26-PT.]

To check whether bignums are causing the good results, use floating point
or work mod some prime.

∂14-Dec-87  1543	JMC 	re: Ruminations on air travel 
To:   SINGH@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@Score.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message from SINGH@sierra.stanford.edu sent Mon 14 Dec 87 14:06:38-PST.]

I'm not sure airline security needs to be increased.  How much would Harinder's desired
increase cost per expected life saved?  If it's more than $2.5 million, then most
likely it costs lives.  A regression of personal income versus death rate by states
suggests that taking $2.5 million out of the economy costs a life.

∂15-Dec-87  1220	JMC 	WICS 88   
To:   VAL    
 ∂15-Dec-87  0959	TAJNAI@Score.Stanford.EDU 	WICS 88 
Received: from SCORE.STANFORD.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 15 Dec 87  09:57:16 PST
Date: Tue 15 Dec 87 09:46:19-PST
From: Carolyn Tajnai <TAJNAI@Score.Stanford.EDU>
Subject: WICS 88
To: jmc@Sail.Stanford.EDU
cc: beach@Sushi.Stanford.EDU, nilsson@Score.Stanford.EDU
Message-ID: <12358710853.17.TAJNAI@Score.Stanford.EDU>


John, after a class has settled in and is making a profit, we have
offered the Stanford faculty the option of going on profit sharing.
This means that you take no stipend up front.  All expenses are paid
and then the profit is split 50/50 between the instructor(s) and
CSD.

For "Giving Programs Common Sense" the stipend was $3,500.
Profit for the course was $7,873.24.
Under profit sharing the instructors would have shared $5,686.62.
The drawback is that there is no guarantee under profit sharing
(it also involves risk sharing).

This is entirely up to you.  Let me know if you are interested for
1988.

Carolyn
-------

∂15-Dec-87  1228	JMC 	cs101
To:   reges@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU   
No, I don't need a TA for nine students.  I had imagined it was a much
bigger course.  Is it genrally small?

∂15-Dec-87  1541	JMC 	re: WICS 88    
To:   VAL    
[In reply to message rcvd 15-Dec-87 12:34-PT.]

We'll decide about WICS when you come back, but when is that?
I saw Simpson in Austin last week, and he told me that the proposal
is now past Schwartz, so the remaining delays are probably entirely
bureaucratic.  I still need to send Schwartz something that will
convince him that that non-monotonic reasoning is worthy of longer
term DARPA support.  I'm going to Washington to see Chien at NSF on
Monday to talk about AI support in general.

∂15-Dec-87  1549	JMC 	re: WICS 88    
To:   VAL    
[In reply to message rcvd 15-Dec-87 15:47-PT.]

Nilsson has a copy of the article.

∂15-Dec-87  1558	Mailer 	re: BSU
To:   su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU   
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message from LYN@sierra.stanford.edu sent Sun 6 Dec 87 22:29:32-PST.]

It seems to me that BSU membership is a tempest in a teapot.  Black
activists are going to claim every privilege they have ever had, including
the privilege of discriminating against whites in certain contexts.  Note
that privileges of activists don't coincide with privileges of the people
the activists consider themselves as representing.  Not having been a
child in Newark in the 1960s, I would be interested in Mark Crispin's
account of "some of the brutal ways it was taken out on white children in
black-majority cities."  There might be related contemporary issues of
greater significance.

∂15-Dec-87  1617	Mailer 	re: Ruminations on air travel   
To:   su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, wentworth@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU  
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>

[In reply to message sent Mon 14 Dec 87 11:31:41-PST.]

The calculation that spending more than $2.5 milllion on
safety including airport security per expected life saved
loses lives is my own.  It was accomplished by applying
the regression program in the HP-15C calculator to two tables
from the Statistical Abstract of the United States.  I believe
I used the 1983 edition.  The two tables were death rate by
states and personal income by states.  The coefficient was
$2.5 million per life.  Since both tables are `per year',
the `per year' cancels.  By throwing out states that might
be regarded as untypical, the coefficient can be varied between
one million dollars and four million.  My opinion is that the
causality is genuine, and people with more money take better
care of themselves and are more willing to be taxed for better
roads, hospitals, etc.  A hard-nosed skeptic could claim the
causality was in the opposite direction, i.e. that healthy
people made more money.  Doubtless this is true, but then
you'd have to find reasons for systematic differences in
health between states that weren't caused by economics.

Supppose the money weren't being spent on having people
sit around airports checking baggage.  These people would
then be otherwise employed.  Some of them would be operating
driving emergency medical service vehicles (a very cost-effective
way of saving lives - only $30,000 per life).  Others would
be enforcing laws against drunk driving.  Of course, most would
be in activities not directly related to saving lives.  The
$2.5 million figure averages all the activities.

I don't regard my investigation as conclusive and haven't tried
to publish it.  I would be glad to discuss various ideas for
investigating the matter further with anyone who might be
interested in studying it further.

∂15-Dec-87  1629	JMC 	re: Does the Campus-Wide Power Shutdown this Sunday... 
To:   SIEGMAN@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Tue 15 Dec 87 11:12:19-PST.]

We aren't required to live there.

∂17-Dec-87  1525	JMC 	re: Jack Schwartz to visit Stanford in February   
To:   GINSBERG@Sushi.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message sent Thu 17 Dec 87 13:39:14-PST.]

As part of working on Schwartz I gave him my copy of the
readings on non-monotonic reasoning.

∂17-Dec-87  1551	JMC 	collaboration with Soviets    
To:   papa@Score.Stanford.EDU    
I need to talk with you on the phone.  My numbers are
(office: 512 471-9558) and (home: 512 328-1625).  Also
please email numbers at which you can be reached.
I'll be gone Saturday through Monday.

∂18-Dec-87  1012	JMC 	re: Jack Schwartz to visit Stanford in February   
To:   GINSBERG@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Thu 17 Dec 87 16:54:41-PST.]

Yes, please.

∂18-Dec-87  1013	JMC  
To:   VAL    
 ∂17-Dec-87  1728	LES 	Secretary position  
To:   JMC, RWF    

Pat Simmons has accepted the informal job offer, with the stipulation that
the office is a "no smoking" zone.  Starting date must await offer approval
from the Dean's office.

∂18-Dec-87  1024	JMC 	re: Jack Schwartz to visit Stanford in February   
To:   GINSBERG@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Fri 18 Dec 87 10:09:14-PST.]

That's ok. Please keep it for me.

∂23-Dec-87  1553	JMC 	books
To:   RDZ@SAIL.Stanford.EDU 
No harm done, but I'm surprised you passed with all the
obsolete books on my shelves.

∂23-Dec-87  1555	JMC 	Keith Clark    
To:   gilbertson@SCORE.Stanford.EDU   
I'm glad Keith Clark is a visiting professor, but I
didn't do it.  I suppose he will teach a course of
his choice.  Ask Nils.

∂23-Dec-87  1636	JMC 	re: Journal of Philosophical Logic Paper
To:   Rich.Thomason@C.CS.CMU.EDU 
[In reply to message sent Mon 21 Dec 87 15:18:29-EST.]

It has risen to the top of my paper writing queue.  I have some notes,
and I just finished a paper with the same subject matter for Daedalus
and was frustrated by the editor's determination to allow nothing
technical.  I hope to get to it soon.

∂29-Dec-87  1650	JMC 	file 
To:   ai.throop@R20.UTEXAS.EDU   
The file with the mods is

southern-select:>throop>puzzle>puzzle1.lisp