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Professor Stephen R. Graubard
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Norton's Woods
136 Irving Street
Cambridge, Mass. 02138

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Dear Dr. Graubard:

	Thanks for the draft papers for the Los Alamos meeting.

	On the basis of the drafts received, I have decided to withdraw
my paper and not attend the meeting.  The reason is that I have too
little in common with almost all of the authors to make the discussion
valuable for me or them.

	My problems with the papers are varied.  Some, e.g. Putnam's, are
ignorant of the field and might as well have been written in 1950, some
are make interesting points but are too slight for such long papers and
are peripheral to the subject, and others present proposals for new
approaches with neither empirical nor mathematical basis.

	As for my own paper, I'll revise it as planned and publish
it elsewhere.  I'm sure that most of the participants will be relieved
at not having to discuss it.

	I think a reasonable discussion might have been possible with
better participants.  Unlike Putnam, the philosophers Daniel Dennett
and John Haugeland do read the AI literature at least occasionally.
Newell's views are mentioned, but neither Newell nor any representative
of his position is present.  Connectionism is mentioned in many papers,
but none of the leaders of that approach to AI are involved.  The
human brain is discussed but no scientist from that field will take
part.

Sincerely,