00010	                     COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT
00015	
00020	                         STANFORD UNIVERSITY
00025	
00030	                     Stanford, California 94305
00035	
00040	
00100	Dear Jerry:
00200	
00300		Here is what I wrote in response to your  "The  Comprehensive
00400	Involvement  ..."  paper.   It  isn't  finished and probably won't be
00500	since the time for a reply in the Tech has  long  since  passed.   It
00600	would have to have been revised in two respects:
00700	
00800	1.  In  the first paragraph, I undertook to criticize your reasoning,
00900	i.e. your process of deduction.  Unfortunately  for  that,  their  is
01000	only  one  example of deduction in the article, the "since" in column
01100	6, it is too small a sample even though I don't  consider  it  valid.
01200	Instead, the article seems to me to consist of flat assertions.
01300	
01400	2.  I  would  be  obliged  to  make  some  optimistic  assertions  to
01500	contrapose to the pessimistic  ones.   This  would  have  been  hard,
01600	because  the  assertions  to be controverted are so difficult to make
01700	explicit.  I am not sure that the three points I read you  as  making
01800	correctly summarize what you are saying.
01900	
02000		Roughly, I would say the following:
02100	
02200		1.  On the whole, the world is getting better, as measured by
02300	the average length of life and  the  increasing  variety  of  options
02400	available  to  individuals.   A  temporary setback in the U.S. is the
02500	current anti- intellectual fad among intellectuals.
02600	
02700		2.  Science  continues  to  progress.   The  fact  that  most
02800	scientific  research  is  unsuccessful  is  normal.   The fraction of
02900	unsuccessful computer science research is even  larger  than  normal,
03000	but  this  can  be  explained  by the large fraction of people in the
03100	field  who  are  essentially  untrained  in  it,  by  its  difficulty
03200	especially in the formulation of good problems.  It should improve in
03300	the reasonably near future.
03400	
03500		3. The objection to the style of some recent theories is  one
03600	that  I  might  share.   At  least, I have an objection that may be a
03700	negative reaction to some of the same ideas.  However, your objection
03800	is  not  clearly  enough formulated for me to know if there is common
03900	ground.  My objection would be that the theories  are  likely  to  be
04000	incorrect,  because  they  don't  come  to  grips  with the essential
04100	mechanisms; not that they  are  ugly  or  that  their  proposers  are
04200	insensitive brutes.
04300	
04400		On  some  days, almost every human activity seems interesting
04500	and worthwhile.  On other days, nothing seems worthwhile.   You  seem
04600	to  have  taken  the  fantasies  of  a bad day and elevated them to a
04700	principle.
04800	
04900		Finally, if you want to argue  about  some  of  these  points
05000	privately  or  publicly,  I will be glad to oblige you when I come to
05100	M.I.T. next fall, but if you go on in the style of that  article,  my
05200	recourse is likely to be largely making fun of it.
05300	
05400	
05500					Sincerely yours,
05600	
05700	
05800	
05900					John McCarthy