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∂01-Apr-81  1424	JMC  
To:   FFL    
Please send Georgia Navarro at SRI a copy of my long biography.

∂01-Apr-81  1425	JMC  
To:   navarro at SRI-AI
846 Lathrop Dr.
Stanford CA 94305
857-0672 home, 497-4430 Stanford

I worked for Information International at this rate several years
ago, but I haven't been doing consulting work recently.

You can FTP BIOJMC[PAT,JMC] from SAIL, but I'll send you a paper copy.

∂01-Apr-81  2115	JMC  
To:   RPG    
I have to read more of your thesis to tell.

∂02-Apr-81  0045	JMC  
To:   rosenschein at SRI-KL, nilsson at SRI-KL  
Unless I hear otherwise, I'll come next Thursday at 10.

∂02-Apr-81  1906	JMC  	Tang
To:   FFL    
Mr. Tang will leave here June 30.  However, we should leave open
the date of his ticket since he may visit a few other places before
he goes back to China.  There is no harm in finding out whether
the ticket would be cheaper with some specific dates or advanced
purchase, however.

∂02-Apr-81  2200	JMC  	more arpa prose    
To:   JK
I have edited your text slightly for style, but it's fine for describing
what you have done.  Now I need half a page or a page on what you plan
for the next two years.

∂02-Apr-81  2205	JMC  
To:   JK
Blank lines between paragraphs and two spaces after periods help TEX or PUB.

∂02-Apr-81  2243	JMC  	arpa2.doc[doc,jk]  
To:   JK
Well, I think it needs a bit more.  I put the "Ketonen plans ..." in a separate
final paragraph, but the sentence isn't liftable by Engelmore, because it
refers to "these techniques".  If you're tired, perhaps you can give it
some more thought tomorrow.

∂02-Apr-81  2308	JMC  
To:   JK
You were right, and it looks ok now.

∂03-Apr-81  0122	JMC  
To:   FFL    
If you haven't sent Pournelle report to Levinthal yet, please hold it.

∂03-Apr-81  2138	JMC  
To:   hprintz at BBNE  
I didn't continue with the public files, partly from lack of feedback.

∂04-Apr-81  2130	JMC  
To:   minsky at MIT-ML 
thanks

∂04-Apr-81  2146	JMC  
To:   LLW    
Please phone me 857-0672.  A moderately urgent idea.

∂04-Apr-81  2204	JMC  
To:   pourne at MIT-MC 
If you get this by 1:30 please phone me at 415 857-0672.

∂06-Apr-81  0119	JMC  	arpa proposal 
To:   FFL    
Please get me a xerox of the last ARPA proposal and also find out
if the file is in the computer somewhere.  If Les is around, you can
ask him.

∂06-Apr-81  0135	JMC  	arpa proposal 
To:   LES
CC:   FFL   
Do you know what file previous ARPA proposal might be?

∂06-Apr-81  1356	JMC  
To:   ACY    
Notice was sent to obsolete list.  You aren't on it this time.  Sorry.

∂06-Apr-81  1738	JMC  
To:   FFL    
Please retrieve the files that correspond to pp. 1-31 of the 1979 proposal.

∂06-Apr-81  1743	JMC  
To:   TOB    
 ∂06-Apr-81  1740	CSD.ULLMAN at SU-SCORE 	binford case    
Date:  6 Apr 1981 1737-PST
From: CSD.ULLMAN at SU-SCORE
Subject: binford case
To: jmc at SU-AI

It went through the A&P committee to the provost!
-------
Tom: The A&P committee is the largest single hazard in appointments.
It isn't sure, but it's very probable now barring some effect of
prospective changes in high-level personnel.

∂06-Apr-81  2132	JMC  
To:   CLT    
PUB yourself a copy of conjec[w78,jmc].

∂07-Apr-81  0142	JMC  
To:   LGC
CC:   RPG   
I think I can be in at 11:30, and if so, I'll join you.

∂07-Apr-81  1224	JMC  	travel agent  
To:   CLT    
Call Dina Bolla Travel 329-0950 and ask for Franklin Hersch.

∂08-Apr-81  2011	JMC  
CC:   DPB at SU-AI
I cannot take King as a student as our interests don't sufficiently overlap.

∂08-Apr-81  2012	JMC  
To:   FFL    
We will hold the meeting Monday anyway.  Golub has agreed.

∂08-Apr-81  2223	JMC  
CC:   csd.dbrown at SU-SCORE
I cannot take King as a student as our interests don't sufficiently overlap.

∂09-Apr-81  1502	JMC  
To:   stan at SRI-AI   
ANSWERS TO STAN ROSENSCHEIN'S QUESTIONS


1. Predicate calculus (presumably with functions) is ok for
the communication language.  The LISPish syntax given in my memo
is still desirable since the purpose is machine-machine communication.

2. Q: What soes it mean to be talking about the same thing?  Is this a semantic (e.g. model the
theoretic) notion?
	A: Yes, it's semantic, assuming you are referring to
the buyer and seller talking about the same thing.  The problem of
qualifying a reference enough so that they are talking about
the same thing is central in human business communication, and much
of the back-and-forth is about that.  Notice that they negotiators
often have only a tenuous knowledge of the objects they are
dickering about.  If SRI buys a D0 from xerox, this will be done with
an incomplete knowledge of exactly what constitutes a D0, and
the D0 may be somewhat different from the one on display.  In general,
however, buying and selling is discussed (usually) as though
the objects were natural kinds.

3. Q: What type of conventions could/must be observed for two P-C
speaking machiees to know they are talking about the same thing?

A: This cannot be assured by conventions, if I understand
what is meant.  After some dialog about (say) what color pencils,
both sides think they are referring to the same thing.  Often it
can then be tied down by referring to a model number or stock number.

Perhaps one can say that dialog often involves approximating
some continuously variable aspect of the world by a discrete model.

4. Q: Is there a "universal protocol" for shipping cognitively-oriented
(belief and desire) self-descriptions among communicating machines?

A: I'm not sure I understand the question.  It seems at first glance
that shipping such concepts is not much more problematical than
referring to pencils.

5. Q: Is an initial shared "subtheory" requred?  HOw much of a
description of the world (as opposed to a theory of cognitive
agents) need be in such a shared subtheory?

A: It seems to me that a theory of the world is more required
than any theory of cognitive agents.  Consider a company
controller dickering with an IBM salesman about the purchase of
a computer.  The salesman says that a power conditioning unit is
required in addition to the CPU, etc.  Both can be vague about what
it actually is.  The controller's question is "What else will cost
me money?".  The ability to introduce new entities is required for
a full ability to negotiate.  In order to make a valid contract,
model numbers are often sufficient, provided they refer either implicitly
or explicitly to the common practices of the industry.

6. Q: How much proliferation of speech-act types is really required?
For instance, do we need to distinguish "imperative force" of an
utterance from "causing the hearer to believe the speaker desires
that he take some action" (i.e., a special case of informing", which
would be handled by a single, general-purpose "inform" protocol?

A: I think some performatives will be required, and should be set off
syntactically in order to give legal force to the transactions.
Thus a company can commit itself to pay for what is ordered in a
prescribed manner by its purchasing computer program.  The 
alternative is that it be a tort to lie about one's intentions.
This is too murky to treat generally.  Thus if a computer
says, "If 300 gross of pencils are delivered to me by January 1, I
intend to print a check for $1000 made out to your company
and mail it", this seems harder to treat legally in a general
way than "I hereby offer (on authority of xyz) to buy 300 gross
of pencils for $1000 for delivery by January 1".

7. Q: Can we come up with an interesting scenario to actually
implement?  Can we do this quickly?

A: In an ideal world, SRI would devise the CBCL and get paid
by its users, perhaps without ever writing a program using the language.
I'm not sure what is meant by a scenario, and can think of
two kinds.  First two programs written here communicate in CBCL
playing some kind of Monopoly game.  Second, SRI writes a program
for getting reports to people that keeps track of SRI's own reports,
asks similar program over the ARPAnet about reports of
other labs, answers inquiries and accepts orders.  People
Programs written elsewhere communicate with the SRI program in CBCL.

∂09-Apr-81  1733	JMC  
To:   mrc at SU-SCORE  
Is there a way in TOPS-20 to make a file FTPable without a password?

∂10-Apr-81  0024	JMC  
To:   foo at PARC-MAXC 
Is there a user called foo?

∂10-Apr-81  0042	JMC  	Benjamin Cohen thesis   
To:   cohen at PARC-MAXC    
If you are Benjamin Cohen or if you can send me his Arpanet co-ordinates,
I'll mail comments on the thesis.

∂10-Apr-81  1103	JMC  
To:   SQU at SU-AI
Good luck in the Math Dept., and I look forward to further discussions.

∂10-Apr-81  2004	JMC  
To:   JD
The file with the old proposal hasn't been restored yet.  Perhaps tonight.

∂10-Apr-81  2153	JMC  
To:   cohen at PARC-MAXC    
Comments on "Understanding Natural Kinds: Part I" by Benjamin Cohen draft
of March 1981

1. I find myself more in agreement with what you actually say in the paper
than what your lecture seemed to be saying (as far as you were allowed to
get) and with what the abstract promises.  In particular your footnote
interprets the efforts at non-monotonic reasoning as an attempt to treat
typicality withing logical framework.  You don't discuss the prospects for
success of such attempts, but what you say doesn't directly argue against
prospects for such success.

2. As a part of a philosophy dissertation, the paper makes a
presupposition common to philosophers.  Namely, it presupposes that
counterexamples kill a formalism dead.  AI has to be more modest and take
a positive view of formalisms, asking what can be done with it rather than
immediately looking for something it can't do and letting that kill it.
Unfortunately, much AI work, especially AI dissertations, tend to sweep
under the rug everything a formalism won't do.

In the present case, a proper treatment of the "formal semantics" paradigm
would identify the class of problems for which it is likely to succeed in
formalizing some common sense knowledge well enough to be used.

3. Your point that Montague semantics doesn't even begin to express the
real world facts important for understanding sentences is well taken.  I
hadn't realized how little interest philosophers had in such questions
till I attended Barwise's lectures on perception, and he eventually told
me that no specific features of vision were to be treated.

4. Bob Moore is right that definability isn't a very live issue.  The
"formal semantics" approach will content itself with axiomatizing concepts
without demanding that they be eliminable by definitions.

Of course, ever since I started working on non-monotonic reasoning about
1975, I have agreed that axiomatization itself isn't enough to express our
common sense knowledge without non-monotonic rules of reasoning.  Even in
"Some Philosophical Problems from the Standpoint of Artificial
Intelligence" which appeared in 1969, Pat Hayes and I recognized that
there were serious difficulties in trying to get correct axiomatizations
of common sense.  We called the difficulties the qualification problem.
The current non-monotonic reasoning formalisms are probably still
inadequate.

5. The problem of compositionality has to be redefined to become
meaningful, because it is always possible to give any system a
compositional semantics if one is willing to use suitable function domains
for the domains of meanings of expressions.  Thus suppose you have some
rule for assigning meanings to sentences as a whole.  Then I can define
the meaning of an arbitrary segment of a sentence as a map from the
Cartesian product of possible preceding segments with the space of
possible following segments to meanings for the sentences.
Compositionality can be made a meaningful restriction of semantic rules
only if we restrict the domain that can serve as meanings.  Thus modal
logic is non-compositional if wffs must have truth values as meanings but
becomes compositional if we use suitable functions from possible worlds as
meanings.

6. From the AI point of view the reformulation on page 2 of the problem of
natural kinds as a linguistic problem is dubious.  Natural kinds like
biological species are a fact about the world and the ability of men and
machines to acquire information about it.  These facts have linguistic
consequences, but they aren't basically linguistic facts.

I don't think that natural kinds occur only in nature, and moreover I
think the concept is a relative one.  A small child treats almost all
words as denoting natural kinds, i.e. as having meanings that aren't
merely matters of definition and which depend on facts that he doesn't
know.  Discovering that some words have extensions whose boundaries aren't
definite comes at an age of perhaps ten.

The word "hill" should be compared to the word "horse".  No-one supposes
that there is something that science will tell us about which eminences
are to be counted as hills.  Nor will science tell us which animals are to
be regarded as domestic.

It doesn't seem to me that the notion of "natural kind" should be used to
revive (Aristotelian or Platonic ?) essences.

7. Grumbles and misprints

Using Chang and Keisler as a reference muddles what is important about
Tarskian semantics for philosophy with what is of purely mathematical
interest.  Isn't the little bit in Rogers' "Mathematical Logic and
Formalized Theories" enough for your purposes.

Corrected spellings: wierd → weird, curousity → curiosity, a-typical →
atypical, , proto-typical → prototypical, quadraped → quadriped.

8. I hope you will sometime switch to putting your main efforts into
making a formalism you consider adequate.  My experience is that one
cannot win methodological arguments against formalisms without having a
competitor and examples that the competitor does better.

∂10-Apr-81  2329	JMC  
To:   FFL    
pereir.1

∂11-Apr-81  1103	JMC  
To:   JD
The old proposal is FR[s81,jmc].

∂11-Apr-81  1103	JMC  
To:   LES    
Thanks.

∂11-Apr-81  2033	JMC  
To:   steveh at MIT-MC 
Suggest you correct your error giving 2 min 33 sec as result of doubling
1.28 sec.

∂12-Apr-81  0102	JMC  	paper needed  
To:   FFL    
Please get me a xerox of R. Kowalski, Predicate logic as a programming
language, Proc. IFIP 1974

∂12-Apr-81  1139	JMC  
To:   CLT    
How about 2pm for walk, or ... ?

∂13-Apr-81  0950	JMC  	proposal 
To:   JD
It looks like an earlier proposal or an early draft has been restored.
Perhaps we had best mark up a paper copy and have Fran type it in.
I suggest you print fr[s81,jmc], and if Les is around ask him what is
the right file.  Otherwise, we can have Fran type the stuff in again.

∂13-Apr-81  1125	JMC  
To:   LGC, RPG    
Yes, let's discuss advice taker at 4:30.

∂13-Apr-81  1444	JMC  	correction of correction
To:   cohen at PARC-MAXC    
I corrected "quadraped" to "quadriped".  Actually it's "quadruped".
Perhaps something substantive later.

∂13-Apr-81  1617	JMC  
To:   RWW    
Call Anil Jain 202 357-7345.

∂13-Apr-81  1624	JMC  
To:   JD
No problem about 2 month unpaid leave June and July.

∂13-Apr-81  2047	JMC  
To:   FFL    
Friday is possible.  Thursday is not.
 ∂13-Apr-81  1457	FFL  	Thesis Committee meeting for Vic Scheinman  
To:   JMC, FFL    
Bernard Roth asks if you can meet on Thursday, Apr. 23, at 2 p.m. with
the thesis committee.  If not, can you meet at any other time on Thursday.
If not, can you meet on Friday.  He would appreciate a reply as soon as
possible.

∂14-Apr-81  0044	JMC  	REM 
To:   ellen at MIT-MC  
I know there is a temptation to "do something about REM", but I'm inclined
to suggest resisting it unless there is more of an acute problem for other
people than you have indicated.  The last time REM gave suicidal indications
I talked to him on the phone quite a lot, and I have talked to him twice
since.  My impression is that REM is not as desperate as he makes out.
I think some expression of displeasure may be called for if it hasn't been
tried already, i.e. a direct request by recipients of messages with unwanted
confidences that he refrain in the future.  I think there should be no conerted
campaign to do it, but whoever is most annoyed should do it.  Of course, this
may have already been tried.  Complete success shouldn't be expected - merely
a reduction in the noise level.

∂14-Apr-81  0054	JMC  	sharing Dick Gabriel    
To:   LLW    
I would like to support him to work on an Advice Taker, but I expect to have
money enough only for half of his time, and anyway he wants to put much of
his time into LISP.  Is there any possibility that S-1 could support him
half time, say through the contract with Stanford to work on LISP?

∂14-Apr-81  0134	JMC  
To:   ellen at MIT-MC  
That's a fine birthday cake, and I'll not worry my head trying to figure
out how REM will take it.  I don't see that people being disturbed by
fingering REM is quite reason enough to take action even to replace the
plan by something else.  I too find REM's appeals disturbing - comparable
to the continual guilt-mongering begging of the listener supported
radio and TV stations.  The remedy is the same in either case - switch
to another channel.

I'm curious about Betsy, however.  I don't know if I've met her although
she's a user of SCORE, but REM's last flap was about her.  I supposed that
she was an innocent user on whom REM had become fixated, but I gather
from your last message that she is also somewhat of a nuisance.  In
what way?

∂14-Apr-81  0156	JMC  	curiosity
To:   ellen at MIT-MC  
Thanks.  My curiosity is satisfied.  I may talk further to REM about how
he is making the fulfillment of his goals unlikely, but I expect more
education than success from the effort.  Unless you request it, I won't
delete your messages.  I see nothing in them to be ashamed of or likely
to have a harmful effect beyond someone possibly taking it upon himself
to explain to one or both of us how we are mistaken about something.

∂14-Apr-81  1648	JMC  	visit next fall    
To:   rms at MIT-AI    
I'm budgeting at the moment.  Do you want to come again for one
or two months?  I said I would pay travel expenses, but I know
I can't afford salary.  Do you remember what your travel reimbursement
arrangements were with M.I.T. and roughly what it cost them?

∂14-Apr-81  1649	JMC  	Gabriel  
To:   LLW    
He will probably accept our offer which will be $27,000 or $30,000 for
12 months depending on Stanford politics.  Can you pay half of that with
usual overheads?

∂15-Apr-81  1703	JMC  
To:   csd.golub at SU-SCORE 
got your test message

∂15-Apr-81  1720	JMC  	parser   
To:   JK
For reasons I will be glad to enumerate, it would be very helpful if
your parser would allow operators comprising more than one operator
symbol, e.g. ∧' or ∧∧.  All it needs to do is to consider a string
of operator symbols as designating a compound operator, there being
no necessary semantic relation between ∧ and ∧', etc.  This would
also permit expressing ≤ as =< by people with impoverished character
sets.

∂15-Apr-81  2159	JMC  
To:   CLT    
I forgot that I will be at SRI tomorrow.  I'll be at Jacks shortly past 5.

∂15-Apr-81  2203	JMC  
To:   CLT    
Unfortunately, I forgot I'm at SRI.  Can you make it 5:15 or after?

∂15-Apr-81  2228	JMC  
To:   CLT    
I've checked.  I'll cancel my lunch with Elliott Bloom if necessary to
make this meeting.  I prefer tomorrow if JD can do it, because it's sooner.

∂15-Apr-81  2334	JMC  
To:   CLT    
1:30 is ok

∂16-Apr-81  0006	JMC  
To:   FFL    
We have to send NSF a new budget totalling $75,000 for my NSF.

∂16-Apr-81  0032	JMC  
To:   CLT    
Done although the due date is listed as April 28.

∂16-Apr-81  0110	JMC  
To:   JK
I admit I hadn't thought of this last, and I suppose that any of the
reasonable solutions is acceptable.
(1) it is interpreted as a single symbol so that ∧ ¬p must be so written.
(2) it is interpreted the same as ∧ ¬.
(3) it is interpreted as ∧¬ if this has been defined otherwise as ∧ ¬.

∂16-Apr-81  0939	JMC  
To:   JK
By the way, likewise with combinations like ∃'.

∂16-Apr-81  0940	JMC  
To:   FFL    
Please tell Bloom's sec'y to remind him to send Dugan lists.

∂16-Apr-81  2328	JMC  
To:   rem at MIT-MC    
Good to hear you're better.

∂17-Apr-81  0058	JMC  	McDermott paper    
To:   bmoore at SRI-KL 
I don't believe the theorem he states on page 14 and purports to prove
on page 17.  A counterexample involves the fact that his axioms don't
exclude the possibility of an interval of states with the same date within
a chronicle.  Such an interval can have missing limit points, e.g. can
have the order type of the real numbers without the point 0.  An
infinite sequence of days and nights having the limit point 0 is possible
now without violating Adams' axiom, because the state corresponding
to 0 doesn't exist.  Have you an opinion?

∂17-Apr-81  0956	JMC  
To:   FFL    
yale.1

∂18-Apr-81  1434	JMC  	ANALYST  
To:   JD
It seems to me that the time is ripe to actually do a version of the ANALYST
proposed in our old proposal.  I have discussed this with Dick Gabriel and
Lew Creary, and they agree.  I would like to solicit your participation in
the project and, if you agree, would like to mention it in the proposal.
ANALYS[S81,JMC] contains a preliminary draft of a section of the proposal,
but it is also a preliminary plan for actually carrying it out.  Please
phone when you get this.  We may want to get together tomorrow (Sunday)
afternoon as I'll be away from Monday morning till Wednesday evening and
will be at SRI Thursday during the day.

∂18-Apr-81  1616	JMC  
To:   LGC, RPG, JD, CLT
How about 3pm Sunday for getting together and finishing it off.

∂18-Apr-81  1747	JMC  
To:   LGC, RPG    
Any time you two can agree on is ok with me.

∂18-Apr-81  2207	JMC  
To:   LLW    
Do we need to talk about Dick Gabriel?

∂18-Apr-81  2320	JMC  	Monday   
To:   darden at SUMEX-AIM   
Monday I arrive at Baltimore-Washington airport around 10pm.
My meeting Tuesday is at the National Bureau of Standards.  If
these places are close to your place and you have a spare bed,
it would be nice.  Otherwise, how about Tuesday evening.  I had
to stay for only two days of a three day meeting.  I hope you
had a good trip to Boston.

∂18-Apr-81  2326	JMC  
To:   CLT    
The descriptions of other people's work are fine.

∂19-Apr-81  1447	JMC  	uses of home computer   
To:   pourne at MIT-MC 
Not counting writing or communication, what uses do you get from your
home computer?  Consider this as a request for information and not as
a rhetorical question.
It is clear that word-processing by computer is worth the money, and so
is electronic mail and access to data bases when enough cheap enough ones
are available.  However, a lot of the proposed uses, such as keeping track
of the pantry fail because they aren't worth the input-output.  Others like
closing the window when it rains require standardized sensors and effectors
to be of use to most people.  The question of how we get from here to
such applications requires more discussion than I have time for now.

∂19-Apr-81  1602	JMC  
To:   darden at SUMEX-AIM   
That will all be lovely.  My flight is UA108 which arrives at BWI
at 1035pm.  My breakfast tastes are entirely omnivorous.  I too
look forward to it.

∂19-Apr-81  1605	JMC  
To:   CLT    
My accomplishments are in ACCOMP[S81,JMC].

∂19-Apr-81  1733	JMC  	intro    
To:   CLT    
intro[s81,jmc] contains a draft of the sections preceding ANALYST.  Please
add a description of the organization of the proposal to the first page
of it.

∂19-Apr-81  1739	JMC  
To:   JDH    
More specifically, Friday at 3:30 would be good.

∂19-Apr-81  1750	JMC  
To:   CLT    
ARPA[s81,jmc] is the section on my own plans.

∂20-Apr-81  0056	JMC  
To:   RWW    
(1) Anil Jain. (2) Can you support Joe Weening this summer?

∂22-Apr-81  2233	JMC  	tomorrow 
To:   konolige at SRI-KL    
I plan to come to SRI tomorrow assuming you will be available some
time during the day.

∂22-Apr-81  2248	JMC  	paper copy of our part of proposal
To:   FFL    
Please xgp fr81.xgp and also a copy of our (formal reasoning) budget.
I think I'll phone Engelmore and see if he wants a copy.

∂22-Apr-81  2249	JMC  	verification  
To:   cerf at USC-ISI  
I would like to continue our conversation about getting some support
for our verification related work.  I'll be going to France for two
months (visiting logic programming center in Marseille), so would it
be possible to talk between now and Wednesday.  I cculd also send a
letter outlining what I have in mind.

∂23-Apr-81  0932	JMC  
To:   konolige at SRI-AI    
If you will be further along then, next Tuesday might be better.

∂23-Apr-81  0934	JMC  
To:   konolige at SRI-KL    
What's your phone number at SRI?

∂23-Apr-81  2136	JMC  
To:   daul at OFFICE-2 
Read ARPAnet directory.

∂23-Apr-81  2158	JMC  
To:   darden at SUMEX-AIM   
Many thanks for picking and putting me up.  A propos of a discussion we
had when you were at Stanford about early work in genetics, Judson on
p. 205 quotes Brenner as saying about Morgan and others "They did what
they were able to do, which was genetics".  He points out that most of
them started wanting to study embryology and development.

∂24-Apr-81  0028	JMC  
To:   LLW    
I received the offer today.  My main problem is with the dates.
I won't be back from France until early in July, and I'll need to spend
some time at Stanford for a while - probably I should be there the month
of July.  My best time would be September.  One alternative is to put
this on the form.  The other is to formally accept for the latest date,
but then put it off, which I would do only to keep the process going.
I have a question concerning pay, which has been proposed at precisely
my academic rate.  Is how LL generally pays, or is it characteristic of
this particular summer program?  It isn't an important concern for this
summer.

∂24-Apr-81  0038	JMC  
To:   daul at OFFICE-2 
Inspecting a few random pages gave 19 out of 99.  The formula
sigma = sqrt(n*p*q) suggests a standard deviation of 4.  Several
of the women were known to me as secretaries.  Of course, the
directory is heavily loaded towards officials and their administrative
helpers.

∂24-Apr-81  0108	JMC  
To:   LLW    
OK, I've signed it, but we'll see how far $12 per diem goes.

∂24-Apr-81  0150	JMC  
To:   LLW    
I'll talk to Tom.  I've just done something for him, so ...

∂24-Apr-81  1222	JMC  
To:   ROD    
It's all true, so do as you propose.

∂25-Apr-81  1313	JMC  
To:   BYY    
The main reference on my use of situations is:

%3McCarthy, John and P.J. Hayes (1969)%1:  "Some Philosophical Problems from
the Standpoint of Artificial Intelligence", in D. Michie (ed), %2Machine
Intelligence 4%1, American Elsevier, New York, NY.

∂26-Apr-81  1926	JMC  	8th day  
To:   darden at SUMEX-AIM   
It's indeed excellent, although I found the parts where I knew
the outcome (as in the existence of mRNA and tRNA) more readable
than the parts for which I didn't (repressors, etc.).  It seems
to me that the discoveries were mainly technique-driven - when
the techniques became available the discoveries were made.  It also
seems that the Club was trying to be too clever.  The fancy ideas
for codes were no more intrinsically plausible than the ultimate
3 base code with redundancy.  The one experiment besides that of
Meselson and Stahl that might have been done earlier seems to
be Nirenberg's, although it isn't clear what techniques he used
that might have been newly developed.  It occurs to me to ask whether
Jacob and Monod when they observed bacterial "mating" might have
tried to inject some DNA or RNA themselves, e.g. polyA or polyU.
Would that have worked?  It could conceivably have been done with
a single bacterium using the radioactive tracer techniques used
by the Berkeley chemists who were discovering new elements and
detecting the decay of single atoms.  The idea was to guess the
chemistry and purify the substance blind and they put the hypothetical
substance in a counter and detect the decay.  If you guessed that
polyA would produce a certain protein polymer, then it would be
necessary to go through electrophoresis and chromatography to separate out
that and then put the bit of paper in a particle counter.

See you after we return.

			John

∂27-Apr-81  0902	JMC  
To:   darden at SUMEX-AIM   
leaving for Marseille Thursday and returning around July 1

∂27-Apr-81  1204	JMC  
To:   CLT    
Franklin Hersch 329-0950 needs your passport number by 4:30pm.

∂27-Apr-81  1208	JMC  
To:   CLT    
I found it and called it in.  It's B1225574.

∂27-Apr-81  2142	JMC  
To:   FFL    
Please send a copy of the Shapiro paper to Suppes.

∂28-Apr-81  0041	JMC  
To:   DCL, MAS    
I think she has had it for some days.  At least Fran isn't asking me
for anything now.

∂28-Apr-81  2323	JMC  
To:   RWW    
 ∂28-Apr-81  1202	DGCOM at USC-ISIC 	FOL   
Date: 28 Apr 1981 1202-PDT
From: DGCOM at USC-ISIC
Subject: FOL
To:   jmc at SU-AI
cc:   dgcom

Prof. McCarthy,

We discussed in Washington the possibility of my examining FOL.
If you could send me a manual, open an account, etc. I would
appreciate it.  More generally, I am interested in the logical
and epistemological issues in AI.  I've spent the last ten years
studying philosophy.  I am now preparing to reenter the world of
research and am looking for fruitful things to work on.  I've spent
the last eight months working in program verification in order to get
aquainted with computer culture.  I'd be interested in any reprints,
advice, etc. that you could pass on.

Richard Platek
-------

∂29-Apr-81  1852	JMC  	proposal 
To:   engelmore at USC-ISI  
We have made a major modification to the content of what I told you
would be the proposal.  Namely, Dick Gabriel and Lew Creary think they
can make a start on implementing the intelligence ANALYST that has
been the focus of the theoretical work.  It will be a kind of
Advice Taker.  We are terribly squeezed by the budget limitation you
gave us, and I have started to discuss with Vint Cerf the possiblity
that some of our work on mathematical theory of computation may be
appropriate for additional support from the program verification
program.

∂29-Apr-81  1944	JMC  
To:   FFL    
Please put dedije.1 into TEX and print it for me to sign.

∂29-Apr-81  2155	JMC  
To:   dgcom at USC-ISIC
CC:   FFL at SU-AI, JK at SU-AI, RWW at SU-AI   
 ∂28-Apr-81  1202	DGCOM at USC-ISIC 	FOL   
Date: 28 Apr 1981 1202-PDT
From: DGCOM at USC-ISIC
Subject: FOL
To:   jmc at SU-AI
cc:   dgcom

Prof. McCarthy,

We discussed in Washington the possibility of my examining FOL.
If you could send me a manual, open an account, etc. I would
appreciate it.  More generally, I am interested in the logical
and epistemological issues in AI.  I've spent the last ten years
studying philosophy.  I am now preparing to reenter the world of
research and am looking for fruitful things to work on.  I've spent
the last eight months working in program verification in order to get
aquainted with computer culture.  I'd be interested in any reprints,
advice, etc. that you could pass on.

Richard Platek
-------
I will have information about both Weyhrauch's FOL and Ketonen's EKL
sent, but please send a U.S. Mail address to my secretary Fran Larson,
FFL@SU-AI.

∂29-Apr-81  2157	JMC  
To:   FFL    
Please send Platek when he supplies an address copies of my AI and
philosophy papers.

∂29-Apr-81  2159	JMC  
To:   JK
 ∂25-Apr-81  1112	Susan L. Gerhart <GERHART at USC-ISIF> 	M. Davis paper 
Date: 25 Apr 1981 1105-PST
From: Susan L. Gerhart <GERHART at USC-ISIF>
Subject: M. Davis paper
To: mccarthy at SU-SCORE
cc: gerhart at USC-ISIF

I'd like to follow up on the paper you mentioned at the Verkshop.
If you just have the title our library can chase it down but a copy
of the paper would be appreciated, if it's available. 

I have a student down here from Berkeley who's interested in the structure
of proofs for a possible thesis area.

Thanks.


Susan Gerhart
-------
She wants the paper about obvious deductions.  I think you have a copy.

∂30-Apr-81  1607	JMC  →14367 (1-Jul-81)   
To:   "#___JMC.PLN[2,2]"    
I will be at the University of Aix-Marseilles to June 15 and
back here July 1 approximately.  Address:
c/o Prof. A. Colmerauer
Groupe d'Intelligence Artificiel
Universite d'Aix-Marseille
70, Route Leon-Lachamp
13 - Marseille (9 e)
FRANCE
telephone: France + 91 41 32 48

∂30-Apr-81  1634	JMC  	verification  
To:   cerf at USC-ISI  
I hope to continue discussion of possible ARPA support for our
work in the mathematical theory of program verification after I
return to Stanford around July 1.  The numbers I mentioned to you
would support all my group's work in this area.  A smaller amount
$50K to $100K is needed just to keep it alive in addition to what
we are getting in Engelmore's program.

∂20-May-81  1439	JMC  
To:   carl at MIT-AI   
 ∂14-May-81  1318	Randall Davis <KRD at MIT-AI> 
Date: 14 May 1981 15:43-EDT
From: Randall Davis <KRD at MIT-AI>
To: konolige at SRI-AI
cc: KRD at MIT-AI, nilsson at SRI-AI, jmc at SU-AI


Kurt:

Read over your TN232 recently and liked it very much (tho I don't
claim to be much of a logic hacker at all).  It appears to put down
a very nice foundation for the reasoning about beliefs and actions stuff.

A couple of minor typos that you've probably heard about:
-- on page 27 you say PO1 several times and I suspect you mean LT1.
-- page 35, middle paragraph, after the ref., you seem to have been
   trying to make up your mind about how many examples had been done.

A comment about the wise men problem: it seems to involve not only
reasoning about belief, but about capabilities.  The difference in
speed of reasoning of the agents is both necessary and closely bounded.

To see this, imagine that the differences in intelligence are in fact
very large.  Then consider #1's standard reasoning:

    "if mine were black, then #2 would see a black and a
     white, and he could say 
	'if mine were black, then #3 would see two 
	blacks and he would have responded by now'."

BUT: if #1 is VERY dumb, then #2 can't make that inference. And (much more
plausibly), if #3 is significantly faster than #2, then he can't say "since #2
hasn't responded, mine can't be black, or #2 would have solved his (simpler)
problem already."

The problem itself is made plausible by the fact that each level of
hypothesization reduces the problem complexity (eg, the nth guy is left with
a trivial observation and inference), but the time issue is a tricky one.
In effect, there are hidden assumptions that each agent believes that each
other agent is only a little bit dumber, and hence given the hypothesized
simpler problem to solve, would have solved that simpler problem already.

You get around this in your formalization because you poll the men.  But in
principle at least, the problem is insoluble without assumptions about speed of
reasoning.  The first guy could be SO dumb that even when seeing 2 black spots
it takes him arbitrarily long to make the obvious inference [maybe he's running
a resolution theorem prover]; my claim gets more plausible as we move up each
level of embedding [the second guy's problem is a little harder, the third more
difficult still, and so forth if there were more people involved.]

Agree, or have I overlooked something?


cheers
Randy

∂20-May-81  1442	JMC  
To:   engelmore at USC-ISI  
I'm in France till July 1.

∂20-May-81  1447	JMC  
To:   feldman at SUMEX-AIM  
Please make sure your application is primarily considered by Jeff Ullman
and Ed Feigenbaum.  In any case, I'll be gone till July.

∂20-May-81  1450	JMC  
To:   FFL    
There is a letter on my desk at the left from Donald Perlis asking about a job
in the department.  Please write him that I welcome a look at his thesis, but
he should make sure that his application is considered by Ullman and Feigenbaum.

∂20-May-81  1534	JMC  →14367 (1-Jul-81) via MIT-AI  
To:   "#___JMC.PLN[2,2]"    
Address till June 19 arrival
John McCarthy
Groupe d'Intelligence Artificielle
Faculte de Sciences Luminy
70 route Leon Lachamp
13288 Marseille Cedex 2
FRANCE

till June 25, ask FFL

Back at Stanford around July 1