perm filename OUTGO.MSG[1,JMC]20 blob
sn#844647 filedate 1987-08-14 generic text, type C, neo UTF8
COMMENT ⊗ VALID 00147 PAGES
C REC PAGE DESCRIPTION
C00001 00001
C00015 00002 ∂01-Jul-87 0925 JMC NSF Announcement
C00018 00003 ∂01-Jul-87 0958 JMC re: reply to message
C00019 00004 ∂01-Jul-87 1124 JMC re:
C00020 00005 ∂01-Jul-87 1125 JMC QLISP FUNDING
C00032 00006 ∂01-Jul-87 1356 JMC
C00033 00007 ∂01-Jul-87 1450 JMC
C00035 00008 ∂01-Jul-87 1519 JMC
C00036 00009 ∂01-Jul-87 2256 JMC re: The REAL Mr. P and Mr. S!
C00038 00010 ∂02-Jul-87 1151 JMC
C00039 00011 ∂02-Jul-87 1358 JMC
C00040 00012 ∂02-Jul-87 1838 JMC re: Messrs P and S
C00041 00013 ∂02-Jul-87 2102 JMC re: Mr. P. and Mr. S.
C00042 00014 ∂02-Jul-87 2324 JMC re: Mr. P. and Mr. S.
C00043 00015 ∂03-Jul-87 1215 JMC
C00044 00016 ∂03-Jul-87 1507 JMC
C00045 00017 ∂03-Jul-87 2002 JMC re: Lowell's "directions"
C00046 00018 ∂04-Jul-87 0014 JMC re: Chat
C00048 00019 ∂04-Jul-87 1842 JMC friday morning
C00049 00020 ∂04-Jul-87 2242 JMC re: interesting book
C00050 00021 ∂05-Jul-87 0020 JMC workshop support
C00051 00022 ∂05-Jul-87 0024 JMC Mr. S and Mr. P
C00053 00023 ∂05-Jul-87 0117 JMC re: reply to Helen (re: New York lesbian and gay parade)
C00056 00024 ∂05-Jul-87 1404 JMC
C00057 00025 ∂06-Jul-87 0933 JMC re: JPL Issue on Logic & AI
C00058 00026 ∂06-Jul-87 0935 JMC re: What are the phone numbers for...
C00059 00027 ∂06-Jul-87 1103 JMC telegram
C00060 00028 ∂06-Jul-87 1603 JMC
C00061 00029 ∂06-Jul-87 1611 JMC
C00062 00030 ∂06-Jul-87 1744 JMC re: history of the department
C00064 00031 ∂06-Jul-87 1745 JMC re: Inverse Method and KLAUS
C00065 00032 ∂06-Jul-87 2036 JMC talk
C00066 00033 ∂06-Jul-87 2039 JMC re: The Frame problem
C00067 00034 ∂06-Jul-87 2200 JMC re: Mr. P. and Mr. S.
C00068 00035 ∂06-Jul-87 2258 JMC
C00069 00036 ∂07-Jul-87 0209 JMC re: IFIP working conference in Canton July 4-8, 1988
C00070 00037 ∂07-Jul-87 1227 JMC re: friday
C00071 00038 ∂07-Jul-87 2112 JMC
C00072 00039 ∂08-Jul-87 0053 JMC re: IFIP working conference, visit to Beijing
C00073 00040 ∂08-Jul-87 0252 JMC America is a violent country?
C00076 00041 ∂08-Jul-87 1812 JMC Consulting fee
C00078 00042 ∂08-Jul-87 1814 JMC re: Consulting fee
C00083 00043 ∂09-Jul-87 0021 JMC re: liberal reporters?
C00084 00044 ∂09-Jul-87 0856 JMC re: Time Problems
C00085 00045 ∂09-Jul-87 1029 JMC lunch tomorrow
C00086 00046 ∂09-Jul-87 1035 JMC words for DARPA
C00087 00047 ∂09-Jul-87 1046 JMC re: Time Problems
C00088 00048 ∂09-Jul-87 1138 JMC
C00089 00049 ∂09-Jul-87 1155 JMC re: Private funds for government operations
C00092 00050 ∂09-Jul-87 1656 JMC re: Time Problems
C00093 00051 ∂09-Jul-87 1658 JMC re: lunch tomorrow
C00094 00052 ∂09-Jul-87 1704 JMC re: a few of my "favorite things" about Oliver North
C00095 00053 ∂09-Jul-87 2131 JMC re: qlet
C00096 00054 ∂09-Jul-87 2234 JMC
C00097 00055 ∂10-Jul-87 1019 JMC Natural kinds
C00103 00056 ∂10-Jul-87 1142 JMC Conflict of Visions
C00105 00057 ∂10-Jul-87 1154 JMC quote for today
C00106 00058 ∂10-Jul-87 1358 JMC
C00112 00059 ∂10-Jul-87 1502 JMC re: Mr. P & Mr. S
C00113 00060 ∂10-Jul-87 1714 JMC Liberalism of journalists
C00115 00061 ∂10-Jul-87 1827 JMC re: Liberalism of journalists
C00117 00062 ∂11-Jul-87 1656 JMC North
C00124 00063 ∂11-Jul-87 1732 JMC re: correction
C00125 00064 ∂11-Jul-87 1734 JMC re: martial law
C00126 00065 ∂11-Jul-87 1747 JMC North
C00128 00066 ∂11-Jul-87 2147 JMC re: Preliminary inventory of free countries in the UN
C00129 00067 ∂11-Jul-87 2200 JMC re: Preliminary inventory of free countries in the UN
C00130 00068 ∂11-Jul-87 2217 JMC Timothy's fortune
C00131 00069 ∂11-Jul-87 2250 JMC commentary on Smolensky article
C00132 00070 ∂12-Jul-87 0115 JMC re: Israel's qualifications as a free country
C00134 00071 ∂12-Jul-87 0843 JMC re: Peru's qualification as a free country
C00136 00072 ∂12-Jul-87 1111 JMC re: Shining path is not an Indian group, because
C00138 00073 ∂12-Jul-87 1216 JMC re: countries supporting the contra
C00140 00074 ∂12-Jul-87 1240 JMC Sendero Luminoso
C00141 00075 ∂12-Jul-87 1524 JMC (→20626 17-Jul-87)
C00142 00076 ∂13-Jul-87 1503 JMC
C00143 00077 ∂13-Jul-87 1507 JMC
C00144 00078 ∂16-Jul-87 2122 JMC re: textbooks
C00145 00079 ∂16-Jul-87 2207 JMC re: AIList Digest V5 #181
C00147 00080 ∂17-Jul-87 0000 JMC Expired plan
C00148 00081 ∂17-Jul-87 1314 JMC touch
C00149 00082 ∂17-Jul-87 1320 JMC touch
C00150 00083 ∂17-Jul-87 1347 JMC test function for qlisp
C00151 00084 ∂18-Jul-87 1933 JMC re: private American armies
C00152 00085 ∂18-Jul-87 2051 JMC
C00153 00086 ∂18-Jul-87 2315 JMC re: [Robert L. Causey <AI.CAUSEY@R20.UTEXAS.EDU>: Natural Kinds]
C00156 00087 ∂19-Jul-87 1155 JMC re: thanks
C00157 00088 ∂19-Jul-87 2120 JMC Contra support in Central America
C00160 00089 ∂19-Jul-87 2204 JMC re: NASA Money?
C00161 00090 ∂20-Jul-87 1000 JMC re: Visiting Appointment Expenses
C00162 00091 ∂20-Jul-87 1002 JMC re: Visiting Appointment Expenses
C00163 00092 ∂20-Jul-87 1240 JMC
C00164 00093 ∂20-Jul-87 1320 JMC two invoices to send
C00165 00094 ∂20-Jul-87 1656 JMC
C00166 00095 ∂20-Jul-87 1740 JMC
C00167 00096 ∂20-Jul-87 2202 JMC re: Liam Peyton's Messages on Nicaragua
C00169 00097 ∂20-Jul-87 2211 JMC re: GI-Joe
C00171 00098 ∂20-Jul-87 2223 JMC re: Lyn & JMC on Nicaragua
C00174 00099 ∂21-Jul-87 0011 JMC
C00175 00100 ∂21-Jul-87 1156 JMC connectionist summer school
C00176 00101 ∂21-Jul-87 1157 JMC connectionist models summer school
C00181 00102 ∂21-Jul-87 1208 JMC
C00185 00103 ∂21-Jul-87 1236 JMC comparison
C00187 00104 ∂21-Jul-87 1301 JMC
C00188 00105 ∂21-Jul-87 1306 JMC Tom Knight
C00189 00106 ∂21-Jul-87 1333 JMC re: alex
C00190 00107 ∂21-Jul-87 1705 JMC loop
C00192 00108 ∂21-Jul-87 1755 JMC Here is the original A.P. story again.
C00195 00109 ∂21-Jul-87 2207 JMC re: Loop
C00196 00110 ∂22-Jul-87 1452 JMC
C00197 00111 ∂23-Jul-87 1624 JMC re: Alliant memory
C00198 00112 ∂24-Jul-87 1819 JMC re: reply to message
C00199 00113 ∂24-Jul-87 1827 JMC re: Ronald Reagan's AIDS commission: the conservative majority
C00201 00114 ∂24-Jul-87 1848 JMC re: Readings on scientific explanation
C00202 00115 ∂25-Jul-87 0015 JMC
C00203 00116 ∂25-Jul-87 1820 JMC re: Inverse Method Project Schedule
C00204 00117 ∂26-Jul-87 1257 JMC re: liberal bias in SU Humanities departments
C00205 00118 ∂26-Jul-87 1311 JMC re: liberal bias in SU Humanities departments
C00206 00119 ∂27-Jul-87 0012 JMC re: JPL Issue on Logic & AI
C00207 00120 ∂27-Jul-87 1403 JMC
C00208 00121 ∂27-Jul-87 1711 JMC t among those registered to vote.
C00213 00122 ∂27-Jul-87 1726 JMC salvage from the Titanic
C00215 00123 ∂27-Jul-87 2217 JMC
C00216 00124 ∂28-Jul-87 1146 JMC measuring the bias of press
C00224 00125 ∂28-Jul-87 1445 JMC re: Course at Austin
C00225 00126 ∂28-Jul-87 1531 JMC re: A question both of you agree on (I think?)
C00226 00127 ∂28-Jul-87 1700 JMC re: Problems with TheoryNet redistribution through AFLB
C00227 00128 ∂29-Jul-87 1307 JMC re: pictures
C00228 00129 ∂29-Jul-87 1458 JMC re: [AAAI <AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU>: Committee involvement]
C00230 00130 ∂30-Jul-87 1442 JMC workshop policies
C00234 00131 ∂31-Jul-87 1840 JMC re: your paper, "Circumscription -- a Form of Non-monotonic Reasoning"
C00235 00132 ∂31-Jul-87 1845 JMC Beer
C00236 00133 ∂01-Aug-87 0056 JMC Beers
C00237 00134 ∂01-Aug-87 0835 JMC re: Beers
C00238 00135 ∂01-Aug-87 1225 JMC re: Lying
C00241 00136 ∂01-Aug-87 1723 JMC covert actions
C00248 00137 ∂01-Aug-87 1738 JMC re: JMC and major/minor issues
C00251 00138 ∂01-Aug-87 2220 JMC visas
C00253 00139 ∂02-Aug-87 1254 JMC re: Lying
C00256 00140 ∂02-Aug-87 1344 JMC re: international terrorism
C00259 00141 ∂02-Aug-87 1429 JMC Tohoku lecture
C00260 00142 ∂02-Aug-87 1513 JMC report
C00261 00143 ∂02-Aug-87 2159 JMC AI and science
C00267 00144 ∂03-Aug-87 1430 JMC manufacturing science
C00268 00145 ∂03-Aug-87 1442 JMC re: Hitler's ends and means (1 of 3)
C00271 00146 ∂03-Aug-87 2344 JMC AAAI will support the workshop on Open Systems for up to $7K. Please
C00272 00147 ∂03-Aug-87 2353 JMC AAAI will support it with $10K. Please make all further arrangements
C00274 ENDMK
C⊗;
∂01-Jul-87 0925 JMC NSF Announcement
To: RPG
∂01-Jul-87 0800 RICHARDSON@Score.Stanford.EDU NSF Announcement
Received: from SCORE.STANFORD.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 1 Jul 87 07:52:24 PDT
Date: Wed 1 Jul 87 07:44:43-PDT
From: Anne Richardson <RICHARDSON@Score.Stanford.EDU>
Subject: NSF Announcement
To: faculty@Score.Stanford.EDU
Message-ID: <12314899745.11.RICHARDSON@Score.Stanford.EDU>
I have an NSF announcement in my office regarding a CISE Institutional
Infrastructure Program --- the purpose of which is to provide support to
aid in the establishment, enhancement and operation of a major experimental
facilities planned to support research activities in all CISE-research areas.
Should anyone have interest, feel free to come by my office and peruse.
-Anne
-------
∂01-Jul-87 0958 JMC re: reply to message
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 01-Jul-87 09:54-PT.]
I'll be in in an hour. If you're going before then, Carolyn could
give you a check for $1446. I assume you are also being soaked as
a rich capitalist.
∂01-Jul-87 1124 JMC re:
To: glenda@ARGUS.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent 1 Jul 1987 1030-PDT.]
Yes.
∂01-Jul-87 1125 JMC QLISP FUNDING
To: CLT
∂01-Jul-87 1009 scherlis@vax.darpa.mil QLISP FUNDING
Received: from VAX.DARPA.MIL by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 1 Jul 87 10:09:44 PDT
Posted-Date: Wed 1 Jul 87 11:27:07-EDT
Received: by vax.darpa.mil (5.54/5.51)
id AA20525; Wed, 1 Jul 87 11:27:11 EDT
Date: Wed 1 Jul 87 11:27:07-EDT
From: William L. Scherlis <SCHERLIS@vax.darpa.mil>
Subject: QLISP FUNDING
To: JMC@sail.stanford.edu, LES@sail.stanford.edu
Cc: wade@vax.darpa.mil
Message-Id: <552151627.0.SCHERLIS@VAX.DARPA.MIL>
Mail-System-Version: <VAX-MM(213)+TOPSLIB(128)@VAX.DARPA.MIL>
TO: Principal Investigators in the DARPA Software Design Program.
This is the first community-wide communication concerning technical,
management, and funding-related issues in the DARPA/ISTO Software
Design Research Program. The issues addressed here are primarily
administrative, but the intent is that this mailing list be generally
available to facilitate informal interaction within our community. I
will publish the mailing list in the next few weeks. Certain people
who are not currently supported are included in the list for
information and coordination purposes. Every group that is currently
funded or about to be funded should respond to this message. Thanks,
Bill Scherlis
================================================================
1. We are planning a PI meeting on 15-17 Sep 87 in conjunction with
the Computer Architecture Program. There will be a joint session with
Architecture PIs to discuss parallel software and separate sessions so
we can discuss internal Software Research matters. Details will
follow, but please mark your calendar now.
2. DARPA policy now requires that certain information about all
funded projects be provided EVERY YEAR for the purposes of justifying
yearly increments of funds. PROMPT ACTION ON YOUR PART IS REQUIRED
FOR FUNDING TO CONTINUE. We will use the information you provide to
generate internal documents that generate the next increment of funds.
Responses should be sent to Denise Wade (at WADE@VAX.DARPA.MIL) with a
copy to me (at SCHERLIS@VAX.DARPA.MIL). If you don't get an
acknowledgement in 24 hours, please give us a call. We must have your
response in one week.
I need information concerning (1) Research accomplishments in the
current fiscal year (FY87: 1 Oct 86 -- 30 Sep 87) and (2) Research
objectives for the forthcoming fiscal year (FY88: 1 Oct 87 -- 30 Sep
88). I am also soliciting for our own internal ISTO purposes some
information concerning publications and component technologies.
If you have more than one arpa order or contract (or task option
invoked), you should respond separately for each.
An example response (for form, not content) is included below. Please
avoid jargon. Please be crisp, technical, and specific. Please be
succinct.
The following six items should be included in your response:
[1] Project title (make it meaningful), Arpa order number, contract
number, and description of project objectives (1-2 sentences).
[2] Objectives for FY88 (2 or 3 bullets of 1-2 sentences).
[3] Accomplishments from FY87 (2 or 3 bullets).
[4] Explanation of why this research should be continued.
[5] (For ISTO use only) Component technologies being produced.
Component technologies produced elsewhere that are being used or are
under consideration for use.
"Component technologies" is a generic phrase meant to include all
portable technologies, including, for example, software subsystems
(e.g., Mach, X windows, CLF components), language and subsystem
definitions (Gist, Refine, E-L, CLOS), abstract data type definitions
(higher order patterns, CLX, decorated abstract syntax trees), new
algorithms, and so on.
[6] A list of major publications in the past year arising from DARPA
sponsored research. Other important publications and milestones can
also be mentioned.
================
I thank Allan Sears for the following Rules of Thumb and for providing
the project example below:
- Try to use active verbs like "developed",
"implemented", etc., to introduce the sentences for
objectives and accomplishments.
- You may deviate as you think necessary for
your research program and your needs. For example,
If you just started the research then only one
accomplishment bullet may be appropriate.
- Make the accomplishments and objectives say
something. If it isn't good enough I will work
with you to make it better. But delays may mean
delays in your incremental funding.
Please acknowledge this message to Denise Wade (address above, phone
(202)694-5800) so we don't call and hound you.
================
GENERAL PROJECT EXAMPLE (not including
component technologies information)
PROJECT TITLE: (a short title to give semantic meaning of the
research)
"Automated Software Development"
ARPA ORDER NUMBER: xxxx
CONTRACT NUMBER: yyyyyyyyyyyy
PROJECT OBJECTIVE: (1-2 sentences)
The objective of this research is to develop automated software tools
to allow both general software development and specific software
generation for expert systems.
OBJECTIVES FOR FY 88: (1-2 sentences for each bullet)
- Integrate formal specifications into the Formalized System
Development (FSD) framework and provide full life-cycle automated
support for program generation and maintenance. Identify and
implement rules that govern software development in this environment.
- Create a top-level knowledge base for expert system generation that
provides a basic structure for further problem domain knowledge
construction. This will allow expert system developers to create new
expert systems by specializing existing knowledge, rather than
constructing everything from scratch each time.
- Demonstrate the effectiveness of the expert system building
framework by actually developing one or more significant expert
systems with the tools developed under this effort.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS FOR FY87: (1-2 sentences for each bullet)
- Developed an initial testbed for specification-based software
development which incorporates an AI operating system, support
software for specification management and implementation, and a
generic user interface.
- Provided representations for several kinds of knowledge needed to
support different classes of explanation. Such knowledge bases
include domain-descriptive knowledge, problem-solving knowledge, and
terminology.
- Designed and implemented a program writer that partially generates
Lisp implementations of expert systems from high-level specifications
of the problem domain.
WHY THIS EFFORT SHOULD BE CONTINUED: (1-3 sentences max)
The need to improve software productivity is critical for DoD. This
work will produce important demonstrations and will produce and
distribute to the community useful tools and environments for software
development.
================================================================
-------
∂01-Jul-87 1356 JMC
To: JK
John Nafeh's number is 408 943-1711, and it looks like a fit is probable.
∂01-Jul-87 1450 JMC
To: JJW
Please find out what she wants and deal with it. Looks like she has l instead of 1.
∂01-Jul-87 1444 glenda@argus.stanford.edu re:
Received: from ARGUS.STANFORD.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 1 Jul 87 14:44:15 PDT
Received: by argus.stanford.edu; Wed, 1 Jul 87 14:36:59 PDT
Date: 1 Jul 1987 1436-PDT (Wednesday)
From: Glenda Scarbrough <glenda@argus.stanford.edu>
To: John McCarthy <JMC@sail.stanford.edu>
Cc: glenda@argus.stanford.edu
Subject: re:
In-Reply-To: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU> /
01 Jul 87 1124 PDT.
John, do you know or can you find out what the ethernet address for
"Ibmrtpcl" is and does it have a mail forwarding address and if so
what? Thanks for your help. Glenda
∂01-Jul-87 1519 JMC
To: ai.woody@MCC.COM
Woods, William A. 617 492-7322, woods@harvard.harvard.edu
Chief Scientist, Applied Expert Systems, Inc.
Five Cambridge Center
Cambridge, MA 02142
∂01-Jul-87 2256 JMC re: The REAL Mr. P and Mr. S!
To: DON@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message rcvd 01-Jul-87 22:39-PT.]
I have been looking for the source of the problem. Whoever told it to
me some years ago said he saw it on a bulleting board at PARC.
Mr. S's first statement is somewhat murky, and I fixed it when I
popularized the problem as one of formalizing reasoning about knowledge.
You seem to have the original version, and therefore might be able to
help track down the source. Namely, you have "I knew you don't know"
which isn't good English and admits the interpretation "I knew then
that you wouldn't know even now". I puzzled over the interpretation,
decided that the wording was bad and changed it to "I knew you didn't
know". Anyway, have you any clue about how the problem got on the
PARC bulletin board?
∂02-Jul-87 1151 JMC
To: JJW
I have a message to call Tom Burns or to have an associate call him
about a mini-supercomputer at 617 872-8200. Please find out what he
wants and whether it has relevance. Most likely he's just a salesman.
∂02-Jul-87 1358 JMC
To: AIR
Alan Snyder
Hewlett-Packard
P.O. Box 10490
Palo Alto, CA 94303
It needs to be taken to the Post Office today - not merely
left in the Department's outgoing mail.
∂02-Jul-87 1838 JMC re: Messrs P and S
To: K.KARN@LEAR.STANFORD.EDU
CC: su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from K.KARN@lear.stanford.edu sent Thu 2 Jul 87 17:25:19-PDT.]
"between 1 and 100" must be interpreted as excluding 1 and 100 to get the
way the problem appeared in the AI community. The limits were stated as 2
=< m,n =< 99. I'm pretty sure that allowing 1 makes the problem less
interesting.
∂02-Jul-87 2102 JMC re: Mr. P. and Mr. S.
To: ROKICKI@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from ROKICKI@sushi.stanford.edu sent Thu 2 Jul 87 19:20:31-PDT.]
Excluding 1 and 100 and letting Mr. S say "I knew you didn't know" leaves
exactly one solution. Should I tell it?
∂02-Jul-87 2324 JMC re: Mr. P. and Mr. S.
To: ROKICKI@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Thu 2 Jul 87 23:13:53-PDT.]
The numbers are 4 and 13. I believe the computations required to
verify that this is the unique solution are not too burdensome,
although I wrote a small Lisp program to do it.
∂03-Jul-87 1215 JMC
To: CLT
07-06 tues. 7pm, Dinah's Shack with Mikhail Bernstam et famille
∂03-Jul-87 1507 JMC
To: CLT
07-07 tues. 7pm, Dinah's Shack with Mikhail Bernstam et famille
∂03-Jul-87 2002 JMC re: Lowell's "directions"
To: RDZ@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Fri, 3 Jul 1987 19:09 PDT.]
I'm wondering if I should bring some firecrackers.
Suppose I see you at the office at 11am.
∂04-Jul-87 0014 JMC re: Chat
To: RPG
[In reply to message rcvd 03-Jul-87 22:43-PT.]
As you wish.
∂04-Jul-87 1842 JMC friday morning
To: jmb@ANGBAND.S1.GOV
See you then. I'll need a new red badge. Also please remind Lowell.
∂04-Jul-87 2242 JMC re: interesting book
To: perlis@YOOHOO.CS.UMD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Sun, 5 Jul 87 00:55:15 EDT.]
Thanks for the reference; I'll get it from the library.
∂05-Jul-87 0020 JMC workshop support
To: kahn.pa@XEROX.COM
CC: aaai-office@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU
AAAI will grant $1,000 to your "small informal workshop on concurrent
committed-choice logic programming, meta-programming, and open systems
on September 8 and 9". Please arrange details with Claudia Mazzetti
at the AAAI office.
∂05-Jul-87 0024 JMC Mr. S and Mr. P
To: Pratt@NAVAJO.STANFORD.EDU
Any chance that you know the source?
∂04-Jul-87 2345 Woods.PA@Xerox.COM Re: The REAL Mr. P and Mr. S!
Received: from XEROX.COM by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 4 Jul 87 23:45:44 PDT
Received: from Burger.ms by ArpaGateway.ms ; 03 JUL 87 17:05:52 PDT
Date: 3 Jul 87 11:13:20 PDT (Friday)
Subject: Re: The REAL Mr. P and Mr. S!
In-reply-to: JMC's message of 01 Jul 87 22:56 PDT
To: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU>
cc: DON@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
From: Don Woods <Woods.pa@Xerox.COM>
Message-ID: <870703-170552-108@Xerox>
I don't think I saw it on the PARC bboard. I was still at Stanford at
the time (early '78). Judging from Pratt's comment, the problem had
been around at least since October '77. I suspect I saw a copy that you
were spreading around SAIL.
It appears that Pratt is closer to the source; you might try him. Also,
his message about the significance of the 1-100 restriction made mention
of a file "AI:PRATT;CGOLMA". It's possible that "CGOLMA" has some
significance that escapes me at the moment.
-- Don.
∂05-Jul-87 0117 JMC re: reply to Helen (re: New York lesbian and gay parade)
To: R.ROLAND@LEAR.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from R.ROLAND@lear.stanford.edu sent Sat 4 Jul 87 23:54:42-PDT.]
Roland van Gaalen's reply to Helen Cunningham thoughtlessly jeopardizes
the victim status of homosexuals. If "gays" are to maintain their
certified "victim of society" status about whom it is "...ist" or
"...phobic" to make fun, they must preserve a properly solemn attitude
toward making fun of ALL certified victim groups. Now Roland may
suppose that victim status isn't necessary any more, but he should
remember that next year is an election year, and some Democrats
are actually proposing to give up the Party's image as the representative
of the blacks, homosexuals, women, homeless and retarded in order
to win the votes of the bourgeois middle class and the even more bourgeois
working class. Victim status is worth money, offices and publicity
and shouldn't be given up lightly.
It reminds me of something I read many years ago in my father's
Carpenters' Union magazine. It said that working with forms for
pouring concrete was in the Carpenters' Union jurisdiction even
if the forms were made of metal. It pointed out that while working
with metal forms rather than wood might not be especially congenial
to carpenters, every bit of jurisdiction would be valuable when
the next depression came, and this jurisdiction should not be allowed
to lapse to the Laborers and Hod Carriers Union.
Likewise, more experienced members of the "gay community" should
point out to Roland that every bit of victim status is potentially
valuable and should not be allowed to lapse.
∂05-Jul-87 1404 JMC
To: RA
Please tex and make me a copy of hoter.tex[w76,jmc] if you haven't yet.
∂06-Jul-87 0933 JMC re: JPL Issue on Logic & AI
To: Rich.Thomason@C.CS.CMU.EDU
[In reply to message sent Mon 6 Jul 87 09:56:56-EDT.]
I'll be here this week except for Friday during the day, and I'll be
at AAAI at least for the first few days. I also think the special issue
is a good idea.
∂06-Jul-87 0935 JMC re: What are the phone numbers for...
To: BOUSSE@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Sun 5 Jul 87 23:05:09-PDT.]
I believe the former is (or was) 760, and the latter is 767-1212.
∂06-Jul-87 1103 JMC telegram
To: RA
I received a telegram via Stanford Communications from Ershov in
Novosibirsk about an invitation. Please reply that my passport
number is 050056916 and my birthdate is September 4, 1927. Get
the return address for the telegram from Stanford Communications
and also put it in PHON with Ershov's name.
∂06-Jul-87 1603 JMC
To: RA
I need a copy of Reiter's nonmonotonic survey for Alice ter Meulen.
∂06-Jul-87 1611 JMC
To: RA
Maybe Vladimir can find it easily, and Carolyn can give it to Alice.
∂06-Jul-87 1744 JMC re: history of the department
To: FEIGENBAUM@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU,
golub%SCORE.STANFORD.EDU@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU,
floyd%SCORE.STANFORD.EDU@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU,
DEK@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
CC: nilsson%SCORE.STANFORD.EDU@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from FEIGENBAUM@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU sent Mon, 6 Jul 87 17:13:27 PDT.]
My understanding is that Terman recruited Forsythe around 1960 to form
a computer science department starting with a computer science division
of the math department with himself and John Herriot as initial members.
I was the first new hire, though maybe Gene came at the same time also.
Herriot should also be asked.
∂06-Jul-87 1745 JMC re: Inverse Method and KLAUS
To: brink@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU
CC: VAL@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from brink@Sushi.Stanford.EDU sent Mon 6 Jul 87 15:48:15-PDT.]
I know nothing of KLAUS.
∂06-Jul-87 2036 JMC talk
To: rdz@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU
If you want to talk tonight, I'll be at home baby sitting after 9:30.
You can come by. Phone first 857-0672.
∂06-Jul-87 2039 JMC re: The Frame problem
To: kumard%cs.buffalo.edu@RELAY.CS.NET
[In reply to message sent Mon, 6 Jul 87 23:31:00 EDT.]
They didn't print it, because I didn't write it. I will, however,
be at AAAI.
∂06-Jul-87 2200 JMC re: Mr. P. and Mr. S.
To: SWEER@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Mon, 6 Jul 87 21:49:32 PDT.]
The fact that those candidate solutions allow the sum to be the sum of
two primes implies that none of them are solutions. Indeed this shows
that the sum cannot be even, since otherwise the Goldbach conjecture
that every even number is the sum of two primes would have small
counterexamples.
∂06-Jul-87 2258 JMC
To: ALS
Is there still an American checker champion?
∂07-Jul-87 0209 JMC re: IFIP working conference in Canton July 4-8, 1988
To: SOLVBERG%NORUNIT.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU
[In reply to message sent Mon, 06 Jul 87 09:52:56 ECT.]
I have already made a commitment for the week before the conference
but could visit Peking afterwards.
∂07-Jul-87 1227 JMC re: friday
To: SHOHAM@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Tue 7 Jul 87 12:03:33-PDT.]
I'll be in Livermore Friday.
∂07-Jul-87 2112 JMC
To: CLT
SSRL 854-3300 Susan Lovegren is the Stanford contact.
∂08-Jul-87 0053 JMC re: IFIP working conference, visit to Beijing
To: SOLVBERG%NORUNIT.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU
[In reply to message sent Wed, 08 Jul 87 08:51:37 ECT.]
No need. He has written to me, and I am replying.
∂08-Jul-87 0252 JMC America is a violent country?
To: su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
The common practice of quoting only average statistics perpetrates
polite fictions. Only certain subpopulations are particularly
violent, but journalists and social scientists are reluctant to
identify them for fear of giving offense to liberals. This leads
to generalized proposals for dealing with the problem rather than
proposals targeted towards the populations at risk. My subjective
impression for lack of actual data is that the black populations
of certain poor areas have enormous murder rates, and certain
poor rural populations have high rates regardless of race. Yuppies
have very low rates of murder. Does anyone know a source of actual
statistics.
∂08-Jul-87 1812 JMC Consulting fee
To: RA
∂08-Jul-87 1812 rms%lemon.Berkeley.EDU@jade.berkeley.edu Consulting fee
Received: from JADE.Berkeley.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 8 Jul 87 18:12:17 PDT
Received: from tart8.berkeley.edu
by jade.berkeley.edu (5.54 (CFC 4.22.3)/1.16.15)
id AA20781; Wed, 8 Jul 87 18:11:54 PDT
Received: by tart8.berkeley.edu (3.2/SMI-3.0DEV3.7)
id AA04258; Wed, 8 Jul 87 18:11:56 PDT
Date: Wed, 8 Jul 87 18:11:56 PDT
From: rms%lemon.Berkeley.EDU@jade.berkeley.edu
Message-Id: <8707090111.AA04258@tart8.berkeley.edu>
To: jmc@sail.stanford.edu
Subject: Consulting fee
Reply-To: rms@prep.ai.mit.edu
I sent you an invoice for the $500 about a month ago.
I have not yet received the money. Has it been sent yet?
I will be in Berkeley for the duration of the summer.
My phone number here is 540-0725. My address here is
2408 Atherton St
Berkeley CA 94704.
(I gave another address in care of someone at UCB on the invoice.
That address is ok too.)
∂08-Jul-87 1814 JMC re: Consulting fee
To: rms@PREP.AI.MIT.EDU
CC: RA@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Wed, 8 Jul 87 18:11:56 PDT.]
I'll have Rutie check.
∂09-Jul-87 0021 JMC re: liberal reporters?
To: isaacs@PSYCH.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from isaacs@psych.stanford.edu sent Wed, 8 Jul 87 23:33:03 PDT.]
Sorry, I've forgotten the exact source. I remember that there was both a
self-characterization as liberal or conservative part of the poll of
reporters (not publishers) and questions about specific attitudes. The
only one of the latter I remember was whether the U.S. was responsible for
the poverty of the underdeveloped countries.
∂09-Jul-87 0856 JMC re: Time Problems
To: THOMASON@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Thu 9 Jul 87 08:16:01-PDT.]
Saturday would be ok if that would help or even Sunday.
∂09-Jul-87 1029 JMC lunch tomorrow
To: shoham@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU
My Livermore trip tomorrow was cancelled, so I'm available for lunch
if your plan is still on.
∂09-Jul-87 1035 JMC words for DARPA
To: CLT
The Qlisp approach to making parallel processing computers for Lisp
still looks appropriate for systems with moderate numbers of processes.
Qlisp's assumption of shared memory is still the only one that will
clearly work. The project is approximately on schedule
with Qlisp experimental availability projected for the end of summer.
In the meantime, the implementation of OPS-5 in Qlisp by Gupta and ...
indicates that Qlisp is suitable for expert system shells and
indicates which of the Qlisp facilities need to be optimized.
∂09-Jul-87 1046 JMC re: Time Problems
To: THOMASON@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Thu 9 Jul 87 08:16:01-PDT.]
Besides that my meeting for tomorrow has been cancelled, so tomorrow
is open.
∂09-Jul-87 1138 JMC
To: RA
What files do you have that your successor will need?
∂09-Jul-87 1155 JMC re: Private funds for government operations
To: SCOTT@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from SCOTT@Sierra.Stanford.EDU sent Thu 9 Jul 87 11:29:28-PDT.]
Certainly North's activities violated the intent of the Boland Amendment.
However, there is an ambiguity involving the respective powers the
Constitution assigns to the President and Congress. The appropriation of
money is unambiguously assigned to Congress. Foreign policy is assigned
to the President. However, he must obey the laws. This, however, has
never been interpreted by the Supreme Court as meaning that the Congress
can order the President to do whatever it wants. Impatient people will
urge that the matter be straightened out once and for all, i.e. the powers
of Congress and the President. However, that isn't the way it has worked
in the past, is likely to work this time, or should work. The operation
of Government has depended on no branch of Government pushing its
prerogatives to the limit. Scott's hypothetical examples involve pushing
the President's foreign policy powers to the limit. This isn't where the
actual controversies lie.
My own opinion is that North is a hero - only partly because I agree with
what he was trying to accomplish. However, he and others may have gone
beyond a reasonable interpretation of the powers of the President, and he
certainly made various bungles. I suspect he will have to leave the
Marine Corps, because any future assignment he might receive will be
given a political interpretation, and probably the Marines can't handle
that.
∂09-Jul-87 1656 JMC re: Time Problems
To: THOMASON@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Thu 9 Jul 87 12:43:32-PDT.]
(home: 415 857-0672) (office: 723-4430)
∂09-Jul-87 1658 JMC re: lunch tomorrow
To: SHOHAM@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Thu 9 Jul 87 13:29:44-PDT.]
OK, I'd make the reservation if I knew how many. I suggest you make it
for noon if you're a member. Otherwise let me know.
∂09-Jul-87 1704 JMC re: a few of my "favorite things" about Oliver North
To: helen@PSYCH.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from helen@psych.stanford.edu sent Thu, 9 Jul 87 12:01:55 PDT.]
There sure is a nice correlation between one's personal reaction to
various people on TV and one's attitude to what they are trying to accomplish.
Some psychologist should study the phenomenon.
∂09-Jul-87 2131 JMC re: qlet
To: CLT
[In reply to message rcvd 09-Jul-87 21:29-PT.]
Ok with me.
∂09-Jul-87 2234 JMC
To: RA
perlis.re1
∂10-Jul-87 1019 JMC Natural kinds
To: ailist@STRIPE.SRI.COM
Recently philosophers, Hilary Putnam I think, introduced the concept
of natural kind which, in my opinion, is one of the few things they
have done that is useful for AI. Most nouns designate natural kinds,
uncontroversially "bird", and in my opinion, even "chair". (I don't
consider "natural kind" to be a linguistic term, because there may
be undiscovered natural kinds and never articulated natural kinds).
The clearest examples of natural kind are biological species -
say penguin. We don't have a definition of penguin; rather we
have learned to recognize penguins. Penguins have many properties
I don't know about; some unknown even to penguin specialists.
However, I can tell penguins from seagulls without a precise definition,
because there aren't any intermediates existing in nature.
Therefore, the criteria used by people or by the programs we build
can be quite rough, and we don't all need to use the same criteria,
because we will come out with the same answer in the cases that
actually arise.
In my view the same is true of chairs. With apologies to Don Norman,
I note that my 20 month old son Timothy recognizes chairs and tables.
So far as I know, he is always right about the whether the objects
in our house are chairs. He also recognizes toy chairs, but just
calls them "chair" and similarly treats pictures of chairs in books.
He doesn't yet say "real chair", "toy chair" and "picture of a chair",
but he doesn't try to sit on pictures of chairs. He is entirely
prepared to be corrected about what an object is. For example, he
called a tomato "apple" and accepted correction.
We should try to make AI systems as good as children in this respect.
When a an object is named, the system should generate a
gensym, e.g. G00137. To this symbol should be attached the name
and what the system is to remember about the instance. (Whether it
remembers a prototype or a criterion is independent of this discussion;
my prejudice is that it should do both if it can. The utility of
prototypes depends on how good we have made it in handling similarities.)
The system should presume (defeasibly) that there is more to the concept
than it has learned and that some of what it has learned may be wrong.
It should also presume (although will usually be built into the design
rather than be linguistically represented) that the new concept is
a useful way to distinguish features of the world, although some new
concepts will turn out to be mere social conventions.
Attaching if-and-only-if definitions to concepts will sometimes be
possible, and mathematical concepts often are introduced by definitions.
However, this is a rare case in common sense experience.
I'm not sure that philosophers will agree with treating chairs as
natural kinds, because it is easy to invent intermediates between
chairs and other furniture. However, I think it is psychologically
correct and advantageous for AI, because we and our robots exist
in a world in which doubtful cases are rare.
The mini-controversy about penguins can be treated from this point of
view. That penguins are birds and whales are mammals has been discovered
by science. Many of the properties that penguins have in common with
other birds have not even been discovered yet, but we are confident that
they exist. It is not a matter of definition. He who gets fanatical
about arbitrary definitions will make many mistakes - for example,
classifying penguins with seals will lead to not finding tasty penguin
eggs.
∂10-Jul-87 1142 JMC Conflict of Visions
To: su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
Relevant to bboard controversies is the following quote from Thomas Sowell's
"A Conflict of Visions". Sowell is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution.
"One of the curious things about political opinions is how
often the same people line up on opposite sides of different
issues. The issues themselves may have no intrinsic
connection with each other. They may range from military
spending to drug laws to monetary policy to education.
Yet the same familiar faces can be found glaring at
each other from opposite sides of the political fence, again
and again. It happens too often to be coincidence and it
is too uncontrolled to be a plot. A closer look at the
arguments on both sides often shows that they are reasoning
from fundamentally different premises. These
different premises - often implicit - are hat provide the
consistency behind the repeated opposiition of individuals
and groups on numerous, unrelated issues. They have
different visions of how the world works."
I recommend the book, although I've just started it. I'm even hoping
to find a source in it for my statement that journalists are overwhelmingly
liberal.
∂10-Jul-87 1154 JMC quote for today
To: MINSKY%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU, Hewitt@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU,
KIRSH%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
The United States Navy is a system designed by geniuses to be operated by idiots.
∂10-Jul-87 1358 JMC
To: shoham@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU
∂10-Jul-87 1019 JMC Natural kinds
To: ailist@STRIPE.SRI.COM
Recently philosophers, Hilary Putnam I think, introduced the concept
of natural kind which, in my opinion, is one of the few things they
have done that is useful for AI. Most nouns designate natural kinds,
uncontroversially "bird", and in my opinion, even "chair". (I don't
consider "natural kind" to be a linguistic term, because there may
be undiscovered natural kinds and never articulated natural kinds).
The clearest examples of natural kind are biological species -
say penguin. We don't have a definition of penguin; rather we
have learned to recognize penguins. Penguins have many properties
I don't know about; some unknown even to penguin specialists.
However, I can tell penguins from seagulls without a precise definition,
because there aren't any intermediates existing in nature.
Therefore, the criteria used by people or by the programs we build
can be quite rough, and we don't all need to use the same criteria,
because we will come out with the same answer in the cases that
actually arise.
In my view the same is true of chairs. With apologies to Don Norman,
I note that my 20 month old son Timothy recognizes chairs and tables.
So far as I know, he is always right about the whether the objects
in our house are chairs. He also recognizes toy chairs, but just
calls them "chair" and similarly treats pictures of chairs in books.
He doesn't yet say "real chair", "toy chair" and "picture of a chair",
but he doesn't try to sit on pictures of chairs. He is entirely
prepared to be corrected about what an object is. For example, he
called a tomato "apple" and accepted correction.
We should try to make AI systems as good as children in this respect.
When a an object is named, the system should generate a
gensym, e.g. G00137. To this symbol should be attached the name
and what the system is to remember about the instance. (Whether it
remembers a prototype or a criterion is independent of this discussion;
my prejudice is that it should do both if it can. The utility of
prototypes depends on how good we have made it in handling similarities.)
The system should presume (defeasibly) that there is more to the concept
than it has learned and that some of what it has learned may be wrong.
It should also presume (although will usually be built into the design
rather than be linguistically represented) that the new concept is
a useful way to distinguish features of the world, although some new
concepts will turn out to be mere social conventions.
Attaching if-and-only-if definitions to concepts will sometimes be
possible, and mathematical concepts often are introduced by definitions.
However, this is a rare case in common sense experience.
I'm not sure that philosophers will agree with treating chairs as
natural kinds, because it is easy to invent intermediates between
chairs and other furniture. However, I think it is psychologically
correct and advantageous for AI, because we and our robots exist
in a world in which doubtful cases are rare.
The mini-controversy about penguins can be treated from this point of
view. That penguins are birds and whales are mammals has been discovered
by science. Many of the properties that penguins have in common with
other birds have not even been discovered yet, but we are confident that
they exist. It is not a matter of definition. He who gets fanatical
about arbitrary definitions will make many mistakes - for example,
classifying penguins with seals will lead to not finding tasty penguin
eggs.
∂10-Jul-87 1502 JMC re: Mr. P & Mr. S
To: SWEER@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Fri, 10 Jul 87 14:49:57 PDT.]
Your friend's solution is correct.
∂10-Jul-87 1714 JMC Liberalism of journalists
To: su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU, Isaacs@PSYCH.STANFORD.EDU
Ellen Isaacs asked me for a reference in connection with my assertion that
90 percent of journalists were liberal citing her own contrary experience.
I said I couldn't remember the source. Today I consulted Stanford's
expert on public opinion, S.M. Lipset, and he found an article "Media and
Business Elites" in Public Opinion, October/November 1981. This is surely
not my source, since I rarely read Public Opinion, though it may have been
the source of my source. This study confirms the general opinion that the
media elite (they tell whom they polled in the article) are far more
liberal than the general population, e.g. 80 percent voted for McGovern in
1972 when 62 percent of the general population voted for Nixon. However,
the percent of liberalism you would get varies according to the
characterization. I have left a copy of the article in the CS Lounge.
∂10-Jul-87 1827 JMC re: Liberalism of journalists
To: M.MCD@HAMLET.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Fri 10 Jul 87 17:57:22-PDT.]
I don't believe it does, but while I was thumbing through the issues since
1981, I came across an article about the Columbia Journalism Review,
documenting its tendencies. I didn't read it, because I was searching
for the other. However, I recall reading something about journalism
students being quite liberal (by poll), and to a reactionary like me,
the Stanford Daily's editorials seem more liberal than students
generally - certainly more liberal than the average BBOARD contributor,
the latter reflecting the more conservative tendency of people
in or aiming towards making the pie bigger rather than towards
redividing it.
∂11-Jul-87 1656 JMC North
To: su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
Thomas Mandel should remember that North was not functioning as a Marine
officer during his tenure at the NSC, i.e. he was not under the command of
higher level Marine officers. Instead he was functioning under the
President under the President's authority to conduct foreign policy, i.e.
not even under the President's function as Commander-in-Chief. As such he had
far greater authorization to improvise policies having political
consequences than is appropriate for a military commander acting in that
role. Indeed the President delegated the kind of policy-making
authority usually given to political appointees. This is the President's
prerogative, but it didn't work out quite as planned. If it did enable
the Contras to survive, then it was mainly a success.
Because of this, North is probably not subject to court-martial. While
the use of serving military officers for essentially civilian functions is
an old custom, I have the impression that the Reagan Administration has
had to use it more than previous administrations, because the State
Department and other parts of the bureaucracy do not have enough people of
the required competence, discretion and sympathy with President Reagan's
goals. To put it bluntly, there is a high probability that if a State
Department career appointee had North's job he would have been a liberal
who would have secretly leaked to the press and sabotaged the job in
other ways. Besides that North is uniquely creative. Unfortunately, as
we computer scientists should know, complex plans are likely to have bugs,
but maybe nothing simpler had a chance to succeed.
I suspect that North will have to leave the Marine Corps regardless of
how the present events turn out, because any subsequent assignments and
promotions will be considered to have political significance. It would
be nice if he were to establish residence in the state from which one
or the other of his chief Senatorial harassers comes.
The Iran-Contra affair again reveals the unnatural reliance of the West
on the U.S. for leadership. There are plenty of countries whose leaders
see preventing the further spread of communism as in their national
interest. Some of them contributed to the Contras when the U.S. Congress
wouldn't, but their contributions had to be solicited by North acting
for the Reagan Administration. This reminds me of a story.
Once in the early 70s, I got into conversation with a German visitor (to
someone else) in the buffet line at the Faculty Club. I forget how it
came up, but he told me that he feared that when Tito died in Yugoslavia,
the Soviets would try again to take over, and he asked me
(approximately), "What are you Americans going to do about it."
It wasn't till an hour later that it occurred to me that my reply
should have been, "I dunno, what are you Germans going to do about it?"
North can say things that Reagan might like to but cannot, especially
when it comes to criticizing Congress. Reagan's greater success with
Congress than previous Republican President's have had is partly due
to his good personal relations with them, stemming in part from his
avoidance of personal criticism. North is not going to be asking
Senators for favors.
As to the contingency plan for martial law, if the U.S. doesn't have
an up-to-date plan for governing a country seriously damaged by nuclear
war, many people have been negligent. Alas, that is not improbable.
It has so far been politically impossible to have any plans for
civil defense, because the liberal media helps liberal politicians
characterize planning for the contingency of war as planning to
start a war or at least as incompatible with efforts to avoid war.
This characterization is such a non-sequitur that it looks to many
of us conservatives like lying, i.e. it's hard for us to believe
that anyone can sincerely believe it.
∂11-Jul-87 1732 JMC re: correction
To: R.ROLAND@LEAR.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from R.ROLAND@lear.stanford.edu sent Sat 11 Jul 87 15:52:33-PDT.]
Well, it appears that not only was Robertson discreet about what North
told him but so was God.
∂11-Jul-87 1734 JMC re: martial law
To: M.MCD@HAMLET.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from M.MCD@HAMLET.STANFORD.EDU sent Sat 11 Jul 87 17:27:22-PDT.]
Are there any actual quotes from this alleged plan?
∂11-Jul-87 1747 JMC North
To: su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
From the end of a news story datelined Managua about Sandinista
interest in the North hearings.
One of the few editorials that has appeared in the region since
North's testimony started was published Thursday by the independent
Tribuna newspaper in Honduras.
''When others flee a ship that seems to be sinking, North remains on
board facing forward. When others seek desperately to save their
skin, blaming whoever, he sustains with deep conviction that what he
did was right, in defense of the interests of the United States and
of its allies,'' the editorial said.
''After what North said, the most important thing is to observe his
adherence without hesitation or detours to his deepest convictions.
Thus we understand with more clarity the fiber that tempers the
spirit of those we call national heroes.''
∂11-Jul-87 2147 JMC re: Preliminary inventory of free countries in the UN
To: LYN@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Sat 11 Jul 87 20:58:42-PDT.]
You omit Israel and Turkey. Also Switzerland is not a member of the U.N.
Every year Freedom House publishes an international inventory of free,
partially free and unfree countries. I don't see how you can include
Mexico and exclude Singapore. Taiwan and South Korea are at least
partially free.
∂11-Jul-87 2200 JMC re: Preliminary inventory of free countries in the UN
To: LYN@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Sat 11 Jul 87 20:58:42-PDT.]
I should also mention that the Freedom House list is in their magazine
Freedom at Issue which is located at Stanford in the Hoover Library -
according to Socrates. You might find it worthwhile to compare your
list with theirs. Classifying countries according to freedom is one
of their main activities.
∂11-Jul-87 2217 JMC Timothy's fortune
To: CLT
I forgot to mention yesterday on our return from the unsuccesful
expedition to the Library that Timothy has started accumulating
wealth. Namely, he found a penny under a bench, and I put it in
the front pocket of the overalls he was wearing. He correctly
identified it as a penny.
∂11-Jul-87 2250 JMC commentary on Smolensky article
To: mind!harnad@PRINCETON.EDU
I plan to comment on it. Because I will be away this week, and my
secretarial situation is uncertain, I'm informing you this way as
well as by the postcard.
∂12-Jul-87 0115 JMC re: Israel's qualifications as a free country
To: LYN@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Sun 12 Jul 87 00:54:45-PDT.]
All citizens of Israel can vote and be elected. However, only Jews and
Druse serve in the army. The West Bank is administered as an occupied
territory and not as part of Israel. Inhabitants thereof can vote in
local elections but aren't citizens of Israel unlike Arab inhabitants of
Israel proper. The votes of Arab deputies to the Knesset were decisive in
defeating the recent proposal that only Orthodox conversions be taken into
account for determining who is a Jew and can automatically immigrate to
Israel.
∂12-Jul-87 0843 JMC re: Peru's qualification as a free country
To: LYN@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from LYN@Sierra.Stanford.EDU sent Sun 12 Jul 87 03:58:33-PDT.]
Shining Path is not exactly an Indian group, since it's run by
a professor. Moreover, it is not possible to "respect civil liberties
in its dealings with the Shining Path", because of Shining Path's
tendency to random massacres. I was about to say "genocidal tendencies",
but fortunately Shining Path is rarely capable of killing more than
a few tens at a time. However, its ideology seems to be as compatible
with genocide as that of the Khmer Rouge. Perhaps I've missed something.
Has anyone seen a document whitewashing Shining Path?
∂12-Jul-87 1111 JMC re: Shining path is not an Indian group, because
To: THEEP@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from THEEP@Sierra.Stanford.EDU sent Sun 12 Jul 87 10:52:31-PDT.]
Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso in Spanish) is characterized as Maoist; in
fact I think it characterizes itself as Maoist. However, terror in the
villages is its key weapon. If a peasant village doesn't support it, it
kills them. Like Khmer Rouge, where the ideology developed in Paris, its
ideology developed in the left wing community in the city (Lima presumably),
and then for Maoist ideological reasons it moved to the countryside. It
still organizes bombings in cities, however. I believe its leaders are
of Helen's generation.
∂12-Jul-87 1216 JMC re: countries supporting the contra
To: M.MCD@LEAR.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Sun 12 Jul 87 11:19:30-PDT.]
It is indeed ironic that there are no democratic countries supporting
the Contras. It is also ironic that the democratic countries of
Europe still depend on 300,000 American troops for their defense.
As to the professor, he could have been an Indian, but it seems to me
that the newspaper article that I read mentioning him would have said
so if he was. He might also be from a working class family, but before
looking it up I'm willing to bet $50 with Theep that he is from a middle
class family of mostly non-Indian background. No fair looking it up before
accepting the bet. Would someone volunteer to locate something about
Sendero Luminoso?
∂12-Jul-87 1240 JMC Sendero Luminoso
To: su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
A Socrates search with subject Sendero generates 28 entries with
many duplications. They are all in Spanish except for one entitled
Revolution in Peru (Berkeley : The Committee to Support the Revolution
in Peru, 1985). I'm prejudiced against that one.
∂12-Jul-87 1524 JMC (→20626 17-Jul-87)
To: "#___JMC.PLN[2,2]"
I'll be at AAAI in Seattle at the Westin Hotel till Thursday evening.
∂13-Jul-87 1503 JMC
To: MS@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
It's half done. I'll try to finish by the end of July.
∂13-Jul-87 1507 JMC
To: JMC
10.0.0.11 for phon
∂16-Jul-87 2122 JMC re: textbooks
To: karen@RATLIFF.CS.UTEXAS.EDU
[In reply to message sent Mon, 13 Jul 87 14:17:34 CDT.]
I use a collection of papers that we have been reproducing for the class
and charging reproduction costs. Is this an option at U.T. also?
∂16-Jul-87 2207 JMC re: AIList Digest V5 #181
To: AIList@STRIPE.SRI.COM
[In reply to message sent Tue 14 Jul 1987 22:58-PDT.]
The distinction I had in mind between natural kind and cluster is
the presumed existence of as yet unknown properties of a natural
kind.
When I said "doubtful cases are rare", I left myself open to misunderstanding.
I meant that in case of chairs in Timothy's experience doubtful cases
are rare. Therefore, for a child to presume a natural kind on hearing
a word or seeing an object is advantageous, and it will also be advantageous
to built AI systems with this presumption.
Finally, a remark concerning the "symbol grounding" discussion. My
problems with it were mainly quantitative - there was just too much
to follow. I suspect that Stevan Harnad's capacity to follow very
long discussions is exceptional. I would welcome a summary of the
different points of view by someone who did follow it and feels himself
sufficiently uncommitted to any single point of view.
∂17-Jul-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'll be at AAAI in Seattle at the Westin Hotel till Thursday evening.
∂17-Jul-87 1314 JMC touch
To: pehoushek@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU
touch.lsp[e87,jmc] at SAIL contains a version of touch similar to one
I used to test the Butterfly at AAAI. You will need only to adapt it
to get rid of the future. Maybe I'll do that. Please get yourself a
SAIL account.
∂17-Jul-87 1320 JMC touch
To: pehoushek@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU
I have added a version using qlet and commented out the previous version
which was checked out in maclisp.
∂17-Jul-87 1347 JMC test function for qlisp
To: RPG
test.lsp[e87,jmc] contains a function I would like to try on qlisp as
soon as possible for various values of (mktest n) and k. I tried
a scheme version on the Butterfly at AAAI and got various statistics,
but because there wasn't time to go into memory contention questions,
the results don't prove much except that excessive parallelism isn't
good and that some parallelism is helpful. The program has been
debugged in maclisp with future the identity function.
∂18-Jul-87 1933 JMC re: private American armies
To: LYN@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from LYN@Sierra.Stanford.EDU sent Sat 18 Jul 87 18:43:15-PDT.]
The Lafayette Escadrille, I believe, consisted of Americans fought in
the French Air Force in WW I before the U.S. entered the war.
∂18-Jul-87 2051 JMC
To: DEK
I would like to discuss the fate of SAIL with you.
∂18-Jul-87 2315 JMC re: [Robert L. Causey <AI.CAUSEY@R20.UTEXAS.EDU>: Natural Kinds]
To: AI.CAUSEY@R20.UTEXAS.EDU, ailist-request@STRIPE.SRI.COM
[In reply to message from AI.CAUSEY@R20.UTEXAS.EDU sent Sat 18 Jul 87 15:34:18-CDT.]
I agree with Bob Causey's comments and agree that the open questions he
lists are unsolved and important. I have one caveat. The distinction
between nomological and functional kinds exists in sufficiently elaborate
mental structures, but I don't think that under 2 year olds make the
distinction, i.e. have different mechanisms for learning them. For this
reason, it is an open question whether it should be a primary distinction
for robots. In a small child's world, chairs are distinguished from other
objects by appearance, not by function. Evidence: a child doesn't refer
to different appearing objects on which he can also sit as chairs.
Concession: there may be such a category "sittable" in "mentalese", and
languages with such categories might be as easily learnable as English.
What saves the child from having to make the distinction between kinds
of kinds at an early age is that so many of the kinds in his life are
distinguishable from each other in many ways. The child might indeed
be fooled by the different generations of calculator, but usually he's
lucky.
I hope to comment later on how robots should be programmed to identify
and use kinds.
∂19-Jul-87 1155 JMC re: thanks
To: AI.CAUSEY@R20.UTEXAS.EDU
[In reply to message sent Sun 19 Jul 87 12:51:18-CDT.]
I am also looking forward to it.
∂19-Jul-87 2120 JMC Contra support in Central America
To: su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
Friday's Wall Street Journal in an editorial reports on polls taken
in the U.S. and in Central America. North's testimony raised the
percent in U.S. favoring aid to Contras from 32% to 40%, but still
25% think Nicaragua is ruled by a right wing dictatorship as opposed
to 29% who say it has a communist government. The Central American
results are more interesting.
In the following C stands for Costa Rica, H for Honduras, E for
El Salvador, G for Guatemala.
1. Whether Sandinista government represesents majority or minority.
C H E G
majority 11 14 18 27
minority 79 70 64 64
don't know 10 11 18 9
2. Which side do majority of Nicaraguans support?
Sandinistas 12 14 20 23
Contras 72 75 46 60
No opinon 16 11 34 17
3. Who treats civilians better in the war zones?
Sandinistas 6 6 10 18
Contras 72 74 45 60
Don't know 22 20 44 22
4. Do you approve or disapprove of Amercan military aid to Contras?
Approve 70 81 69 68
Disapprove 21 9 23 28
Don't know 9 10 8 4
Also in a different poll, 48% of Hondurans thought the Contras would
eventually win, and 11% thought the Sandinistas would prevail.
The poll was carried out by the Central American affiliates of the
Gallup organization.
∂19-Jul-87 2204 JMC re: NASA Money?
To: RDZ@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Sun 19 Jul 87 21:33:06-PDT.]
Sounds like you're doing the right thing. At some point someone like
me or Nils will have to talk to them.
∂20-Jul-87 1000 JMC re: Visiting Appointment Expenses
To: CLT
[In reply to message sent Thu, 25 Jun 87 08:13:08 cdt.]
My immediate opinion is that what we will want to ship will be more
than books and papers and will cost more than $100. I'll think
about it and inquire about costs. We haven't moved in a long
time, and I'm sure everything has gotten more expensive.
∂20-Jul-87 1002 JMC re: Visiting Appointment Expenses
To: CLT
[In reply to message sent Thu, 25 Jun 87 08:13:08 cdt.]
Driving expenses should be based on utexas formula for the miles
and motel expenses on utexas formula for 3 days travel.
∂20-Jul-87 1240 JMC
To: RA
Please tex perlis.re1[let,jmc] and fix what's wrong.
∂20-Jul-87 1320 JMC two invoices to send
To: RA
to: Fitzpatrick, Cella, Harper and Scinto
277 Park Ave.
New York, NY 10172
Attention: Donald J. Curry
consulting services: July 18, 1987
$400
to: Maxwest
265 Lytton Ave
Palo Alto, CA 94301
Attention: Sheila Starr
expenses for Seattle trip for Symbolics panel
hotel expenses per Westin Hotel bill $419.84
air ticket San Jose-Seattle and return $228.00
parking San Jose airport $50.00
round trip Palo Alto - San Jose airport
taxis in Seattle $20
∂20-Jul-87 1656 JMC
To: RA
Please send my biography to
Ruth Levine
Standing Ovations
8380 Miramar Mall, Suite 225
San Diego 92121
∂20-Jul-87 1740 JMC
To: RA
no they paid it.
∂20-Jul-87 2202 JMC re: Liam Peyton's Messages on Nicaragua
To: SIEGMAN@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
CC: peyton@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from SIEGMAN@Sierra.Stanford.EDU sent Mon 20 Jul 87 21:38:26-PDT.]
As I recall, it was $3500 worth of sunglasses. It wasn't the glasses that
were so expensive; it was the Gucci frames. At that, buying them at
Cohen's Fashion Optical saved the people of Nicaragua money compared to
what it would have cost to buy them further uptown where the store might
have been more discreet. I have a wild conjecture that letting it be
known that Ortega bought them served the communist cause. As expected,
the flap died down quickly, and it told any military men in underdeveloped
countries that a taste for luxury was entirely compatible with leftist
slogans in taking power.
∂20-Jul-87 2211 JMC re: GI-Joe
To: S.SHANTI@MACBETH.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from S.SHANTI@macbeth.stanford.edu sent Mon 20 Jul 87 20:01:08-PDT.]
The theory that priests and nuns necessarily "have no axe to grind" is
mistaken. Anyone can have an ideological axe to grind once having taken
a position, and the Maryknolls and the American Friends Service Committee
(among many others) certainly have plenty of positions to maintain. I
remember seeing an AFSC poster with photos of happy children and cheerful
workers in textile factories urging tolerance of the "Kampuchean experiment"
long after most newspapers had become convinced that the Cambodian genocide
was real. Mr. Bond says "I really don't care what the Administration says
about the Sandinistas" or, I suppose, what evidence the Administration offers.
Mr. Bond's mind is made up, and he only wants confirmation of his views.
∂20-Jul-87 2223 JMC re: Lyn & JMC on Nicaragua
To: PEYTON@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from PEYTON@sushi.stanford.edu sent Mon 20 Jul 87 00:50:56-PDT.]
Mr. Peyton travelled with a group to Nicaragua. He doesn't report any
effort to talk to people except in the company of the group. What his
somewhat tame rightwingers told him may have been tempered by their
knowledge that anything said to that group would get back to the
Sandinistas. His group could have talked to Contras, e.g. by making
a side trip to Costa Rica or Honduras or merely to Miami - but it
didn't.
"Political Pilgrims" by Paul Hollander describes how the political pilgrims
of Stalin's day were convinced there was no famine or oppression in the
Soviet Union, how pilgrims convinced themselves that the Great Leap
Forward and the Cultural Revolution were great, how others convinced
themselves that Castro was great, how still others convinced themselves
that North Vietnam was great. Ortega finds the same line works, and the
pilgrims come and help build the Gulag. Mr. Peyton cites statistics about
literacy as if he had measured the before and after literacy himself.
Someone left a book by P.J. O'Rourke in the CSD lounge that contains
a report of his recent voyage up and down the Volga in the company
of a batch of peaceniks who saw exactly what they intended to see.
∂21-Jul-87 0011 JMC
To: VAL
I'm probably not going to Milan. Could you get me a Proceedings?
∂21-Jul-87 1156 JMC connectionist summer school
To: TOURETZKY@C.CS.CMU.EDU, aaai-office@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU
I have decided that AAAI will support it with $10K as requested. Please make
all further arrangements with Claudia Mazzetti.
∂21-Jul-87 1157 JMC connectionist models summer school
To: aaai-office@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU
Received: ID <TOURETZKY@C.CS.CMU.EDU>; Mon 29 Jun 87 06:03:48-EDT
Date: Mon 29 Jun 87 06:03:48-EDT
From: Dave.Touretzky@C.CS.CMU.EDU
Subject: connectionist models summer school
To: jmc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
Message-ID: <12314324318.19.TOURETZKY@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
John,
Last year Geoff Hinton, Terry Sejnowski and I organized a nine day
Connectionist Models Summer School at CMU. We are seeking funds to hold
another one in 1988. The original summer school, which cost a little under
$30,000, was sponsored by a grant from the Sloan Foundation. For the next one
we are hoping to find three sponsors willing to share the expense. We already
have a tentative commitment from Lee Giles at AFOSR for $10,000.
The first summer school brought together 40 students, including 5 from Europe,
and sixteen tutors and guest lecturers. We received nearly 150 applications
for the available places. The increasing interest in connectionism, the
continuing shortage of researchers in this area, and the enthusiasm of the
first set of attendees lead us to believe that it ought to be repeated.
The primary goal of the summer school is to nurture and train new
connectionists, mainly graduate students, but also junior faculty members. The
people we seek have already begun working in the area, but are isolated and
would thus benefit from an intensive exposure to some of the leaders of the
field. The faculty of the first summer school consisted of Dana Ballard and
Jerry Feldman from Rochester, David Rumelhart and Pat Churchland from UCSD,
Paul Smolensky from UC Boulder, Andy Barto from UMass, Christof Koch from MIT,
Jim Anderson from Brown, David Tank from AT&T Bell Laboratories, Robert Hummel
from NYU, David Willshaw from the Medical Research Council (Edinburgh), Scott
Fahlman and Jay McClelland from CMU, plus Hinton, Sejnowski, and me. The
program was divided between tutorial lectures in the morning and small
discussion groups in the afternoon, each led by a faculty member. There was
also time set aside for demos in the evenings, and several attendees used our
local computing facilities to conduct research.
Would AAAI be interested in co-sponsoring the 1988 summer school? I spoke with
Raj and Claudia about it, and they suggested that funding might be arranged
through the workshop program you administer. If you would agree to contribute
$10,000, I would have no trouble raising the remainder. Please let me know
what you think.
Thanks, -- Dave
-------
-------
∂21-Jul-87 1208 JMC
To: aaai-office@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU
Workshops in AI sponsored by AAAI.
AAAI has a programme to sponsor workshops in particular areas of AI. So
far more than 20 have been sponsored. The format is not prescribed except
that this program does not sponsor large conferences.
Here are some policies.
1. Up to $10K can be approved per workshop.
2. No honoraria for speakers or overhead to institutions will be paid.
3. Any workshop emphasizing commercial technology must be neutral
among the suppliers of relevant technology, e.g. people from the
different suppliers should be contacted and should have equal opportunity
to submit papers.
4. Proposals should be sent to
John McCarthy.
Electronic mail to JMC@SU-AI.STANFORD.EDU is preferred, but U.S.
mail to
Professor John McCarthy
Computer Science Department
Stanford, CA 94305
will also work. If you get impatient you can phone (415)723-4430.
5. Proposals should contain approximations to the following:
a. budget.
b. subject, detailed enough to evaluate relevance to AI
and possible overlap with other workshop proposals.
c. conditions of participation including how papers
and attendees are to be selected.
d. when and where if this is known.
e. program committee if this is known
6. Correspondence should be copied to AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX.STANFORD.EDU
or to
Ms. Claudia Mazzetti, Executive Director
AAAI
445 Burgess St.
Menlo Park, CA 94025
You can phone her at (415)328-3123.
7. After McCarthy has approved the proposal further arrangements should
be made with Mazzetti at the AAAI office. This includes transfer of
money and possible help with publicity and workshop preprints and
publication.
8. After the workshop is finished there should be a report suitable
for publication in AI Magazine.
9. There should also be a financial report to the AAAI office, and
unexpended money is to be returned to AAAI.
10. AAAI assumes no financial responsibility for any debts or other
financial obligations that may be incurred by workshop organizers nor any
liabilities for their actions.
∂21-Jul-87 1236 JMC comparison
To: su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
Clearly it is almost 10 times better to be the "leader" of a communist
country than a democratic one.
a213 1219 21 Jul 87
AM-People,0762
People In The News
LaserPhoto NY44
MIAMI (AP) - El Salvador President Jose Napoleon Duarte went on a
buying spree in a Miami arts supply store on his way back from a
state visit to West Germany, store employees say.
''He came in with all these Secret Service agents,'' said Aaron
Morris, vice president of Rex Art. ''We didn't know who he was until
my mother asked.''
Duarte sat on the store's floor talking to Morris' father, Mel,
about which color tubes to buy, among other topics that didn't
include politics, Morris said.
Duarte paints oversize, finely detailed landscapes as a hobby, aides
said, but doesn't make his paintings public.
His tab last week totaled more than $400 and included paints,
brushes and canvas in 76-inch-wide rolls, store employees said. He
paid with an American Express card.
---
∂21-Jul-87 1301 JMC
To: LES
There are apparently many incarnations of Tom Knight.
∂21-Jul-87 1306 JMC Tom Knight
To: LES
I'm now concerned that Tom Knight's login has become a base for network
hacking. A few minutes ago, he was logged in, and I sent a message
asking, "Which incarnation of Tom Knight are you?" I now see that
he has disappeared. I had heard that various people used his login
semi-legitimately to reach M.I.T., but this suggests illegitimacy.
I suggest appropriate action.
∂21-Jul-87 1333 JMC re: alex
To: CLT, IAM
[In reply to message from CLT rcvd 21-Jul-87 13:09-PT.]
It's in my calendar.
∂21-Jul-87 1705 JMC loop
To: RPG
I find the loop construct objectionable on the grounds of its Englishy
syntax. I'm not sure the objection is more than aesthetic, but I think
so. Programs that read and write loop statements will have a different
and more complex form than programs that read and write ordinary LISP
syntax. I suppose the objection would be largest from the point of view
of an interpreter that must read the same program fragment many times.
Is it worthwhile making this objection to the CL standardizers? Is its
acceptance a foregone conclusion or very unlikely? Also have a large
number of constructs open to the same objection already been accepted?
∂21-Jul-87 1755 JMC Here is the original A.P. story again.
To: su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
a083 0950 25 Oct 85
PM-Sandinista Specs,0189
Nicaraguan President Goes on $3,500 Eyeglass Spree
NEW YORK (AP) - The president of Nicaragua and his wife, here for
the U.N. anniversary session, bought $3,500 worth of fashion
eyeglasses from an East Side optician and covered the splurge with a
Diner's Club card, the shop manager says.
With the Secret Service telephoning in advance, President Daniel
Ortega Saavedra pulled up Wednesday in a 17-car motorcade at Cohen's
Fashion Opticals on Lexington Avenue and 60th Street, said Jeff
Kirsch.
''They were here an hour. He was easygoing; he took whatever his
wife said. She was very picky,'' said Kirsch.
Mrs. Ortega ordered three Gucci frames for herself and three
Fioruccis for her daughter.
Ortega bought six Silhouette frames with polycarbonate lenses, the
sturdy plastic used for bulletproof shields in taxicabs. His
eyeglasses were $300 each.
He had another set of the plastic lenses put into a frames he
already owned, said Kirsch.
Silhouette and Gucci frames start at about $180 each, said Kirsch,
and Fioruccis run about $50 less.
The Ortegas' charge card came from the Nicaraguan U.N. Mission.
**** Hint for leftists. The best defense is offense. $25 for
the neatest way of changing the subject. Points will be awarded
for authentic style and chutzpah.
The prize was awarded with $15 to MRC and $10 to Allen van Gelder.
Crispin was judged more sincere.
∂21-Jul-87 2207 JMC re: Loop
To: RPG
[In reply to message rcvd 21-Jul-87 21:39-PT.]
What's the format for stating such objections?
∂22-Jul-87 1452 JMC
To: AIR
We need a report by the end of the month.
∂23-Jul-87 1624 JMC re: Alliant memory
To: JJW@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU, CLT@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU,
LES@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU, RPG@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU,
IGS@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from JJW rcvd 23-Jul-87 16:21-PT.]
My a priori opinion is that we should try to get one of the 32 megabyte
boards but try for some bargaining on price.
∂24-Jul-87 1819 JMC re: reply to message
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 24-Jul-87 14:41-PT.]
No, I'm not registered.
∂24-Jul-87 1827 JMC re: Ronald Reagan's AIDS commission: the conservative majority
To: R.ROLAND@LEAR.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from R.ROLAND@lear.stanford.edu sent Fri 24 Jul 87 15:28:42-PDT.]
It is not surprising that a conservative President would pick a panel with
a conservative majority. However, I'll predict that there will be few or
no left vs. right votes in the panel, and that the report will be signable
by all members with perhaps some reservations on some points - mainly
points like including AIDS among the diseases tested premaritally on which
positions already seem to have hardened.
∂24-Jul-87 1848 JMC re: Readings on scientific explanation
To: ESWOLF@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Fri 24 Jul 87 18:30:53-PDT.]
I'm sorry, but I don't remember what I had in mind. In any case my
acquaintance with the literature is far less than that of any
professional philosopher of science.
∂25-Jul-87 0015 JMC
To: RA
I need to send Livermore a bill.
∂25-Jul-87 1820 JMC re: Inverse Method Project Schedule
To: brink@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU
CC: VAL@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from brink@Sushi.Stanford.EDU sent Sat 25 Jul 87 18:13:12-PDT.]
Anything that suits Vladimir is ok with me.
∂26-Jul-87 1257 JMC re: liberal bias in SU Humanities departments
To: ROSENBLUM@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from ROSENBLUM@Sierra.Stanford.EDU sent Sun 26 Jul 87 11:35:41-PDT.]
Seems like political prejudice on Mr. Rosenblum's part to me. Is political
prejudice more moral than race or religious prejudice?
∂26-Jul-87 1311 JMC re: liberal bias in SU Humanities departments
To: LYN@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Sun 26 Jul 87 11:20:19-PDT.]
I'm puzzled not to find the editorial in my copy. What page?
∂27-Jul-87 0012 JMC re: JPL Issue on Logic & AI
To: Rich.Thomason@C.CS.CMU.EDU
[In reply to message sent Sun 26 Jul 87 17:27:57-EDT.]
OK, dec 1
∂27-Jul-87 1403 JMC
To: VAL
Hilpinen, Risto Dept. of Philosophy
Univ. of Turku
SF-20500 Turku
Finland
(office: 011 358-21-645418)
(home: 358 21 542513)
∂27-Jul-87 1711 JMC t among those registered to vote.
To: su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
It turns out that George Marotta had sent me a copy of his "The Illiberal
Liberal Environment at Stanford University". I'm sure he'll be glad to
send a copy to anyone else who requests it from him at Hoover. His
address gives the percentages for each party and the percentages
registered in the nearby counties. Presumably someone registered
far away would have been missed. The percent Democrat listed in
Marotta's paper and quoted by Hearst in his editorial are among
those registered to vote.
Just to check I asked a rather conservative member of the Sociology
Department about his own registration, and he said Democrat and
remarked that it was interesting that four he mentioned specifically
were all registered Democrats. My opinion is that these four had
probably voted Republican recently as have many California Democrats.
Many people who became Democrats when the party was more
to the right of where it has been since 1972 remain Democrats in
registration but often vote Republican.
However, the largest single cause of the bias is self-selection.
There is a strong correlation between people's political self-identification
as high school students and their subsequent college majors and
career choices. Thus someone who thinks that humanity is best served
by making the pie bigger is likely to become an engineer, while someone
who thinks it is best served by redividing the pie is likely to
specialize in political science or law. Somone whose goal is to
control his own life is likely to become a businessman, while someone
who has strong opinions on how others should live their lives is
likely choose psychology or sociology or political science or journalism.
Their are yet other correlations. Mathematicians are to the left
of physicists who are to the left of chemists who are to the left
of engineers.
Nevertheless, Marotta's figures are rather spectacular. The issue
is whether it causes politically biased academic decisions, especially
concerning appointments. There is some evidence that it has, especially
in political science. Both Shockley and Stockdale were rather roughly
treated when the wanted to give courses expressing their different
views. In my opinion, intellectual and political biases strongly
effected the administrative and bureaucratic reasons that were
given for their suppression.
Perhaps the University should have an affirmative action program
on behalf of conservative scholars. Instead it goes the other
way with the campaign to find academic reasons to suppress the
Hoover Institution.
∂27-Jul-87 1726 JMC salvage from the Titanic
To: su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
There is an issue of taste. The people who first discovered the
wreck expressed the view that there should be no salvage. This
would be unprecedented. The general custom and international law
is that anyone can salvage anything he likes from a wreck unless
it is in some country's territorial waters, which the Titanic isn't.
Anyone is entitled to express aesthetic objections to salvage
from the Titanic. You can imagine that 50 years from now it will
be technologically feasible for tourists to visit the Titanic,
and it will be regarded as like a national park where it is
forbidden to pick flowers.
As for anti-French views expressed in su-etc, sometimes it seems
to me that there is a law of conservation of animus - a remark
whose possible obscurity I do not intend to clarify.
∂27-Jul-87 2217 JMC
To: JDP
touch.lsp[e87,jmc] Program tested on Butterfly and on Alliant
∂28-Jul-87 1146 JMC measuring the bias of press
To: su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
The last paragraph of this message provides a way of measuring it
objectively.
Helen Cunningham asks me to provide evidence that the press has a liberal
bias. She also offers an impression that the press ignored various faults
of Reagan that she recounts. I presume that she got her information about
these faults from the press, so some part of the press didn't ignore what
she regards as Reagan's faults. Therefore, her complaint must be of the
character that some papers didn't report it, or they didn't emphasize it
sufficiently as THE defining characteristic of Reagan. We conservatives
grumble that the press tends to ignore that for the first time in more
than 20 years, during the Reagan Administration, inflation and unemployment
fell simultaneously.
I have to confess that much of my
opinion that the press has a liberal bias is also impressionistic.
There is a difference between reporters and editorial writers in
many papers, most striking in the case of the Wall Street Journal,
where the editorial page is consistently conservative, while the
reporters often succeed in slanting stories in a liberal direction.
However, two incidents that stick in my mind are both headlines from
the San Francisco Examiner. In January 1975 or 1976, the Ford Administration
budget was leaked a day or so before it was officially released. The
Examiner headline was "Ford budget hits poor''. The headline was not
especially warranted by the story, which summarized a few of the thousands
of items in the story. The second Examiner headline referred to the
robbery of the Brink's van in New York with the murder of three guards
and the capture of some of the leading Weatherman people. The headline
was "Boudin caught in daring Brinks caper". The idea of describing
a robbery and murder as a "daring caper" struck me as extreme, and
the in-group character of "Boudin caught" was also striking. It's hard
to imagine that even one percent of Examiner readers knew who Boudin
was.
Accuracy in Media provides many anecdotes of what conservatives regard
as liberal press bias. One example they cite, I forget whether it is
from Accuracy in Media or Accuracy in Academia refers to massacres in
Vietnam. They recount that in some large audience of contemporary
students, everyone had heard of My Lai, where some Americans killed about
100 Vietnamese and Lieutenant Calley was court-martialled, convicted
and imprisoned. (It wasn't stated whether they knew about the court-martial).
On the other hand, not one had heard of the Hue massacre in 1968 in
which 3,000 civilians were killed by the North Vietnamese when they
temporarily captured the city of Hue.
A contemporary example might be this. Recall that the Central American
poll said that more people in those countries thought the Contras treat
civilians in combat zones better than the Sandinistas do. It seems to
me that one would have quite the reverse impression from the U.S. press.
This suggests that incidents of Sandinista mistreatment of civilians
are much more reported in the Honduran, El Salvadoran and Guatemalan
press than in the U.S. press. Consider, for example, the forced relocation
of civilians by the Sandinistas from zones where the civilians
tend to favor the Contras. The bare fact has been reported, but there
isn't a repeated sequence of stories corresponding to the sequence
of anti-Contra stories in the American press that the Sandinistas succeed
in getting sympathetic journalists to print.
However, Helen asks me for evidence. She doesn't offer any hint on
what would be considered evidence. The trouble is that what I consider
a story that is a scandal to suppress, she might regard as an irrelevance
and vice versa.
Nevertheless, it is possible to do something objective. Examine the
explicitly liberal press and the explicitly conservative press. I'd pick
the Washington Times as the conservative newspaper and the Washington Post
as the liberal one. Take the ten items regarded by each as most
significant on the basis of their emphasis in editorials. Then examine
the amount of coverage of these items by the TV networks and the leading
newspapers and wire services. This will tell us whether the liberals or
the conservatives have more to grumble about.
As a computer scientist rather than a media analyst, I'm not going to
do this work. However, someone could do something with a program
that would analyze the A.P. stories we get in the computer.
∂28-Jul-87 1445 JMC re: Course at Austin
To: MSINGH@WARBUCKS.AI.SRI.COM, konolige@WARBUCKS.AI.SRI.COM
[In reply to message from MSINGH@WARBUCKS.AI.SRI.COM sent Tue 28 Jul 87 14:34:45-PDT.]
Please tell whoever needs to know at U. Texas that I endorse your
enrollment in my course on the basis of your intention to do
doctoral work in the areas of formalizing belief, action and
intention.
∂28-Jul-87 1531 JMC re: A question both of you agree on (I think?)
To: Crispin@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU,
acken%SONOMA.STANFORD.EDU@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from Crispin@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU sent Tue, 28 Jul 87 15:15:29 PDT.]
While an atheist, I'm not militant about it, because I don't see religion
per se as a threat to anything important. Therefore, I don't approve of
Madalyn O'Hair's bullying the religious. The relevant quote to me is
Admiral George Dewey's command after destroying the Spanish fleet at
Manila Bay - "Don't cheer, boys. The poor devils are dying".
∂28-Jul-87 1700 JMC re: Problems with TheoryNet redistribution through AFLB
To: SCHAFFER@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Tue 28 Jul 87 16:34:27-PDT.]
Got it.
∂29-Jul-87 1307 JMC re: pictures
To: RA
[In reply to message rcvd 29-Jul-87 12:59-PT.]
Thanks for finding about the pictures. I have put a check in my out box.
Please write a letter for me to sign. Enclose the slip that has the
number, because it's the only way they can identify the pictures, since
they didn't take my name.
∂29-Jul-87 1458 JMC re: [AAAI <AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU>: Committee involvement]
To: AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Wed, 29 Jul 87 14:49:48 PDT.]
I wondered if you had hired someone named We Loo.
∂30-Jul-87 1442 JMC workshop policies
To: hart@STRIPE.SRI.COM
Workshops in AI sponsored by AAAI.
AAAI has a programme to sponsor workshops in particular areas of AI. So
far more than 20 have been sponsored. The format is not prescribed except
that this programme does not sponsor large conferences.
Here are some policies.
1. Up to $10K can be approved per workshop.
2. No honoraria for speakers or overhead to institutions will be paid.
3. Any workshop emphasizing commercial technology must be neutral
among the suppliers of relevant technology, e.g. people from the
different suppliers should be contacted and should have equal opportunity
to submit papers.
4. Proposals for science oriented workshops should be sent to
John McCarthy.
Electronic mail to JMC@SU-AI.STANFORD.EDU is preferred, but U.S.
mail to
Professor John McCarthy
Computer Science Department
Stanford, CA 94305
will also work. If you get impatient you can phone (415)723-4430.
5. Proposals should contain approximations to the following:
a. budget.
b. subject, detailed enough to evaluate relevance to AI
and possible overlap with other workshop proposals.
c. conditions of participation including how papers
and attendees are to be selected.
d. when and where if this is known.
e. program committee if this is known
6. Correspondence should be copied to AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX.STANFORD.EDU
or to
Ms. Claudia Mazzetti, Executive Director
AAAI
445 Burgess St.
Menlo Park, CA 94025
You can phone her at (415)328-3123.
7. After McCarthy has approved the proposal further arrangements should
be made with Mazzetti at the AAAI office. This includes transfer of
money and possible help with publicity and workshop preprints and
publication.
8. After the workshop is finished there should be a report suitable
for publication in AI Magazine.
9. There should also be a financial report to the AAAI office, and
unexpended money is to be returned to AAAI.
10. AAAI assumes no financial responsibility for any debts or other
financial obligations that may be incurred by workshop organizers nor any
liabilities for their actions.
∂31-Jul-87 1840 JMC re: your paper, "Circumscription -- a Form of Non-monotonic Reasoning"
To: SJG
[In reply to message rcvd 31-Jul-87 16:32-PT.]
There was no good reason, except possibly that I was out of reprints. It
may be that the computer file version has the addendum incorporated.
I'll check that and let you know - unless you know already. You can
have it any way you want. I don't remember any misprints in the printed
version.
∂31-Jul-87 1845 JMC Beer
To: su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
Two yuppie points each for those who know which beers they ought to like
and which they ought to detest.
∂01-Aug-87 0056 JMC Beers
To: su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
I have $50 that says that anyone who has listed 5 or more good beers
on su-etc cannot tell them apart in a blindfold test.
∂01-Aug-87 0835 JMC re: Beers
To: PATASHNIK@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Sat 1 Aug 87 07:27:41-PDT.]
Let me see what other offers I get.
∂01-Aug-87 1225 JMC re: Lying
To: SINGH@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from SINGH@Sierra.Stanford.EDU sent Sat 1 Aug 87 11:42:56-PDT.]
If you can define the issue in such a way that only your adversary's
possible lies are in question, you can shade the truth with considerable
impunity.
Harinder Singh's quotations about lying have a bias of a very common
sort - namely a bias about whose lies are in question. For example,
the issue of whether General Westmoreland was lying about Vietnam
was prominently in the news, but the issue of whether CBS was lying
about Vietnam was not. My opinion is that there are many possible
haggles about who said what and what it meant, but in the essence of
the matter, Westmoreland was telling the truth, and CBS was lying.
North's success, while actually on TV, consisted of changing the subject
from the minor one of what deceptions he and other Government officials
engaged in, to the major one of what the communists did in Vietnam and
Cambodia and are doing in Nicaragua and what we should do about it and
aren't doing. I recently read in Accuracy in Media that the networks
failed to report what North said about these important subjects and
concentrated on the minor issue. Accuracy in Media also reports many
incidents in which the press and TV report lies as facts and then
decline to give the refutations any play even when the lies are
retracted by the people who uttered them.
Unfortunately, North isn't on TV any more, the press has succeeded in
changing the subject again, and none of the more recent witnesses has
had North's courage and ability to emphasize the important.
∂01-Aug-87 1723 JMC covert actions
To: su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
In response to Harinder Singh's challenge, let me state that there are
many kinds of covert action that I don't consider permissible. Indeed the
present administration and all previous administrations have observed
various inhibitions. Even inhibitions that were not always observed have
had inhibitory force on many occasions. Therefore, it is wrong to suppose
that an inhibition sometimes violated doesn't exist at all. The main
inhibition is that we should refrain from warlike acts against countries
and movements with which we are not at war - whether declared or
undeclared. However, there is a confusion between what we may do and our
support, e.g. with money and supplies, of governments or movements that
are at war. Thus while we should not mine Nicaraguan harbors or blow up
Nicaraguan power stations, the fact that the Contras, who are at war with
the Sandinistas, do so doesn't violate our own inhibition.
This is challenged on two grounds. First some people, including, of course,
the Sandinistas and their friends claim that the Contras are not an
independent group but a creation of the U.S. The Soviets also say this
about the Afghan resistance. In neither case is this true. We can
influence the Contras, but they are not our property to be turned
on and off at will. (Ideally we should have a treaty with them ratified
by the Senate as we once did with South Vietnam. However, as North
said, we betrayed our treaty and moral obligations to South Vietnam,
so a treaty wouldn't protect the Contras either. Anyway they don't
claim to be a government yet, and we should observe the inhibition
of not recognizing governments that don't control some territory.)
Second some people would claim that the U.S. Government is fully morally
responsible for the actions of anyone we support with the means to
carry out military action. In response, I merely observe that making
the distinction between what a supported force does and what its
supporter does is important for maintaining such peace as we have
in the world. Thus we did not attack the Soviet Union for supplying
North Vietnam, and they don't attack us for supporting the Afghan
rebels. Of course, we and they both complain.
I further think that any limitations on covert action that we can agree
about with the Soviet Union are valuable. There are many informal
limitations. For example, neither we nor they assassinate each others
spies in third countries and I believe that neither currently undertakes
killings on each other's territory. Previously, the Soviets did not
observe this inhibition. Of course, the matter is confused when someone
does such things, and the power that backs them claims they are acting
independently.
There is some confusion about whether the Soviet Union is responsible
for what foreign communist organizations do. Especially, during Stalin's
time, foreign communist organizations were often under such tight
Soviet control that they were responsible. However, my opinion is that
communism is an evil that is independent of the existence of the Soviet
Union and might be even stronger ideologically, though probably not
militarily, if the Soviet Union didn't exist.
I have never studied even what is publicly available about covert action,
so I can't say much more.
I agree that there are no moral claims against reciprocity. If the CIA
did actually attempt to assassinate Castro, and not merely prepare to
be able to do it, then we can have no moral objection to Castro having
helped Oswald assassinate Kennedy, if they did that. Of course, if
they did that, we might still retaliate militarily, but we weren't
sufficiently convinced that they were involved for such action even
to be considered.
∂01-Aug-87 1738 JMC re: JMC and major/minor issues
To: HENNING@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from HENNING@Sierra.Stanford.EDU sent Sat 1 Aug 87 15:03:27-PDT.]
There certainly were people who thought that Stalin was more of a menace
than Hitler, but I think they were wrong. Hitler really was out to
conquer whatever he could of the world by direct military force.
Communism wants to make the world communist, i.e. like the Soviet Union.
Hitler wanted to make the world satellite to Germany and maybe even to
enslave it in a literal sense. For example, it was said that many Polish
cultural figures were killed on the grounds that there was no need for
Polish cultural figures in the future Hitler planned for Poland - only
peasants. I'm not actually certain how well documented Hitler's plans
were. A similar attitude toward Ukrainians and Russians changed the
attitude of many people who initially welcomed the Germans as liberators
from communism.
Had he conquered the Soviet Union, it would have taken hundreds of atomic
bombs to beat him, assuming we got enough before he got some that could
attack the U.S. Actually our war with Hitler started when he declared war
on us after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
Of the people who thought we shouldn't support the Soviets at all, some
were probably actual supporters of Hitler. All were subject to denunciation
as such by the left. There wasn't any real politicl possibility of
standing aside, and the matter was far more subject to political forces
than to the recommendations of any "smart study group at State".
∂01-Aug-87 2220 JMC visas
To: "Yuri_Gurevich"@UM.CC.UMICH.EDU, VAL@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
Hilpinen called me yesterday, but I only returned the call this morning.
He said the Soviet organizers told him that all was in order for
both of you. I think we have to wait until at least Tuesday to
raise the issue again. The San Francisco vice consul told me
that they needed a cable "from the organizing committee" to release
any visas for the Congress. I don't think it's exactly the organizing
committee but rather some other department in the Party or KGB, but
that's what they say. The key question is to be sure that when others
get their visas yours are given also. Therefore, please keep in touch
with Feferman. It would be good to find some American who also plans
to leave a week early and monitor him.
∂02-Aug-87 1254 JMC re: Lying
To: PALLAS@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU
CC: SINGH@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from PALLAS@Sushi.Stanford.EDU sent Sun 2 Aug 87 11:43:55-PDT.]
Exaggerations from Joe Pallas:
"Col. North and Adm. Poindexter clearly believe that the threat of
communism in Nicaragua is more important than democracy in the US."
"The notion that we must abandon our ideals in order to preserve them
is certain to destroy us."
Doubtless Col. North didn't think that democracy in the U.S. was
endangered by using the Iranians to finance the Contras and by lying
about it. I think he was right. Democracy has survived far more
substantial maneuverings between the executive and the legislature.
I'm afraid I don't regard the desires of Congressmen in holding hearings
as sacred. They did it as a TV opportunity for their political advantage,
and North's success in temporarily changing the subject is to be admired
as an exercise in political skill by an unexpected person. It is to be
approved by those of us who think that North was right about what is
important. These feelings are related to my feelings of deprivation
with regard to getting views I agree with before the public. One of
my Walter Mitty fantasies is to turn the tables on a TV interviewer
or even a Congressional committee.
Besides, what North said was relevant to the specific point the
committee was "investigating".
∂02-Aug-87 1344 JMC re: international terrorism
To: R.ROLAND@LEAR.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from R.ROLAND@lear.stanford.edu sent Sun 2 Aug 87 13:21:51-PDT.]
"So why is Ronald Reagan always complaining about the Soviet Union
supporting various terrorist liberation movements around the world?"
Everyone has a right to complain about support of causes they regard as
bad. I didn't say no-one has a right to complain about our support of
the Contras if they regard our cause as bad. They just don't have the
same justification if we were doing ourselves what the Contras do.
Moreover, there is a distinction between materially aiding a rebellion
and helping random terrorism, e.g. blowing up civilian airplanes,
shooting up civilian airports and taking hostages. A few years ago,
someone blew up a civilian Cuban plane in the air. I hope we stopped
supporting that group if we were, and I hope even more that the CIA
did not know that this was what this group was likely to do.
There is a slippery slope, and I believe we should stay pretty far up
on it.
I don't know precisely what movements Roland calls "terrorist liberation
movements". I can't think at the moment of any to which I would apply
both adjectives "terrorist" and "liberation". Would he say?
∂02-Aug-87 1429 JMC Tohoku lecture
To: MS@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
I have finished editing it and TEXed it. Mainly it still has the
informal style of the lecture, although I put in a little material
from one of mine and one of Vladimir's papers. I have TEXed it,
and I can either computer mail the TEX source or airmail a printed
version or both.
∂02-Aug-87 1513 JMC report
To: AIR
It looks ok. I have drafted a letter to Peled of IBM asking for renewed
support. Please give copies of your report to Les and to Carolyn. I
will explore the possibility of continuing your support longer working
on Qlisp while we give Peled time to think and talk to H-P.
∂02-Aug-87 2159 JMC AI and science
To: ailist@STRIPE.SRI.COM
Like mathematics, philosophy and engineering, AI differs
from the (other) sciences. Whether it fits someone's definition
of a science or not, it has need of scientific methods including
controlled experimentation.
First of all, it seems to me that AI is properly part of
computer science. It concerns procedures for achieving goals
under certain conditions of information and possibility for action.
We can even consider it analogous to linear programming. Indeed if
achieving one's goals always consisted finding the values of
a collection of real variables that would minimize a linear
function of these variables subject to a collection of linear
inequalities, then AI would coincide with linear programming.
However, the relation between goals, available actions,
the information initially available and that can later be acquired
is sometimes more complex than in any of the branches of computer
sciences the main character of whose scientific treatment consists
of mathematical theorems. We don't have a mathematical formalization
of the general problem faced in AI let alone general mathematical
methods for their solution. Indeed what we know of human intelligence
doesn't suggest that a conventional mathematical formalization of
the problems intelligence is used to solve even exists. For this
reason AI is to a substantial degree an experimental science.
The fact that a general mathematical formalization of the problems
intelligence solves is unlikely doesn't make mathematics useless in AI.
Many aspects of intelligence are formalizable, and languages of
mathematical logic are useful for expressing facts about the common
sense world, and logical reasoning, especially as extended by non-monotonic
reasoning is useful for drawing conclusions.
In my view a large part of AI research should consist of the
identification and study of intellectual mechanisms, e.g. pattern
matching and learning. The problems whose computer solution exhibits
these mechanisms should be chosen for reasons of scientific perspicuousness
analogously to the fact that genetics uses fruit flies and bacteria.
A. S. Kronrod once said that chess is the {\it Drosophila} of artificial
intelligence. He might have been right, but the organizations that
support research have taken the view that problems should be chosen
for their practical importance. Sometimes it is as if the geneticists
were required to do their work with elephants on the grounds that
elephants are useful and fruit flies are not. Anyway chess has been
left to the sportsmen, most of whom only write programs, not scientific
papers and compete about who can get time on the largest computers or
get someone to support the construction of specialized chess computers.
Donald Norman's complaints about the way AI research is
conducted have some validity, but the problem of isolating
intellectual mechanisms and making experiments worth repeating is
yet to be solved, so it isn't just a question of deciding to
be virtuous.
Finally, I'll remark that AI is not the same as cognitive
psychology although the two studies are allied. AI concentrates
more on the necessary relations between means and ends, while
cognitive psychology concentrates on how humans and animals
achieve their goals. Any success in either endeavor helps the other.
Methodology in AI is worth studying, but acceptance of its results
should be moderated by memory of the behaviorist catastrophe in
psychology. Doctrines arising from methodological studies crippled the
science for half a century. Indeed psychology was only rescued by ideas
arising from the invention of the computer --- and at least partly ideas
originating in AI.
∂03-Aug-87 1430 JMC manufacturing science
To: richardson@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU
Please send me a copy of Eustis's summary of discussions
referred to in Nils's message.
∂03-Aug-87 1442 JMC re: Hitler's ends and means (1 of 3)
To: LYN@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from LYN@Sierra.Stanford.EDU sent Mon 3 Aug 87 09:21:29-PDT.]
The specific reason Britain and France went to war in 1939 is that they
had a treaty with Poland requiring them to do so. You can ask why they
signed such a treaty, and why, having signed it, they didn't renege on it.
I don't know when the treaty was negotiated and signed, so it's hard to
say to what extent it was specifically designed to deter Hitler. They
didn't renege, because of an inhibition against reneging on treaties,
because they felt betrayed by the violation of Hitler's promise that he
had no further ambitions, because they became convinced that Hitler's
ambitions were limitless, because people like Churchill had (correctly)
called them fools and cowards for not standing up to Hitler previously,
and because they believed that if war was inevitable, they would be
politically and militarily weaker if they delayed further.
∂03-Aug-87 2344 JMC AAAI will support the workshop on Open Systems for up to $7K. Please
To: stefik.pa@XEROX.COM, aaai-office@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU
make all further arrangements with Claudia Mazzetti.
∂03-Aug-87 2353 JMC AAAI will support it with $10K. Please make all further arrangements
To: norvig%cogsci.Berkeley.EDU@UCBVAX.Berkeley.EDU
CC: aaai-office@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU
with Claudia Mazzetti.
∂03-Aug-87 2358 JMC re: Driver's License's
To: J.JBRENNER@MACBETH.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from J.JBRENNER@macbeth.stanford.edu sent Mon 3 Aug 87 21:38:38-PDT.]
The experiment of not requirign driver's licenses that you suggest has been
made. There are 50 states, and for many years some of them did not require
any test. I presume the results were considered unsatisfactory.
∂04-Aug-87 1030 JMC
To: VAL
I informed Hilpinen about the visas.
∂04-Aug-87 1721 JMC
To: JMC
For those interested in the implications of the Putnam/Kripke philosophy of
natural kinds for the psychology of concepts, I recommend the article I
alluded to in a previous message, Georges Rey's "Concepts and Stereotypes",
Cognition 15:1-3 (1983).
This piece is a philosophically informed critique of Smith & Medin's book
"Categories and Concepts" (1981). Medin & Smith offer a reply in Cognition
17:3 (1984), and Rey answers their reply in Cognition 19:3 (1985).
∂04-Aug-87 1725 JMC natural kinds
To: aweinste@BBN.COM
I agree with your posting. However, with regard to the sharpness of
distinctions, I think it is necessary to distinguish between sharpness
of definitions and lucking out because dubious intermediates happen
not to exist in nature or in the actual artifactual environment.
By the way, I have mislaid the reference to Putnam's discussion and
never had it for Kripke's. Do you have the references?
∂04-Aug-87 2136 JMC re: lost luggage
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 04-Aug-87 21:30-PT.]
He can call American Airlines luggage control at
214 574-6577 and ask for Sally. He should probably mention
that it is the piece of luggage about which she telephoned me.
∂04-Aug-87 2141 JMC re: wics
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 04-Aug-87 21:32-PT.]
Yes, I'll lecture tomorrow morning.
∂04-Aug-87 2224 JMC rationalizing Hitler
To: su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
You can regard almost everything Hitler did as laid out in Mein Kampf
both with intentions and reasons. However, it requires too much
ingenuity to be plausible. The fact is that Hitler was excited by
his successes and inclined to push everything as far as it would go.
Consider the extermination of 500 thousand gypsies in the death camps.
There was no doctrine that the gypsies were responsible for Germany's
troubles. It's just that having created the death camps for the Jews
and created a mechanism for rounding up people and shipping them to
the death camps, they asked themselves who else they should exterminate
while they were at it. Someone suggested exterminating the gypsies -
who needs them in the new order - and somebody, presumably Hitler,
OKed it. That surely wasn't in Mein Kampf.
Even apart his irrational goals, Hitler was extraordinarily irrational.
∂04-Aug-87 2319 JMC
To: VAL
Can you have lunch with me and Nils and Dick Gabriel Thursday 12:15?
∂05-Aug-87 1238 JMC re: Lunch
To: RPG@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU, VAL@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU,
Nilsson@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message rcvd 05-Aug-87 08:59-PT.]
RPG can't make it Thursday, so it's Friday at 12:15 instead. Nilsson
will make reservations. VAL may be slightly late or might not be able
to make it.
∂05-Aug-87 1422 JMC re: AI discussion group at UT
To: jc@RATLIFF.CS.UTEXAS.EDU
[In reply to message sent Wed, 5 Aug 87 16:02:45 CDT.]
Thanks for inviting me. I'll be glad to come some Wednesday.
∂05-Aug-87 1652 JMC visas
To: dana.scott@C.CS.CMU.EDU, sf@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
Lifschitz and Gurevich have received their visas. As of yesterday,
Gelfond had not. Like Lifschitz he is scheduled to leave this
Saturday, but I suppose he'll get it by mail in Texas. He sent
his application to San Francisco, and the Consulate official implied
they had it, although he said Gelfond should have sent it to Washington.
Anyway, thanks for your efforts.
∂05-Aug-87 1749 JMC re: your sabatical
To: RA
[In reply to message rcvd 05-Aug-87 17:48-PT.]
My leave is not a sabbatical, it is for Fall only, and I will be
here Winter quarter.
∂06-Aug-87 0104 JMC reply to message
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 06-Aug-87 01:01-PT.]
That's great. Make sure that you have the telephone numbers of the
U.S. consulate in Leningrad and the Embassy in Moscow. Also please
leave me whatever telephone numbers are relevant. I anticipate no
need for any of this, but it's well to be prepared.
∂06-Aug-87 0114 JMC get phone numbers
To: SMC
Please call the State Department in Washington and get the phone
numbers of U.S. Embassy in Moscow and U.S. Consulate in Leningrad.
Mail them to VAL as well as to me.
∂06-Aug-87 1040 JMC visas
To: dana.scott@C.CS.CMU.EDU, sf@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
Gelfond has his visa now, so thank you for your efforts. We'll never
know whether they were necessary. I phoned Hilpinen to thank him
for his efforts.
∂06-Aug-87 1057 JMC paper to Japan
To: SMC
Mail it electronically to MS. It will be forwarded to Japan.
∂06-Aug-87 1136 JMC RAships
To: LES, CLT
∂06-Aug-87 1108 BERGMAN@Score.Stanford.EDU RAships
Received: from SCORE.STANFORD.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 6 Aug 87 11:08:33 PDT
Date: Thu 6 Aug 87 11:06:33-PDT
From: Sharon Bergman <BERGMAN@Score.Stanford.EDU>
Subject: RAships
To: faculty@Score.Stanford.EDU
Message-ID: <12324373672.22.BERGMAN@Score.Stanford.EDU>
Please send me a list of students you plan to support during the 1987-88
academic year along with their source of support. I need this information
soon since research assistant appointment forms are now due in the Graduate
Awards office. The forms need to be processed as soon as possible so that
the students receive their bills with the correct tuition applied.
Also, there is a list available of new incoming Ph.D. students with their
areas of interest. If you would like to look at the list with a view towards
possibly supporting some of these students, please let me know.
-Sharon Bergman
-------
∂06-Aug-87 1737 JMC
To: SMC
phone, playpen, car rental, best way to ship books,
∂06-Aug-87 1741 JMC
To: SMC
Roberto Coisson (physics prof italy)
SSRL 854-3300 Susan Lovegren is the Stanford contact.
x-2095
∂06-Aug-87 1827 JMC possible bungle
To: SMC
The hoter-hotter stuff goes to Virginia Mann. The stuff that goes to
Sato at Sendai is tohoku[s87,jmc].
∂06-Aug-87 2107 JMC re: ehud shapiro's e-mail address
To: Restivo@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Thu 6 Aug 87 16:47:33-PDT.]
No. You might ask Yoav Shoham.
∂06-Aug-87 2258 JMC re: visas
To: SF@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Thu 6 Aug 87 22:54:32-PDT.]
No, but Lifschitz and Gelfond are leaving this Saturday. Issuing visas
at the last minute is Soviet policy. Therefore, I'm confident that we'll
get ours in time.
∂07-Aug-87 1211 JMC re: hawk
To: SMC
[In reply to message rcvd 07-Aug-87 12:08-PT.]
Thanks for hawk.
∂07-Aug-87 2000 JMC Some are lucky
To: su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
Is the Palo Alto pilot one of SU-ETC's flying enthusiasts?
a277 1950 07 Aug 87
AM-Planes Collide,0204
News Station Plane and Cessna Land Safely
PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) - A news station traffic-spotting plane and a
small aircraft collided Friday near here, but pilots of both planes
managed to land safely at different airports, officials said.
The station's traffic reporter, Lynn Durling, landed his Mooney
plane at nearby San Carlos Airport, while the unidentified pilot of
the other craft, a Cessna 152, landed safely at Palo Alto Airport,
according to Dick Hallen, a duty officer for the Federal Aviation
Administration in Los Angeles.
Both planes were operating under visual flight rules when the
collision occurred about 5:30 p.m. at about 1,900 feet three miles
southwest of Palo Alto, Hallen said.
The pilot of the Cessna had just taken off from Palo Alto, Hallen
said. Neither of the pilots nor two passengers on Durling's plane was
seriously injured, the station reported.
The runway in Palo Alto, about 50 miles south of San Francisco, was
temporarily closed because the plane could not be moved because of
damage, the station reported.
FAA representatives planned to inspect the planes Friday night and
the National Transportation Safety Board is expected to begin an
investigation Saturday, Hallen said.
AP-NY-08-07-87 2244EDT
***************
∂08-Aug-87 0112 JMC re: exemptness
To: SOL@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from SOL@CSLI.Stanford.EDU sent Sat 8 Aug 87 00:56:08-PDT.]
Exempt means exempt from certain provisions of the labor laws - for example,
those requiring payment for overtime. Management, supervisory and professional
employees are exempt. Secretaries, clerical employees and technicians cannot
be exempt.
∂08-Aug-87 1716 JMC HAWK'S PROGRESS IN THE USSR
To: su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
Lt. General Daniel O. Graham, ret.
Director, High Frontier
In mid-may, my office received a call from the office of the Secretary
General of the United Nations. I was invited to participate and deliver a
paper at a ``meeting of experts'' at Sochi on the Black Sea in the
U.S.S.R. My subject was to be the ``military uses of space in the 1900s.''
This aroused my curiosity. For one thing, I was sure the UN Secretary
General didn't know me from Adam, and secondly, my views on the subject
have been published in many a book and article.
When the details arrived, it turned out not {\bf really} to be a
UN affair but a Soviet affair paid for in full by the U.S.S.R. When this
became clear, I demurred on the basis of my policy not to go anywhere on
Soviet money. But they insisted. I nominated other American spokesmen.
Still they insisted. I said I owed my wife some time at home. They invited
her to come also.
Finally, I became so curious as to why the Soviets wanted to hear
from this stauch opponent on issues such as SDI, I agreed.
The junket proved most interesting. Representatives of 25
countries assembled with a high-powered contingent of Soviets including
the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alexander Bessmertnykh. Two
Arlingtonians, Ambassador Ed Rowny and I, spoke for the United States. Of
course, all the Soviet satellites were represented, as well as China,
Japan, India, France, Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom, Sweden,
Austria, and five or six Third World nations. The meeting was chaired by a
{\bf very} careful Japanese UN official. The Soviet press was there in
force, but no Western press---this despite efforts on my part to have it
otherwise. Visas were refused U.S. reporters whose editors had agreed to
send them at their newspaper's expense. The Soviet excuse: no
accomadations at Sochi.
Since Ambassador Rowny was able to attend for only a short time,
the conference of ``experts'' centered on a head-on conflict between me
and Soviet three-star general Chervov of the Soviet General Staff over
SDI. Chervov was the typical Russian bear. He blustered and paid no heed
at all to the discomfited Japanese chairman's attempts to shorten his
tirades or give others equal time.
Chervov's message: Defenses against ballistic missiles on the
ground (such as the Soviets have now) are moral and benign;such defenses
in space (such as the Soviets want but can't get as fast as we can) are
immoral, evil, and destabilizing. He rattled on at length with the
anti-SDI arguments we hear from American critics---SDI militarizes space,
causes a new arms race, threatens attack on the USSR, offends the ABM
treaty, etc. But two arguments we hear in the United States were
conspicuously absent: that it can't be done, and that the Soviets would
simply build more missiles to ``overwhelm'' any U.S. SDI defenses. They
would not make these arguments even though I doggedly challenged them to
do so. They know better.
My position was made easy by quoting Soviet authorities on
strategic defenses. Colonel General Talensky, eminent Soviet strategist,
said that such defenses are stabilizing since they do nothing unless
``nuclear aggression is already underway.'' Vice Premier Kosygin said that
defenses are designed to save lives rather than destroy them and are
therefore sensible. Marshal Ogarkov, former Soviet Minister of Defense,
said in 1982:``Strategic defenses are not only desirable, they are
inevitable.''
All I had to do was agree with these Soviet spokesmen and let
General Chervov try to make the case that one kind of technology,space
technology, should be excluded from use in the cause of defense versus
offence. He couldn't do it.
The trip was pleasant. There is nothing like going first class in
a classless society. And it was useful in that it showed a near frenetic
effort on the part of the Soviets to kill off SDI politically, since they
have no real military-technical counter to it. The Soviets wanted this
particular champion of SDI to attend in order to determine what might
cause people like me to back off. They found that for those of us who see
SDI as the real change of strategy it is---away from reliance on the
nuclear vengeance of MAD to the sensible notion of self defense--- there
is no effective Soviet blandishment.
∂08-Aug-87 1717 JMC Hawk's progress
To: SMC
Thanks for typing it. However, the TEX was unnecessary. I should have
told you that I wanted in the computer in order to post it on SU-ETC.
∂09-Aug-87 1013 JMC
To: SMC
U.S. Mail Cuthbert Hurd a copy of "Some expert systems need common sense". It's in the drawer with my other papers.
∂09-Aug-87 1142 JMC
To: SMC
remind me about expense reports.
∂09-Aug-87 1624 JMC
To: SMC
Pls. ask Bookstore if Positivism by R. von Mises is still in print.
∂10-Aug-87 0956 JMC Rabinov charges
To: bergman@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU
CC: CLT@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU, LES@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU,
AIR@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
This is to authorize charging Arkady Rabinov to Qlisp for August, September
and October. He will work out with me, Carolyn and Igor what he will do
for the project.
∂10-Aug-87 1047 JMC bike locker
To: LES, ME
I would like to get my bike locker back in January. To this end I'm
willing to pay rent on it if necessary from the time it becomes
rentable again. However, anyone can use it till then. Do you want my
key?
∂10-Aug-87 1742 JMC re: area X
To: ullman@NAVAJO.STANFORD.EDU, genesereth@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU,
nilsson@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU, wiederhold@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU,
winograd@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from ullman@navajo.stanford.edu sent Mon, 10 Aug 87 10:55:49 PDT.]
I don't think the fact that your students will be first through
the pipe should inhibit you from drafting a syllabus.
∂10-Aug-87 2353 JMC re: Computer chess game
To: ILAN@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
CC: IGS@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from ILAN@Score.Stanford.EDU sent Mon 10 Aug 87 21:09:17-PDT.]
Let me make my usual grumble. It should be known what the program was
thinking about. Commenting on a machine's moves the way one comments
on a person's is silly. Berliner should be asked to rerun the program
on the move with suitable tracing turned on.
∂11-Aug-87 1332 JMC
To: SMC
Your ex-roommate Anita called and would like you to call her.
∂11-Aug-87 1404 JMC
To: SMC
Call Joleen Barnhill and ask if she has a spare copy of my and vladimir's course notes.
∂11-Aug-87 1710 JMC re: bert
To: SHOHAM@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Tue 11 Aug 87 15:32:03-PDT.]
Many thanks for the Russell quote and also for the wine.
∂11-Aug-87 1747 JMC re: great leaders of peace
To: MACMILK@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from MACMILK@score.stanford.edu sent Tue 11 Aug 87 12:20:09-PDT.]
Some of us atheists know where "turning the other cheek" came from.
∂11-Aug-87 2222 JMC re: chess game
To: ILAN@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU, GINSBERG@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU
CC: su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from ILAN@Score.Stanford.EDU sent Tue 11 Aug 87 19:45:25-PDT.]
I assume the complete search to fixed depth is modified by alpha-beta and
the evaluation takes quiescence into account. Is this so?
∂12-Aug-87 0004 JMC
To: SMC
Please bring the boxes to the house.
∂12-Aug-87 0901 JMC re: great leaders of peace
To: MACMILK@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Wed 12 Aug 87 08:27:06-PDT.]
Well, I wouldn't have thought so except for the way your original message
was written.
∂12-Aug-87 1013 JMC Courtesy Appointments
To: SMC
∂12-Aug-87 0919 ROSE@Sierra.Stanford.EDU Courtesy Appointments
Received: from SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU by SAIL.STANFORD.EDU with TCP; 12 Aug 87 09:18:58 PDT
Date: Wed 12 Aug 87 09:17:32-PDT
From: Susan J. Rose <ROSE@Sierra.Stanford.EDU>
Subject: Courtesy Appointments
To: dek@Sail.Stanford.EDU, jmc@Sail.Stanford.EDU, ullman@Score.Stanford.EDU,
cheriton@Pescadero.Stanford.EDU, wiederhold@SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU
cc: rose@Sierra.Stanford.EDU
Message-ID: <12325926691.20.ROSE@Sierra.Stanford.EDU>
Greetings,
I am in the middle of reappointing you as a professor by courtesy to the
EE Department. One thing I need from you is a current CV to submit with
the paperwork. You can send it to Sue Rose, 150 McCullough or if you have
it on line, send to rose@sierra. Thank you for your help.
Sue Rose
-------
∂12-Aug-87 1351 JMC group members
To: SMC
Vladimir Lifschitz VAL
Dan Pehoushek, JDP
Joe Weening JJW
Igor Rivin, IGS
Arkady Rabinov, AIR
Gian-Luigi Bellin GLB
(not present) Jussi Ketonen, JK
∂12-Aug-87 1404 JMC re: Hitler and Britain
To: Crispin@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU, SU-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from Crispin@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU sent Wed, 12 Aug 87 10:29:25 PDT.]
I think Lynn Bowman has fallen into the hands of a crank as his
source of what Hitler was up to. Trouble is I don't remember what
the reviewers said, but I vaguely remember that they had many
specific disagreements.
∂12-Aug-87 1708 JMC re: movie query: A Boy and His Dog, written by Harlan Ellison
To: douglis@DECWRL.DEC.COM, LYN@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
CC: su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from douglis@decwrl.DEC.COM sent Wed, 12 Aug 87 14:48:07 pdt.]
The ending sounds like what one ought to expect from Harlan Ellison.
∂13-Aug-87 0028 JMC re: long distance phone companies
To: ILAN@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from ILAN@Score.Stanford.EDU sent Wed 12 Aug 87 23:36:13-PDT.]
I'm astonished that a mathematician wouldn't know the difference between
average cost and marginal cost. In fact Sprint is losing money and may
go out of business, and I'm not sure that MCI is making money either.
Presumably their largest single cost is interest on the money they
borrowed to put up their lines and switching facilities. It appears
they cannot charge significantly less than AT&T and avoid bankruptcy.
I don't know what the current figure is, but at one time AT&T's investment
in new facilities of all kinds was 20 percent of the industrial investment
in the country.
∂13-Aug-87 1250 JMC re: Inverse Method project
To: brink@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Thu 13 Aug 87 12:31:36-PDT.]
I'm very busy now, so I can't give it much thought. Therefore, my answer
is, quoting Pooh-Bah, "Name your fiction; I'll endorse it". Decide what
you want to do, petition for it and MAIL me a copy. I'm going to Russia
on Saturday and will return to U. Texas, Austin, where I'll be till
January. However, I will be available electronically (jmc@sail) after
Sept. 1.
∂13-Aug-87 1551 JMC re: Long distance phone companies
To: ILAN@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
I'm still not satisfied with Ilan's amended position. I don't know whether
it is yet true that cross-country bandwith is now cheap enough so that its
marginal cost is very low. Eventually it surely will be. Then it would
be possible to charge for telephone calls independently of distance within
the country and still later for the whole world.
However, determining the rates that ought to be charged is more complex and
involves at least the following considerations.
1. Politics. When rates are set by public utilities commissions, then
advocates of various groups can try to get favorable rates. Historically,
business has paid higher rates than homes for every kind of telephone
service. Of course, this led to people operating businesses out of their
homes to try to use residential service and the telephone companies to
try to police it. The other subsidy was that long distance prices were
kept artificially high in order to subsize local service. "Consumerists"
still advocate this. We all subsidize "life line" services, which were
originally advocated so that poor elderly people could call the doctor.
Naturally, non-poor non-elderly people used the service too, and when
the phone companies tried to limit the length of calls, it was claimed
that the lonely poor elderly needed long phone calls.
You can be for or against such subsidies, but politics is a factor.
The growth of competing phone services has limited subsidies, because
MCI and Sprint are allowed to go after the profitable business long
distance service.
2. Many complications arise when the average costs of a service are
high and the marginal costs are low. Suppose there is a potential
new user of the service. He can be served profitably at anything
above marginal costs. If his demand curve makes the service valuable
to him only at a low price, then the provider of the service will
try to define a service valuable only to him, so that the customers
paying average cost or more won't be able to switch. Thus we have
airline special fares, etc. The pre-1975 ruling doctrine was that
the Government should determine what prices are "fair" and make
the providers charge them. Since that time, opinion has shifted
to allowing the providers to search out new markets and compete
with each other by adjusting prices and services. A large part of
the increase in air travel since that time was caused by promotional
fares, which would not have previously been legal. Sales attract
bargain hunters, but must be arranged so as not to divert people
in the habit of paying full price - except from competitors.
3. The whole thing admits of a formulation that is symmetric between
buyer and seller. As a buyer, I would like to know the seller's
production cost curve for producing one item and pay the marginal
cost of producing the item. As a seller, I would like to know the
buyer's demand curve and sell to him at a price that makes buying
the item from me barely worthwhile to him. This assumes that the
sellers marginal production cost is less than the buyer's marginal
demand, for otherwise they have no motivation to do business.
A salesman will often ask a customer, "What's it worth to you?", whereas
the customer asks the salesman, "What does it cost you to make
one more?" or even, "Surely, selling to me for a low price is
better than letting it just sit there on the shelf".
Where the price will end up depends on a variety of factors, chiefly
competition on both sides, clever design of seller's offers or
buyer's RFQs, and considerations of equity and politics.
Returning to the telephone companies, suppose it is now equally cheap for
them to provide calls to the East Coast and Milpitas. It still may be
advantageous for phone companies to charge more for the former on the
mere grounds that people are used to paying more or in some psychological
sense, a call to the East Coast is worth more to the user than a call
to Milpitas, say on the grounds that he sees his Milpitas friend often
and his East Coast friend but rarely.
∂13-Aug-87 1653 JMC re: meta-commentary
To: SJG
[In reply to message rcvd 13-Aug-87 14:32-PT.]
Thanks for the helpful remarks.
∂13-Aug-87 1653 JMC BBS
To: harnad@PRINCETON.EDU
Here's a TEX source on Smolensky. A paper copy follows.
\input memo.tex[let,jmc]
%smolen[e87,jmc] On Smolensky's "Proper Treatment of Connectionism"
\title{Epistemological Challenges for Connectionism}
1. The notion that there is a subsymbolic level of cognition between a
symbolic level and the neural level is plausible enough to be worth
exploring. Even more worth exploring is Smolensky's further conjecture
that the symbolic level is not self-sufficient, especially where intuition
plays an important role, and the causes of some symbolic events must be
explained at some subsymbolic level. The possibility that present day
connectionism models this subsymbolic level is also worth exploring,
but I find it somewhat implausible.
An example of Smolensky's proposal is that the content of some new
idea may be interpretable symbolically, but how it came to be thought of
may require a subsymbolic explanation. A further conjecture, not explicit
in the paper, is that an AI system capable of coming up with new ideas may
require a subsymbolic level. My own work explores the contrary conjecture
--- that even creativity is programmable at the symbolic level.
Smolensky doesn't argue for the connectionist conjectures in the paper,
and I won't argue for the logic version of the ``physical symbol system
hypothesis'' in this commentary. I'll merely state some aspects of it.
2. The paper looks at the symbolic level from a certain distance
that does not make certain distinctions --- most important being
the distinction between programs and propositions and the different
varieties of proposition.
3. My challenges to connectionism entirely concern epistemology ---
not heuristics. Thus I will be concerned with what the system finally
learns --- not how it learns it. In particular I will be concerned with
what I call {\it elaboration tolerance}, which I call the ability of a
representation to be elaborated to take into account additional phenomena.
From this point of view, the connectionist examples
I have seen suffer from what might be called the unary or even propositional
fixation of 1950s pattern recognition. The basic predicates are all
unary and are even applied to a fixed object, and a concept is
a propositional function of these predicates. The room classification
problem solved by Rumelhart, Smolensky, McClellan and Hinton (1986)
is based on unary predicates of rooms, e.g. whether a room contains
a stove. However, suppose we would like the system to learn that the
butler's pantry is the room between the kitchen and the dining room
or that a small room adjoining only a bedroom and without windows is
a closet. As far as I can see the RSMH system is not ``elaboration
tolerant'' in this direction, because its inputs are all unary
predicates on single rooms. To handle the butler's pantry, one
might have to build an entirely different connectionist network,
with the RSMH network having no salvage value.
My epistemological concerns might be satisfied by an explanation of
of what the inputs and outputs would be for a connectionist network
that could identify all the rooms of a house, including those whose
identification depends on their relation to other rooms.
I might remark that the 1960s vision projects at Stanford and M.I.T. were
partly motivated by a desire to get away from the unary bias of the 1950s.
The slogan was ``description, not mere discrimination''. Indeed one of
the motivations for starting on robotics was to illustrate and explore the
fact that to pick up a connecting rod a robot requires more than just
identifying the scene as containing a connecting rod; it requires a
description of the rod and its location and orientation. Perhaps
connectionist models can do this, and it seems to me very likely that it
can be done subsymbolically. I hope that Smolensky will address this
question in his response to the commentaries.
A semi-heuristic question of elaboration tolerance
arises in connection with NETTALK, described
in (Rosenberg and Sejnowski 1987). After considerable training the
network adjusts its 20,000 weights to translate written English into
speech. One might suppose that a human's ability to speak is similarly
represented by a large number synaptic strengths learned over years.
However, an English speaking human can be told that in the roman
alphabet transcription of Chinese adopted in the PRC, the letter Q
stands for the sound |ch|, and the letter X for the sound |sh|.
He can immediately use this fact in reading aloud an English text
with Chinese proper names. Clearly this isn't accomplished by
instantly adjusting thousands of synaptic connections. It would
be interesting to know the proper connectionist treatment of how
to make systems like NETTALK elaboration tolerant in this way.
∂13-Aug-87 1802 JMC
To: SMC
Custom Floors, San Jose
∂13-Aug-87 2228 JMC re: the economics of telephone companies
To: R.ROLAND@MACBETH.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from R.ROLAND@MACBETH.STANFORD.EDU sent Thu 13 Aug 87 20:45:41-PDT.]
"... then it might be more efficient for the government to nationalize all
telephone companies and give everybody ...". Roland, aren't you from a
country where the Government has always operated the telephone system - or
am I confusing you with someone else. Anyway Government ownership,
usually through the post office, is the norm, and the U.S. is the
exception. Government owned systems are usually less reliable, and
usually in such systems, there is a very long wait to get a phone
installed. Also AT&T was always the leader over all the Government owned
systems in technical innovation. It always amazes me when people propose
as new, systems with which there is lots of experience. Britain is just
now privatizing its phone system. Japan did so recently.
∂13-Aug-87 2310 JMC practitioners of non-violence
To: su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
One of the most influential groups practicing non-violence when
others were not consists of 17th and 18th century Pennsylvania
Quakers. They got along well with the Indians, but conflicts
with the Indians developed between non-Quaker Pennsylvania
Quakers and the Indians in Western Pennsylvania. Benjamin
Franklin wrote about it among others. I believe the Quakers,
or at least some of them, ended up compromising their non-violent
principles by voting for money to buy weapons and hire soldiers
to protect the frontier towns against the Indians.
∂13-Aug-87 2312 JMC (→21075 31-Dec-87)
To: "#___JMC.PLN[2,2]"
On Saturday August 15 I go to Moscow and Novosibirsk. I will return to
the U.S. on August 27 but to Austin, Texas. I will be on leave from
Stanford Fall Quarter returning at the end of December. I can be reached
by electronic mail to JMC@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU, i.e. here. I don't yet have
telephone numbers.
∂13-Aug-87 2315 JMC
To: CLT
As soon as we have a home phone, tell your mother and Susie, so I can call.
∂14-Aug-87 1040 JMC re: Apartheid vs. Removal
To: ILAN@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message from ILAN@Score.Stanford.EDU sent Fri 14 Aug 87 09:37:31-PDT.]
To imply that the Quakers of the 17th and 18th century had an overall
policy as to what should be done with Indians, e.g. removal, is an
anachronism. There was no overall government, since each colony had
its own, and the British had no overall policy either. Local groups
made agreements with the Indians, but other whites didn't consider
themselves bound by them. Besides that, the Indians were in intermittent
warfare among themselves. Their ethos considered raids on whoever
seemed vulnerable a good and prestigious thing to do, and the whites
weren't too far from that point of view themselves. I believe the
Quakers' view of the ethics of the matter was closer to modern views
than almost any other policy prevalent at the time.
∂14-Aug-87 1909 JMC Franklin
To: su-etc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
The grand leap of the Whale up the Falls of Niagara is esteemed, by all
who have seen it, as one of the finest spectacles of Nature.
- Benj. Franklin.
∂14-Aug-87 1913 JMC re: 3-Mile Island
To: S.STANFIELD@GSB-HOW.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Fri 14 Aug 87 16:51:13-PDT.]
All radiation exposures from Three Mile Island were small compared to
normal background and common medical exposures. To read about it
try a Socrates search F T Three Mile Island.
∂14-Aug-87 2304 JMC
To: CLT
The Alvarez book should be left on the sideboard for Coisson to read.
∂14-Aug-87 2305 JMC urgent
To: SMC
tex and mail smolen[e87,jmc] to Stevan Harnad - address in phon.