perm filename S89.OUT[LET,JMC] blob
sn#874968 filedate 1989-07-03 generic text, type C, neo UTF8
COMMENT ⊗ VALID 00314 PAGES
C REC PAGE DESCRIPTION
C00001 00001
C00031 00002 ∂17-Apr-89 0001 JMC Expired plan
C00032 00003 ∂17-Apr-89 2225 JMC re: my M.Sc. thesis
C00033 00004 ∂17-Apr-89 2234 JMC re: 3rd Conf. on Theoretical Aspects of Reasoning about Knowledge
C00034 00005 ∂17-Apr-89 2237 JMC re: banning of jokes
C00035 00006 ∂18-Apr-89 0703 JMC re: the "N" in "NCONC"
C00036 00007 ∂19-Apr-89 0314 JMC re: the "N" in "NCONC"
C00038 00008 ∂19-Apr-89 1759 JMC thanks for Sowell's article and
C00040 00009 ∂19-Apr-89 1946 JMC re: Preliminary Qlisp manual
C00041 00010 ∂19-Apr-89 1951 Mailer First Amendment
C00042 00011 ∂20-Apr-89 0550 JMC Misha Donskoi
C00043 00012 ∂20-Apr-89 1455 JMC re: Performance reviews
C00044 00013 ∂20-Apr-89 1507 Mailer re: Jones and Palmer Cold Fusion Paper (VERY LONG!)
C00046 00014 ∂20-Apr-89 1543 JMC re: retreat
C00047 00015 ∂21-Apr-89 1315 JMC comparative costs
C00048 00016 ∂21-Apr-89 1351 JMC re: First Amendment
C00049 00017 ∂21-Apr-89 1354 JMC re: comparative costs
C00050 00018 ∂21-Apr-89 1417 JMC
C00052 00019 ∂21-Apr-89 1431 JMC Przymusinski
C00054 00020 ∂21-Apr-89 1547 JMC re: Stanford Phone System
C00055 00021 ∂21-Apr-89 2033 Mailer re: cold fusion
C00056 00022 ∂21-Apr-89 2116 JMC
C00057 00023 ∂22-Apr-89 0639 JMC Please send
C00058 00024 ∂22-Apr-89 0641 JMC
C00059 00025 ∂22-Apr-89 1204 JMC
C00060 00026 ∂24-Apr-89 1010 JMC
C00061 00027 ∂24-Apr-89 1830 JMC re: US-Japan Cooperative Research Project
C00062 00028 ∂24-Apr-89 1831 JMC re: Boyer-Moore in Qlisp
C00063 00029 ∂24-Apr-89 1832 JMC re: Boyer-Moore in Qlisp
C00064 00030 ∂24-Apr-89 1835 JMC re: undergraduate seminar
C00065 00031 ∂24-Apr-89 1835 JMC Please send
C00066 00032 ∂24-Apr-89 1836 JMC reply to message
C00067 00033 ∂24-Apr-89 1837 JMC reply to message
C00068 00034 ∂24-Apr-89 1837 JMC reply to message
C00069 00035 ∂24-Apr-89 1844 JMC re: your visit to NC State
C00071 00036 ∂24-Apr-89 2027 JMC re: undergraduate seminar
C00072 00037 ∂24-Apr-89 2038 Mailer throwing money
C00074 00038 ∂24-Apr-89 2120 Mailer re: Temperate Rain Forests
C00076 00039 ∂24-Apr-89 2148 JMC re: Novosibirsk
C00078 00040 ∂24-Apr-89 2153 JMC
C00079 00041 ∂25-Apr-89 0830 JMC You aren't the only one
C00080 00042 ∂25-Apr-89 2008 Mailer throwing money
C00086 00043 ∂26-Apr-89 1442 JMC re: job hunting at Stanford
C00087 00044 ∂27-Apr-89 0858 JMC re: JPL Paper
C00088 00045 ∂27-Apr-89 1226 JMC Please make copies
C00089 00046 ∂27-Apr-89 1641 JMC re: PHIL.TEX[ESS,JMC]
C00090 00047 ∂27-Apr-89 1643 JMC re: PHIL.TEX[ESS,JMC]
C00091 00048 ∂27-Apr-89 2034 Mailer democracy
C00096 00049 ∂27-Apr-89 2106 Mailer throwing money
C00101 00050 ∂28-Apr-89 0918 Mailer re: democracy
C00105 00051 ∂28-Apr-89 0952 JMC re: spring clean up
C00106 00052 ∂28-Apr-89 0953 JMC re: spring clean up
C00107 00053 ∂28-Apr-89 1056 Mailer re: democracy
C00112 00054 ∂28-Apr-89 1338 JMC re: test from AAAI's new CSNET account
C00113 00055 ∂28-Apr-89 1339 JMC re: test from AAAI's new CSNET account
C00114 00056 ∂30-Apr-89 0722 Mailer re: US global competitiveness
C00117 00057 ∂30-Apr-89 1901 JMC
C00118 00058 ∂01-May-89 0845 JMC reply to message
C00119 00059 ∂01-May-89 1053 JMC telephone quirks
C00123 00060 ∂01-May-89 1437 JMC English
C00124 00061 ∂01-May-89 1641 JMC possible visit by Lifschitz
C00125 00062 ∂01-May-89 1901 JMC re: English
C00126 00063 ∂01-May-89 1928 Mailer re: democracy
C00130 00064 ∂01-May-89 2246 Mailer MBAs and engineers
C00132 00065 ∂02-May-89 0826 Mailer re: Pat Buchanan has gone off the deep end
C00136 00066 ∂02-May-89 1819 JMC re: children in developing countries??
C00137 00067 ∂02-May-89 1836 Mailer re: democracy
C00139 00068 ∂02-May-89 1902 Mailer re: Pat Buchanan has gone off the deep end
C00144 00069 ∂02-May-89 2025 JMC invitation requirements
C00145 00070 ∂02-May-89 2221 Mailer re: Pat Buchanan has gone off the deep end
C00147 00071 ∂03-May-89 1158 JMC Craig Fields appointed head of DARPA
C00149 00072 ∂03-May-89 1447 JMC
C00150 00073 ∂03-May-89 1732 JMC Janapense Trip
C00152 00074 ∂03-May-89 1733 JMC re: Janapense Trip
C00153 00075 ∂03-May-89 1758 Mailer re: Pat Buchanan has gone off the deep end
C00155 00076 ∂03-May-89 2214 JMC re: undergraduate seminar
C00156 00077 ∂04-May-89 0057 JMC
C00157 00078 ∂04-May-89 1303 JMC
C00158 00079 ∂04-May-89 1456 JMC re: Thesis
C00159 00080 ∂04-May-89 1639 JMC re: OK. I think I found the problem
C00160 00081 ∂04-May-89 1734 JMC Japan
C00161 00082 ∂04-May-89 1745 JMC re: Dartmouth Conference???
C00162 00083 ∂04-May-89 1757 JMC paper
C00163 00084 ∂04-May-89 1758 JMC
C00272 00085 ∂04-May-89 1949 JMC re: paper
C00273 00086 ∂05-May-89 1304 JMC re: SAIL going private
C00274 00087 ∂05-May-89 1430 JMC re: SAIL going private
C00276 00088 ∂07-May-89 1443 JMC re: Dartmouth Conference???
C00277 00089 ∂07-May-89 1444 JMC re: making contact
C00278 00090 ∂07-May-89 1445 JMC re: Go left, young censor
C00279 00091 ∂07-May-89 2007 JMC $5K
C00280 00092 ∂08-May-89 0940 JMC
C00281 00093 ∂08-May-89 0941 JMC
C00282 00094 ∂08-May-89 1033 JMC The contractor
C00283 00095 ∂08-May-89 1143 JMC re: new NSF budget
C00284 00096 ∂08-May-89 1517 JMC please phone tomorrow morning
C00285 00097 ∂08-May-89 1557 JMC re: my M.Sc. thesis
C00286 00098 ∂08-May-89 1656 JMC visa information
C00287 00099 ∂08-May-89 1807 JMC igaras.1
C00288 00100 ∂08-May-89 2118 Mailer "nuclear information"
C00290 00101 ∂09-May-89 0028 JMC dinner and peanuts
C00291 00102 ∂09-May-89 0808 Mailer re: "nuclear information"
C00293 00103 ∂09-May-89 0838 JMC
C00294 00104 ∂09-May-89 0912 JMC re: Visa Views
C00295 00105 ∂09-May-89 1320 JMC reply to message
C00297 00106 ∂09-May-89 1438 Mailer re: "nuclear information"
C00300 00107 ∂09-May-89 1902 JMC Please decorate
C00301 00108 ∂10-May-89 1058 JMC reply to message
C00302 00109 ∂10-May-89 1242 Mailer re: "nuclear information"
C00309 00110 ∂10-May-89 1302 JMC re: "nuclear information"
C00310 00111 ∂10-May-89 1332 JMC
C00311 00112 ∂10-May-89 1554 JMC simpso.3 is urgent
C00312 00113 ∂10-May-89 1850 JMC re: rec.humor.funny
C00313 00114 ∂10-May-89 1928 JMC I made only linguistic changes.
C00315 00115 ∂11-May-89 0850 JMC re: Books
C00316 00116 ∂11-May-89 1117 JMC reply to message
C00317 00117 ∂11-May-89 1204 JMC re: your schedule in Tokyo
C00318 00118 ∂11-May-89 1207 JMC re: Workshop on Parallel Lisp
C00319 00119 ∂11-May-89 1210 JMC re: Message from Tak
C00320 00120 ∂11-May-89 1255 Mailer failed mail returned
C00325 00121 ∂11-May-89 1542 JMC re: New budget for the NSF proposal
C00326 00122 ∂11-May-89 1547 JMC paradox?
C00327 00123 ∂12-May-89 0009 JMC
C00328 00124 ∂12-May-89 1608 JMC re: More MADness
C00329 00125 ∂12-May-89 1646 JMC
C00330 00126 ∂12-May-89 1654 JMC
C00331 00127 ∂13-May-89 1249 JMC re: paper
C00332 00128 ∂14-May-89 1154 JMC
C00333 00129 ∂14-May-89 1428 JMC
C00334 00130 ∂14-May-89 1510 Mailer elephant query
C00335 00131 ∂14-May-89 1641 JMC
C00336 00132 ∂14-May-89 1742 JMC re: Elephant query
C00337 00133 ∂14-May-89 1844 JMC re: Faithful Elephants
C00338 00134 ∂14-May-89 2006 JMC re: elephant query
C00339 00135 ∂14-May-89 2243 JMC
C00340 00136 ∂14-May-89 2248 JMC
C00341 00137 ∂15-May-89 0957 JMC reply to message
C00342 00138 ∂15-May-89 1146 JMC reply to message
C00343 00139 ∂15-May-89 1308 JMC
C00344 00140 ∂15-May-89 1443 JMC
C00345 00141 ∂15-May-89 1537 Mailer demonstrations and aggression
C00348 00142 ∂15-May-89 1804 Mailer re: elephant query
C00349 00143 ∂16-May-89 1058 JMC re: Paper
C00350 00144 ∂16-May-89 2256 JMC re: complete solution of pill problem
C00351 00145 ∂16-May-89 2335 Mailer re: demonstrations and aggression
C00358 00146 ∂16-May-89 2348 JMC my suspicious mind
C00359 00147 ∂17-May-89 1034 JMC velikh.1
C00360 00148 ∂17-May-89 1653 JMC re: Senior Faculty Meeting 5/16/89
C00361 00149 ∂17-May-89 1657 JMC re: Senior Faculty Meeting 5/16/89
C00362 00150 ∂17-May-89 2136 JMC
C00363 00151 ∂17-May-89 2333 Mailer demonstrations and aggression
C00365 00152 ∂18-May-89 1342 JMC re: Jussi Ketonen
C00366 00153 ∂18-May-89 1453 JMC
C00367 00154 ∂18-May-89 1726 JMC My recommendation of rejection
C00368 00155 ∂19-May-89 0916 JMC re: Paper
C00369 00156 ∂19-May-89 0917 JMC re: Paper
C00370 00157 ∂19-May-89 1010 JMC
C00371 00158 ∂19-May-89 1806 JMC re: Your Abstention on Winograd Promotion
C00372 00159 ∂19-May-89 1811 JMC
C00373 00160 ∂19-May-89 1841 Mailer demonstrators with heads in the sand
C00375 00161 ∂21-May-89 1219 Mailer re: Protesters and Martin Luther King Junior
C00378 00162 ∂21-May-89 1318 JMC AI Letters
C00382 00163 ∂21-May-89 2104 JMC re: passport for overseas travel
C00383 00164 ∂22-May-89 1254 Mailer re: Demonstration Straw Poll
C00384 00165 ∂22-May-89 1256 JMC re: Demonstration Straw Poll
C00385 00166 ∂22-May-89 1336 Mailer re: Chinese protesters
C00388 00167 ∂22-May-89 1519 JMC re: office at Cordura after this quarter
C00389 00168 ∂22-May-89 1647 Mailer re: revolution by bboard and internet?
C00392 00169 ∂22-May-89 1656 JMC re: sit cal and temp log
C00393 00170 ∂22-May-89 2225 JMC
C00394 00171 ∂23-May-89 0557 JMC re: passports
C00395 00172 ∂23-May-89 0947 JMC
C00396 00173 ∂23-May-89 1417 JMC reply to message
C00397 00174 ∂23-May-89 1904 JMC letters
C00398 00175 ∂23-May-89 2311 Mailer $17,000 per year
C00402 00176 ∂23-May-89 2314 Mailer Physics question
C00404 00177 ∂23-May-89 2311 Mailer $17,000 per year
C00408 00178 ∂24-May-89 1159 JMC re: mtg
C00409 00179 ∂24-May-89 1218 JMC Summer RA appointments
C00411 00180 ∂24-May-89 1251 Mailer re: Stanford sit-in compared to Chinese situation
C00414 00181 ∂24-May-89 1430 Mailer re: Physics question
C00415 00182 ∂24-May-89 2206 JMC re: NSF Proposal
C00416 00183 ∂24-May-89 2207 JMC re: New office
C00417 00184 ∂25-May-89 0915 JMC re: AI letter idea
C00418 00185 ∂25-May-89 0948 JMC
C00419 00186 ∂25-May-89 1537 JMC
C00420 00187 ∂25-May-89 1556 JMC
C00421 00188 ∂25-May-89 1739 Mailer re: More death penalty/Thin Blue Line
C00425 00189 ∂25-May-89 1951 Mailer re: protestors
C00426 00190 ∂25-May-89 2013 Mailer re: Stanford sit-in compared to Chinese situation
C00430 00191 ∂26-May-89 0654 Mailer Stanford's first Vice-President for Administration
C00431 00192 ∂26-May-89 0733 JMC (→22104 2-Jun-89)
C00432 00193 ∂02-Jun-89 0000 JMC Expired plan
C00433 00194 ∂02-Jun-89 2358 JMC re: signatures for Bob Byer
C00434 00195 ∂03-Jun-89 0004 JMC re: changing offices
C00435 00196 ∂03-Jun-89 0012 JMC re: contentions
C00436 00197 ∂03-Jun-89 1308 Mailer inordinate fear of communism
C00438 00198 ∂03-Jun-89 1731 JMC re: changing offices
C00439 00199 ∂04-Jun-89 0029 JMC
C00440 00200 ∂04-Jun-89 0035 Mailer the Ayatollah
C00441 00201 ∂04-Jun-89 1634 Mailer re: inordinate fear of communism
C00446 00202 ∂04-Jun-89 1644 JMC re: changing offices
C00447 00203 ∂04-Jun-89 1712 JMC re: changing offices
C00448 00204 ∂05-Jun-89 0104 Mailer Nicaragua and China events
C00450 00205 ∂05-Jun-89 1456 JMC re: Rumor reposted from soc.culture.china (was A must !)
C00451 00206 ∂05-Jun-89 1523 JMC
C00452 00207 ∂06-Jun-89 0101 JMC re: China
C00453 00208 ∂06-Jun-89 1444 Mailer re: Nicaragua and China events
C00455 00209 ∂06-Jun-89 1650 Mailer re: China
C00460 00210 ∂06-Jun-89 1811 Mailer re: Nicaragua and China events
C00462 00211 ∂06-Jun-89 1820 Mailer re: global environment program at Stanford
C00464 00212 ∂06-Jun-89 2153 Mailer re: Avoiding Blacks...
C00466 00213 ∂06-Jun-89 2222 JMC re: China
C00469 00214 ∂06-Jun-89 2230 JMC re: Nicaragua and China events
C00470 00215 ∂06-Jun-89 2241 JMC re: Avoiding Blacks...
C00472 00216 ∂07-Jun-89 0109 JMC China
C00475 00217 ∂07-Jun-89 0151 Mailer A triumph of stupidity
C00482 00218 ∂07-Jun-89 1340 Mailer re: Nicaragua and China events
C00484 00219 ∂07-Jun-89 1344 Mailer re: Nicaragua and China events
C00485 00220 ∂07-Jun-89 1410 Mailer Soviet coverage of China
C00487 00221 ∂07-Jun-89 1420 JMC change electronic mail address
C00488 00222 ∂07-Jun-89 1933 JMC
C00489 00223 ∂07-Jun-89 2322 JMC re: Environmental Science
C00490 00224 ∂08-Jun-89 1333 Mailer re: Mexico
C00495 00225 ∂08-Jun-89 1518 Mailer re: American influence in China
C00496 00226 ∂08-Jun-89 1800 JMC Please mail
C00497 00227 ∂08-Jun-89 1959 JMC re: possible IEEE interview
C00498 00228 ∂08-Jun-89 2148 JMC re: comments on Lisp book
C00499 00229 ∂09-Jun-89 0801 JMC reply to message
C00500 00230 ∂09-Jun-89 0821 Mailer Academic freedom wins and rhf restored
C00504 00231 ∂09-Jun-89 1508 JMC re: Academic freedom wins and rhf restored
C00505 00232 ∂09-Jun-89 1516 JMC re: A favor, please?
C00506 00233 ∂09-Jun-89 1524 JMC reply to message
C00507 00234 ∂09-Jun-89 1529 Mailer re: Academic freedom wins and rhf restored - clarification
C00509 00235 ∂09-Jun-89 1532 JMC re: U of Md trip
C00510 00236 ∂09-Jun-89 1714 Mailer re: rec.humor.funny
C00514 00237 ∂09-Jun-89 1725 JMC retransmission to fix incorrectly remembered address
C00518 00238 ∂09-Jun-89 1743 JMC re: Protestors
C00519 00239 ∂09-Jun-89 1839 Mailer re: Mexico
C00523 00240 ∂09-Jun-89 2205 Mailer re: ASSU Senate Actions
C00524 00241 ∂09-Jun-89 2252 JMC
C00525 00242 ∂10-Jun-89 1916 JMC
C00526 00243 ∂10-Jun-89 2100 JMC
C00527 00244 ∂10-Jun-89 2102 JMC
C00528 00245 ∂10-Jun-89 2352 JMC re: Printing trasparencies
C00529 00246 ∂11-Jun-89 0023 JMC re: Printing trasparencies
C00530 00247 ∂11-Jun-89 0028 JMC re: Printing trasparencies
C00531 00248 ∂11-Jun-89 0033 JMC re: Printing trasparencies
C00532 00249 ∂11-Jun-89 0053 JMC manual feed on Imagen
C00533 00250 ∂11-Jun-89 1138 JMC
C00535 00251 ∂11-Jun-89 1509 JMC Please print
C00536 00252 ∂11-Jun-89 2335 Mailer re: So what's wrong with killing protesters?
C00538 00253 ∂11-Jun-89 2346 Mailer re: So what's wrong with killing protesters?
C00539 00254 ∂12-Jun-89 0041 Mailer re: killing protesters...
C00541 00255 ∂12-Jun-89 1139 JMC cash machines taking our card
C00542 00256 ∂12-Jun-89 1245 Mailer American prisoners in Vietnam?
C00546 00257 ∂12-Jun-89 1641 JMC re: Manual feed on Imagen
C00547 00258 ∂12-Jun-89 1757 JMC re: Manual feed on Imagen
C00548 00259 ∂12-Jun-89 1815 Mailer re: Nicaraguan news, statements regarding China
C00550 00260 ∂12-Jun-89 1818 JMC re: Learning Lisp
C00551 00261 ∂12-Jun-89 2056 JMC
C00552 00262 ∂12-Jun-89 2209 Mailer re: killing protesters...
C00554 00263 ∂13-Jun-89 0406 JMC re: travel plans
C00555 00264 ∂13-Jun-89 1152 Mailer re: correction to (dollar) volume of trade with China *my* error
C00557 00265 ∂13-Jun-89 1158 JMC EE junk electronic mail
C00559 00266 ∂13-Jun-89 1434 JMC wrong address gets two copies back
C00561 00267 ∂13-Jun-89 1715 Mailer re: American prisoners in Vietnam?
C00562 00268 ∂13-Jun-89 2026 JMC re: Lisp book
C00564 00269 ∂13-Jun-89 2331 JMC re: Lisp book
C00565 00270 ∂14-Jun-89 0928 JMC re: mess
C00566 00271 ∂14-Jun-89 1045 JMC re: Alliant presentation
C00567 00272 parallel-lisp-request@go4
C00568 00273 ∂14-Jun-89 1457 JMC re: office space at Cordura
C00573 00274 ∂14-Jun-89 1509 Mailer Avoiding Blacks
C00575 00275 ∂14-Jun-89 1615 JMC reply to message
C00576 00276 ∂14-Jun-89 1631 Mailer re: Avoiding Blacks
C00579 00277 ∂14-Jun-89 1725 JMC re: lunch
C00580 00278 ∂14-Jun-89 1731 JMC re: Joke File
C00581 00279 ∂14-Jun-89 2031 Mailer re:Stanford graduate expelled from China
C00583 00280 ∂14-Jun-89 2059 JMC
C00584 00281 ∂15-Jun-89 0353 Mailer re: government manipulation of the media (by David Liu)
C00587 00282 ∂15-Jun-89 0424 Mailer China again
C00592 00283 ∂15-Jun-89 1843 Mailer Hong Kong and the Falklands
C00593 00284 ∂16-Jun-89 0005 Mailer wise guy
C00595 00285 ∂16-Jun-89 0205 Mailer AIDS
C00597 00286 ∂16-Jun-89 1009 JMC Proposal 8915663
C00599 00287 ∂16-Jun-89 1011 JMC I hope
C00600 00288 ∂16-Jun-89 1056 JMC re: invitation to banquet
C00601 00289 ∂16-Jun-89 1125 Mailer re: AIDS
C00602 00290 ∂16-Jun-89 1347 Mailer re: Hong Kong and the Falklands
C00603 00291 ∂16-Jun-89 1358 Mailer re: AIDS
C00606 00292 ∂16-Jun-89 1700 JMC Thanks
C00607 00293 ∂16-Jun-89 2030 Mailer rec.humor.funny
C00613 00294 ∂17-Jun-89 0037 JMC (→22136 28-Jun-89)
C00614 00295 ∂17-Jun-89 0055 JMC
C00615 00296 ∂17-Jun-89 0101 JMC Please send
C00616 00297 ∂17-Jun-89 0156 JMC for Timothy
C00617 00298 ∂17-Jun-89 0917 JMC
C00618 00299 ∂28-Jun-89 0000 JMC Expired plan
C00619 00300 ∂28-Jun-89 2138 JMC re: 7/11 Faculty Meeting
C00620 00301 ∂28-Jun-89 2140 JMC re: No texts?
C00621 00302 ∂29-Jun-89 0950 JMC
C00622 00303 ∂29-Jun-89 0950 JMC Please send
C00623 00304 ∂29-Jun-89 0956 JMC
C00624 00305 ∂29-Jun-89 1009 JMC
C00625 00306 ∂29-Jun-89 1010 JMC
C00626 00307 ∂29-Jun-89 1010 JMC cbcl
C00627 00308 ∂29-Jun-89 1051 Mailer re: question for the profs.
C00628 00309 ∂29-Jun-89 1315 JMC re: question for the profs.
C00629 00310 ∂29-Jun-89 1319 JMC re: Reducing the number of literals in equations
C00630 00311 ∂29-Jun-89 1845 JMC Kennedy statement
C00632 00312 ∂30-Jun-89 1232 JMC re: An Interview
C00633 00313 ∂30-Jun-89 1604 JMC re: proposals
C00634 00314 ∂30-Jun-89 2038 JMC re: CS stuff
C00642 ENDMK
C⊗;
∂17-Apr-89 0001 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 will be in Britain and the Soviet Union till April 17.
My secretary Pat Simmons, mps@sail.stanford.edu, 415 723-6321
has my schedule.
∂17-Apr-89 2225 JMC re: my M.Sc. thesis
To: eyal@COYOTE.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Wed, 29 Mar 89 11:31:52 PST.]
I looked, but I was not encouraged to think better of classical logic
as compared to modern mathematical logic.
∂17-Apr-89 2234 JMC re: 3rd Conf. on Theoretical Aspects of Reasoning about Knowledge
To: VARDI%ALMVMA.BITNET@FORSYTHE.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message sent 11 Apr 89 09:10 PDT.]
I'm not handling this any more. Ask Claudia at AAAI.
∂17-Apr-89 2237 JMC re: banning of jokes
To: goldberg@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Tue, 11 Apr 89 18:29:34 PDT.]
I just got back from a 3 week trip, but things looked rather good
when I left. The President referred the matter to the Academic
Senate, whose steering committee referred it to the Committee
on Libraries, and it looked like that committee would oppose
censorship.
∂18-Apr-89 0703 JMC re: the "N" in "NCONC"
To: jonl@LUCID.COM
[In reply to message sent Tue, 18 Apr 89 02:31:03 PDT.]
"Despite the humongous increase in address space that the
7094 afforded over the 650, ..." suggests that LISP was
important on the 650 at some time. I don't believe this
was ever true. LISP was first developed with a 32K address
space. This doesn't affect the validity of the rest of
your remarks. I have been following the discussion
of nconc, etc., but I haven't seen any question to which
I could contribute additional information.
∂19-Apr-89 0314 JMC re: the "N" in "NCONC"
To: jonl@LUCID.COM
[In reply to message sent Tue, 18 Apr 89 17:16:02 PDT.]
I don't even remember hearing the story to abjure, but I always thought
that large memories were necessary. I remember devising some scheme
to address a large memory with short instructions and being convinced
to abandon such schemes by Wes Clark's remark that the address length
grew only as the log of memory size. I admired TX-2 because of its
18 bit address and was disappointed when D.E.C. decided not to make
the PDP-3 (about 1961), and there is documentary evidence that my
1961 proposed M.I.T. rfp for a time-sharing computer called for
a million word memory.
I don't remember anyone who wanted to do AI and wasn't nervous
about small memories.
John von Neumann was against large memories, because he thought
about computers only in connection with numerical computation
and, according to Paul Armer, wrote a letter to the Air Force
saying that Armer's plan to buy 32K memories for RAND's three IBM
704s was a waste of memory. This would have been about 1956.
∂19-Apr-89 1759 JMC thanks for Sowell's article and
To: siegman@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU
I have a suggestion that you might make at tomorrow's
Senate meeting. As well as discussing which words in proposed
SCLC statements do or do not or do not contravene the First
Amendment there could be a general statement as follows.
Nothing in these rules shall be interpreted as allowing Stanford
punishment of expression that the First Amendment would prevent
government from making illegal and punishing. The University's legal
counsel shall serve as appeal judge in cases in which it is
claimed that a proposed punishment is not in accordance with
First Amendment standards.
∂19-Apr-89 1946 JMC re: Preliminary Qlisp manual
To: weening@GANG-OF-FOUR.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Wed, 19 Apr 89 19:12:41 PDT.]
Could you make me a paper copy?
∂19-Apr-89 1951 Mailer First Amendment
To: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
I suggest that the SCLC be persuaded to add the following
supplement to whatever rules they make.
Nothing in these rules shall be interpreted as allowing Stanford
punishment of expression that the First Amendment would prevent
government from making illegal and punishing. The University's legal
counsel shall serve as appeal judge in cases in which it is
claimed that a proposed punishment is not in accordance with
First Amendment standards.
∂20-Apr-89 0550 JMC Misha Donskoi
To: ilan@Gang-of-Four.Stanford.EDU
He is one of the designers of Kaissa, the Soviet chess program.
If you would like to have lunch with him and me today, come
to my office at 1140.
∂20-Apr-89 1455 JMC re: Performance reviews
To: SLOAN@SCORE.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message sent Thu 20 Apr 89 11:43:18-PDT.]
Carolyn brought them around yesterday and I signed them. You should
get them from her tomorrow.
∂20-Apr-89 1507 Mailer re: Jones and Palmer Cold Fusion Paper (VERY LONG!)
To: S.SALUT@HAMLET.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU,
brooks@PORTIA.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message sent Wed 12 Apr 89 14:45:56-PDT.]
Has a heat pump effect been excluded? The electricity is high
grade energy, and the heat coming out is very low grade, because
the temperature at which it comes out is only slightly greater
than ambient. Therefore, one could imagine that some electrochemical
mechanism (I have no suggestion what) could pump heat from the bath
into the electrode assembly. Including the whole system in the
calorimeter could exclude heat pumping, but the pictures I have
seen don't suggest that. One might imagine a heat pump that would
work better with D2O than with H2O.
∂20-Apr-89 1543 JMC re: retreat
To: nilsson@TENAYA.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Thu, 20 Apr 89 15:28:46 PDT.]
Sure. The title is Common Sense Knowledge in Mathematical Logic.
∂21-Apr-89 1315 JMC comparative costs
To: nilsson@TENAYA.STANFORD.EDU
New biology building will have 98,000 square feet and will cost $33 million.
How does this cost per square foot compare with our building. Note
that laboratory facilities cost more than office space.
∂21-Apr-89 1351 JMC re: First Amendment
To: S.SALUT@HAMLET.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Fri 21 Apr 89 13:46:43-PDT.]
Thanks. Do you remember what is the email address for official comments
on the SCLC proposal?
∂21-Apr-89 1354 JMC re: comparative costs
To: nilsson@TENAYA.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Fri, 21 Apr 89 13:50:00 PDT.]
That's from Wednesday's Campus Report, and it doesn't say what
kind of square feet.
∂21-Apr-89 1417 JMC
To: CLT
\noindent McCarthy will pursue his study of the relation between
functional programming and logic programming including the
problem of giving logic programming more sophisticated forms of
control. This work meshes well with Sato's Qute system that
combines logic programming with LISP style programming. It has
already resulted in the postponement heuristic developed
originally in connection with a Prolog program for coloring maps
but which is more generally applicable to problems where the
deciding how to achieve some goals should be postponed, because
they can be solved no matter how the other goals are solved.
Other work by McCarthy on map coloring in Prolog led to the idea
of introspective Prolog programs and led Peter Szeredi to write
an introspective Prolog interpreter.
More recently McCarthy has been thinking about program
modification languages (in contrast to programming languages).
The goal is to require minimal knowledge of the program being
modified in order to make desired changes in its behavior. This
involves notions of conceptual modularity in contrast to the
usual notions of modularity which can be called operational
modularity.
∂21-Apr-89 1431 JMC Przymusinski
To: MINKER@MIMSY.UMD.EDU
This is sort of a reference for him. I have long considered him
one of the prominent contributors to nonmonotonic reasoning and
on that basis worthy of a professorship at a major university.
However, recently I have been overwhelmed by the amount of recent
work in the mathematics of nonmonotonic reasoning and haven't
follwed it in detail. I have decided to return my own efforts to
formalizing common sense knowledge and reasoning confident that
others, including Przymusinski, are developing their mathematical
properties and the related computational means. Thus I haven't
read the papers you or Przymusinki sent me. I recommend relying
on Vladimir Lifschitz for comparing them with other work in the
field. I should add that I consider mathematical work on formalisms
for nonmonotonic reasoning and domain that will retain its high
importance for AI, and that I have always considered Przymusinski
one of the top six people in it.
∂21-Apr-89 1547 JMC re: Stanford Phone System
To: siegman@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Fri, 21 Apr 89 11:28:39 PDT.]
Thanks for explaining what happens to my answering machine.
∂21-Apr-89 2033 Mailer re: cold fusion
To: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
"...Giving society cheap, abundant energy ... would be the equivalent
of giving an idiot child a machine gun." Paul Ehrlich, %2An Ecologist's
Perspective on Nuclear Power%1, May/June 1978 issue of
Federation of American Scientists Public Issue Report
∂21-Apr-89 2116 JMC
To: VAL@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, suppes@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
Lunch Friday 28th if ok with VAL.
∂22-Apr-89 0639 JMC Please send
To: MPS
my bibliography, i.e. p.4 of biojmc.tex (texed separately) to
Dr. Arkady Blinov at the Institute of Philosophy in Moscow.
∂22-Apr-89 0641 JMC
To: MPS
remind me to select papers to send to Paducheva
∂22-Apr-89 1204 JMC
To: MPS
segam.1 address is Inamori Foundation
∂24-Apr-89 1010 JMC
To: MPS
segami.1[let,jmc]
∂24-Apr-89 1830 JMC re: US-Japan Cooperative Research Project
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 24-Apr-89 12:28-PT.]
If it turned out that there was some interest in a more mathematically
detailed discussion of c.s. reasoning than I have given in Japan, then
a visit from you might help get some useful activity started. Let me
send a message to Sato about this.
∂24-Apr-89 1831 JMC re: Boyer-Moore in Qlisp
To: weening@Gang-of-Four.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message sent Mon, 24 Apr 89 12:55:10 PDT.]
In principle, yes, but ask Carolyn if we can afford it.
∂24-Apr-89 1832 JMC re: Boyer-Moore in Qlisp
To: weening@Gang-of-Four.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message sent Mon, 24 Apr 89 12:55:10 PDT.]
Second thought. If he is coming as a representative of CLINC,
there is no need to pay him.
∂24-Apr-89 1835 JMC re: undergraduate seminar
To: JONES@SCORE.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message sent Mon 24 Apr 89 13:58:18-PDT.]
The 5/3 spot will be ok.
∂24-Apr-89 1835 JMC Please send
To: MPS
my short bio to Roy Jones.
∂24-Apr-89 1836 JMC reply to message
To: MPS
[In reply to message rcvd 24-Apr-89 15:41-PT.]
No, it was Chris Mellish.
∂24-Apr-89 1837 JMC reply to message
To: MPS
[In reply to message rcvd 24-Apr-89 16:38-PT.]
It's Darden. See her address in my phon file.
∂24-Apr-89 1837 JMC reply to message
To: MPS
[In reply to message rcvd 24-Apr-89 16:40-PT.]
I told him May 3.
∂24-Apr-89 1844 JMC re: your visit to NC State
To: drb@CSCFAC.NCSU.EDU
CC: MPS@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message sent Mon, 24 Apr 89 16:16:36 edt.]
Pat, see page 104 of my message file. Dennis, Pat Simmons's email
address is mps@sail.stanford.edu.
The title will be Programs with Common Sense. I have not promised
a written paper, since I have recently published an exposition of
my general views in Daedalus, and need to concentrate on technical
papers for the next two years.
I agree to stay for 3 days and to any schedule of meetings you
propose.
I don't smoke but haven't been offended by rooms that have been
smoked in.
∂24-Apr-89 2027 JMC re: undergraduate seminar
To: JONES@SCORE.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message sent Mon 24 Apr 89 18:43:38-PDT.]
Ask Pat mps@sail for my short biography and a copy of the Daedalus
article. It has no formulas.
∂24-Apr-89 2038 Mailer throwing money
To: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
Much more water can be saved by not eating tomatoes than
by not drinking water. Each tomato requires several (I
forget how many) gallons of water when grown in dirt.
When grown hydroponically, the water use is about 30 times
less, because hydroponic vegetables are grown in greenhouses
which retain the water.
Incidentally, water is not sold by the gallon but by the acre-foot,
which is about 400,000 gallons. A penny per gallon is $4,000 per
acre foot. If I remember correctly, $30 is a normal price for
an acre foot, but it varies enormously, because unlike any other
commodity, the main price of water is its transportation.
∂24-Apr-89 2120 Mailer re: Temperate Rain Forests
To: U.UNDERDOG@Hamlet.Stanford.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from U.UNDERDOG@hamlet.stanford.edu sent Mon 24 Apr 89 16:48:57-PDT.]
Considering forests as producers of oxygen doesn't make sense for
quantitative reasons. The atmosphere has 600 times as many molecules of
oxygen as of carbon dioxide. There is not enough available carbon in the world,
e.g. coal and oil and shale, to combine with the oxygen and use it up.
While carbon dioxide can fluctuate quite a lot, there is no apparent
way of using up much of the oxygen.
∂24-Apr-89 2148 JMC re: Novosibirsk
To: SF@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Mon 24 Apr 89 21:36:54-PDT.]
There are about 10 flights each day in each direction between
Moscow and Novosibirsk. However, only a few are listed in the
international OAG. Years ago I was told that only one flight in
each direction was allowed to take foreigners. Every time I have
gone to Novosibirsk, the Moscow-Novosibirsk transportation was
arranged by my Novosibirsk hosts at the instigation of Andrei
Ershov who died in December. If you have official hosts in
Novosibirsk, I would suggest that you reserve a flight to Moscow
and tell them when you will arrive in Moscow. They will arrange
for you to be met and for the Novosibirsk transportation.
I don't know if foreigners are allowed to go to Omsk. When you
apply for a visa, you could ask for it to be put on your
visa. Probably it will work better for you to ask your
Novosibirsk hosts if they can arrange to include Omsk in
your trip.
Maybe a letter of invitation from your relatives in Omsk
is necessary.
∂24-Apr-89 2153 JMC
To: sf@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
Phone 857-0672 for another suggestion.
∂25-Apr-89 0830 JMC You aren't the only one
To: CLT
who thought I was a member of NAS. At the Kyoto Prize
award ceremony, a congratulatory telegram was read from
Frank Press, President of the National Academy of Sciences.
It remarked that he was pleased to note that both American
laureates were members. I'm pleased to note that NAS has
made an honest man of their president.
∂25-Apr-89 2008 Mailer throwing money
To: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
The debate on this subject has been uninformative, even as to the
precise positions of the debaters. Since the late 1970s, there
has been a worldwide trend to privatizing a variety of functions
that came to be performed by governments during a trend that
started in the 1920s. Enough time has elapsed so that people
can have formed opinions on which of the privatizations were
successful and which should be reversed. They can also have
opinions on whether there should be further privatizations
or whether there should be some government takeovers of private
functions.
Besides government operation, there is government regulation.
There has also been much deregulation in some areas but increased
regulation in others.
I think I can guess Alex Bronstein's position, and I imagine he
would like to privatize almost everything. However, the positions
of Steinberger and cjh concerning exactly what facilities
should be operated by government and how much government
regulation of others there should be remain obscure. I'll list
some specific items and give my own position.
1. National defense. I think it should remain a government function
supported by taxes and when necessary by a draft. However, many
support functions can be stripped off to good advantage. Weapons
should continue to produced by industry. In short, I generally
support the status quo but am open to arguments about some additional
privatizations.
2. Public utilities. They should remain private and regulation
should be reduced. In particular, electricity generation should
be separated from electricity distribution, and the generation
should become a competitive unregulated business. This conclusion
is based on present technology. If someone discovers a way to
distribute electricity competitively or to generate it efficiently
in households, that would be even better than a regulated monopoly.
I think the switch to privately owned telephones was a good thing.
Incidentally, whoever said that private companies cannot take
over property by eminent domain was mistaken. Granting monopoly
franchises for some public utilities has often involved granting
limited rights of eminent domain.
The sale and distribution of water might well be privatized.
3. Airlines. They should be private with unregulated fares
and market entry. While our airlines have always been private,
some European countries have recently privatized airlines.
4. Housing should be private, and rent control has proved to
be a disastrous idea.
5. The postal monopoly should go. Maybe Rural Free Delivery
would require continued subsidy; maybe not.
6. Zoning regulations and city planning should go. It has
turned out to be a way of protecting all kinds of monopolies.
7. Some new highways might be privatized. I don't see building
another Bayshore, and a ten cent toll seems extremely low no
matter who builds it. Computer controlled cars going 80 mph
bumper to bumper strikes me as the ultimate solution.
On the other hand, BART was an economic disaster to build
and probably doesn't even support its operating expenses.
I would welcome discussion of these and other specific points.
∂26-Apr-89 1442 JMC re: job hunting at Stanford
To: jqj@HOGG.CC.UOREGON.EDU
[In reply to message sent Wed, 26 Apr 89 13:20:49 PDT.]
The Computer Science Department doesn't offer much opportunity, because
we are about to shrink our staff. I hope you find something suitable,
and I look forward to seeing you again.
∂27-Apr-89 0858 JMC re: JPL Paper
To: thomason@CAD.CS.CMU.EDU
[In reply to message sent Thu, 27 Apr 1989 9:02:18 EDT.]
You did, and I dithered. Give me a fixed deadline, e.g. one week
ahead. It isn't certain I'll be able to improve the context
section much, but I want to try. I have no significant other
commitments.
∂27-Apr-89 1226 JMC Please make copies
To: MPS
from the computer file of Some Philosophical Problems ...,
put some in my file drawer and send one to
Michael Jakob
Stanford Humanities Center
Mariposa House
∂27-Apr-89 1641 JMC re: PHIL.TEX[ESS,JMC]
To: JSW@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, MPS@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message rcvd 27-Apr-89 15:49-PT.]
Pat should convert phil.tex[ess,jmc] to new tex macros, i.e. those
in plain tex and in memo.tex[let,jmc]. Maybe you can advise her.
∂27-Apr-89 1643 JMC re: PHIL.TEX[ESS,JMC]
To: JSW@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, MPS@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message rcvd 27-Apr-89 15:49-PT.]
Come to think of it, Vladimir recently texed that file for inclusion
in the book of my papers. Ask him what he did. Also the reference
to the correct file in one of my areas should be replace the old
reference in my bibliography.
∂27-Apr-89 2034 Mailer democracy
To: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
Ever since the time of Lenin, communists and their sympathizers
have made a distinction between bourgeois democracy (inferior)
and ``proletarian democracy'' (superior). The latter has
had various names. Some of the sympathizers have used
terms like economic democracy. Western sympathizers have
often said that Western democracy with free speech and
free elections is all very well for rich countries, but
where people are poor, economic democracy guaranteeing
full employment and free medical care is more important
and often has to be achieved at the cost of mere
``formal democracy''.
Recent events in the Soviet Union, China, Poland and
Hungary have shown that ``proletarian democracy''
and ``economic democracy'' were merely slogans
papering over the dictatorship of an arrogant
and corrupt party and party leader. What the
Russians and other nationalities of the Soviet
Union want, what the Chinese want, and what the
Poles and Hungarians want is democracy in the
same sense as the term is used in the West.
The clearest semi-official expression of this
was by a Hungarian Party official reported in
the New York Times on April 24. ``He said
there was no difference between `bourgeois
and socialist criteria for democracy and
human rights' ''.
I just spent two weeks in Moscow. This was
after the first round of elections and before
the second round in which elections in which
candidates were rejected were to be repeated.
In particular, the electors of the USSR Academy
of Sciences, comprising the academicians and
also electors elected from the institutes
operated by the Academy, elected only 8 out
of the 20 deputies to the People's Congress.
The reason for rejecting all but 8 was that
the nominating procedure of the Presidium
of the Academy had failed to include Sakharov,
Sagdeev and other important liberals among
the nominees.
After the rejection the Presidium
gave in and allowed the liberals to be
nominated, and in the second round the
liberals were duly elected. I talked
with two of the electors from different
institutes and met one of the candidates
(Sagdeev). I also attended a political
rally of the Moscow People's Front at
which a district candidate, Stankevich,
who won his runoff the next day, spoke.
The point I want to make from
this experience and from reading the
newspapers about the Soviet Union, Poland
and China is this. There is only one
kind of democracy. We have it and the
people of communist countries want it.
Their chances of getting it look pretty
good now.
The BBOARD contributors who
assured us that the Chinese and Soviets
would surely elect their communist leaders
given a free choice should re-evaluate
their positions and apply them to the
countries where the people have not yet
had a clear chance to speak, i.e. Nicaragua
and Cuba.
∂27-Apr-89 2106 Mailer throwing money
To: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
I thank Ric Steinberger for responding to my discussion of
particular areas of comparison of government vs. private
services. We don't fully agree on the particulars, but
the disagreement isn't very large. However, there is
a more general point.
In his comments on several areas, e.g. defense and public
utilities, Steinberger expresses the common concern,
emphasized by liberals but admitted by others, that
private companies will overcharge the Government for
military equipment, will overcharge consumers for
utility services and will corrupt legislators by
lobbying for their favorite programs. This is indeed
a problem, but other forms of corruption have turned
out to be worse. There are three kinds.
1. Bureaucratic empires with monopolies get larger and
larger, lobby for increased authority, functions and
appropriations. This is true whether the government
monopoly provides services like the post office or
HHW or does regulation like the EPA, the FCC, the FAA
or the CAB.
2. Spokesmen for groups or companies benefitting from Government
largesse or regulation lobby to preserve their monopolies.
Consider the elaborate mechanism that was required to
close military bases that have been obsolete for forty
years or longer. We have the farm lobby and the welfare
lobbies on the Federal level. On local levels we have
zoning regulators and rent control boards. Whenever
government has authority that determines someone's
income, it can turn out that lobbying ability is
more important to his income than the ability to
do a job. Taxi medallions in New York City now
sell for $250,000. Deregulating taxis would
destroy $2.5 billion in property by making
10,000 medallions worthless.
3. Besides economically motivated corruption arising from
Government power, there is also ideologically motivated
corruption. Its most trivial example was the woman who attempted
to bribe an Illinois legislator to vote to ratify ERA. The
advocates of ``tough environmental regulations'' have become more
interested in their victories and their alliances than in human
welfare. My prize example is the Sierra Club leaders who
switched from favoring nucler power in order to preserve their
alliances with more fanatical people.
In the past there was coercive Sunday observance and
prohibition. Many present-day feminist organizations
are equally ready to use Government power.
To recapitulate, it has turned out that giving
government power with the object of relieving the
inequalities caused by capitalism has usually caused far
worse evils. Fortunately, in democratic and basically
capitalist societies, these evils can often be corrected
by denationalization and deregulation.
∂28-Apr-89 0918 Mailer re: democracy
To: STEINBERGER@KL.SRI.COM
CC: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from STEINBERGER@KL.SRI.COM sent Fri, 28 Apr 89 07:52:49 PDT.]
Ric Steinberger writes:
I believe that you are correct in asserting that most
citizens of communist countries would prefer far more
democratic governments where power is more equitably
distributed. Many citizens of the United States would
prefer this too.
The above hints at a moral equivalence or perhaps an equivalence in
institutional arrangement between the U.S. and communist countries.
It is certainly polite and avoids ethnocentricity to suggest an
equivalence, but, in my opinion, such polite assertions of equivalence
have done much harm in the world by helping communist party bosses,
tribal medicine men and Latin American caudillos retain control
of their populations.
My own opinion and I think that of the people I talked to in the
Soviet Union is that rule by communist parties is a far inferior
system to Western forms of representative democracy. It has led to
poverty, oppression, corruption and occasional genocide on a far
larger scale than have occurred in Western democratic countries.
Incidentally, the Institute of Philosophy, which was my host in
Moscow was running a continuing seminar on ``totalitarianism''.
Unfortunately, schedule didn't permit my attendance. However,
I believe this indicates that in the Soviet Union, many people
believe that totalitarianism is a real phenomenon, worthy of
study separately from other authoritarian forms of rule.
Returning to Steinberger, it seems to me that he thinks that
the institutions of American democracy could be substantially improved.
I speak of improving the institution and not merely reducing
bribery, corruption and lobbying. I'm curious about what the
proposals would be, because if they are like proposals I
heard about it the 60s and 70s, I have lots of arguments about
why they would probably make things worse by leading to increased
corruption by interest groups, demagogs and ideologies.
∂28-Apr-89 0952 JMC re: spring clean up
To: CLT
[In reply to message rcvd 28-Apr-89 09:51-PT.]
I'll come too.
∂28-Apr-89 0953 JMC re: spring clean up
To: CLT
[In reply to message rcvd 28-Apr-89 09:51-PT.]
Did you get Timothy's message, which he typed himself?
∂28-Apr-89 1056 Mailer re: democracy
To: STEINBERGER@KL.SRI.COM
CC: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from STEINBERGER@KL.SRI.COM sent Fri, 28 Apr 89 10:08:50 PDT.]
from Ric Steinberger:
BTW - John, How was the food in the USSR? Are they
interested in having US fast food chains locate there?
The food I got was good, because I was in one of the best hotels,
and when I ate at friends' homes, they probably went to consdiderable
trouble. However:
1. My friends said the food situation was getting worse. Moscow
is privileged with regard to food supply. It doesn't have the
meat and sugar rationing of many other cities.
2. The hotel restaurant resisted customers. It would take reservations
only after 11am on the day one wanted to eat, and wouldn't accept
walk-ins even when there were many empty tables. My hypothesis,
confirmed as probable by Soviet friends, was that they had only
a limited supply of food and liked to reserve it for parties that
offered bribes.
3. The buffet on my floor was reasonably well supplied with standard
Russian food. I found this quite acceptable for a two week visit,
but I imagined it would get boring soon after. However, it had
coffee only some of the time, and this was explained as a consequence
of reduced coffee imports.
4. Getting a restaurant reservation without hard currency
seems to require pull of some kind, except in expensive co-operative
restaurants. I took my friends once to the single Japanese restaurant
in Moscow. It accepts only hard currency. The food was good and
authentically Japanese in style, although the waiters and cooks were
Russian. They even had a tatami room waited on by a Russian woman in
a kimono. This was much better done than Moscow's lone Chinese
restaurant, the Peking, which 15 years ago was scarcely Chinese at
all. There was supervisor who looked Japanese, but I wasn't certain,
because some Soviet nationalities look like Japanese.
The customers of the Japanese restaurant seemed to be mostly
Soviet. Privileged Soviets can get their hands on foreign
currency. I remember asking a translator during my May 1988
visit what he thought of this, and he replied that he considered
it ``a form of apartheid''.
5. The Soviets have invited both McDonald's and Pizza Hut to
establish restaurants. My friends said there was a Pizza Hut
for a while, but it was being moved to a different locataion.
Presumably, Western fast food restaurants would have some
problems with supplies, since the Soviets wouldn't want
to expend the dollars required for importing the food itself.
U.S. fast food chains would be good for them, because their
upper managements have discovered how to train outlet managers
that can train teenagers to provide clean, fast and efficient
service. The Soviet Union also lacks institutions for
part-time and summer teen-age employment.
∂28-Apr-89 1338 JMC re: test from AAAI's new CSNET account
To: mazzetti@ED.AAAI.ORG
[In reply to message sent Fri, 28 Apr 89 09:48:46 PDT.]
test reply
∂28-Apr-89 1339 JMC re: test from AAAI's new CSNET account
To: mazzetti@SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message sent Fri, 28 Apr 89 09:48:46 PDT.]
I am also trying a response to your csnet address.
∂30-Apr-89 0722 Mailer re: US global competitiveness
To: P.REDLICH@GSB-WHY.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from P.REDLICH@GSB-WHY.Stanford.EDU sent Sun 30 Apr 89 01:29:58-PDT.]
I'm a little surprised that a GSB PhD student would have heard so
little about how the competitiveness problem is viewed. Actually,
I think Redlich's point that we're giving them paper is exchange
for goods is mainly correct. There are two perceived problems.
1. What crisis will occur when the Japanese, etc. decide they don't
want more paper? As far as I can see the reduction in average
standard of living might be 10 percent. Of course, it won't
be a uniform and equitable 10 percent. We will be able to
squabble fiercely over who has to take the cut.
2. While the U.S. on the average benefits from the cheap foreign
goods, particular industries are wiped out. The engineers of
these industries don't get to design them any more, and the MBAs
of these industries don't get market them, and the workers of
these industries have to find other jobs. They see the solution
to their particular problems as keeping the foreigners out and
preserving oligopolies that permit them to have higher incomes
than average Americans. To put it concretely, an automobile
worker making $20 per hour wants someone making $10 per hour to
be required to buy American cars so that the automobile worker
won't have to take a cut to $15 per hour. His boss has similar
feelings. Between them, they can readily persuade the Senators
from Michigan.
The nervousness extends to Silicon Valley engineers. However,
we professors seem pretty safe. That helps us take an objective
view of the matter or lets us take various faddish views -
according to personality.
∂30-Apr-89 1901 JMC
To: VAL
My talk about the Soviet elections will be postponed a week.
∂01-May-89 0845 JMC reply to message
To: GOLUMBIC%ISRAEARN.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
[In reply to message sent Mon, 01 May 89 11:51:04 IDT.]
June 19 is ok. However, it might be better to schedule people
who will not be afflicted with jet lag for the first day.
∂01-May-89 1053 JMC telephone quirks
To: MPS
∂01-May-89 1025 usenet@labrea.stanford.edu telephone quirks
Received: from labrea.stanford.edu by SAIL.Stanford.EDU with TCP; 1 May 89 10:25:35 PDT
Received: by labrea.stanford.edu; Mon, 1 May 89 10:24:34 PDT
Date: 1 May 89 16:26:26 GMT
From: GC.SUL@forsythe.stanford.edu (MIKE SULLIVAN)
Subject: telephone quirks
Message-Id: <2944@lindy.Stanford.EDU>
Sender: usenet@labrea.stanford.edu
To: su-etc@labrea.stanford.edu
A further comment from Anne Crowley on telephone quirks.
Sullivan
In response to Tony Siegman's BBoard message outlining some problems
he was experiencing with his answering machine and the Stanford
telephone system. This is a problem Communication Services has
experienced with several models of answering machines located on
campus.
The problem does not rest with the phone system, rather with the
signals that the answering machine sends to the phone system upon a
disconnect. In some of the older model answering devices, this
signal is not strong enough for the phone system to detect as a
disconnect. The phone system is instead reading this as a call
originating, therefore after not seeing any digits sent across the
line, the recording/treatment is sent back.
This problem is easily corrected by applying a feature to the
telephone line serving the answering machine called "Cutoff on
Disconnect". We assign this to lines which require an automatic
cutoff when a party disconnects and when we are aware that a FAX
machine or answering machine will be hooked up to the line.
If anyone else reading this BBoard is experiencing similar problems,
this feature can be applied to your line and then monitored to
ensure that the problem is corrected by calling our repair line at
3-1611. If you have any questions about the feature, please don't
hesitate to give our client consulting staff a call at 5-HELP.
We try to monitor the BBoard, but can easily miss out on some
comments or concerns staff or faculty may have about the phone
system. 5-HELP is available to also answer any questions you may
have in addition to the BBoard avenue.
Anne Crowley
∂01-May-89 1437 JMC English
To: gurevich@POLYA.STANFORD.EDU
remind takes a person as an object. It should be
"We review notions related to datalog ..."
∂01-May-89 1641 JMC possible visit by Lifschitz
To: MS@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
There is a question of including Vladimir Lifschitz in the next
round of our U.S. Japan collaboration. Is anyone there interested
in formalizing common sense knowledge and reasoning, especially in
nonmonotonic systems?
∂01-May-89 1901 JMC re: English
To: gurevich@POLYA.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Mon, 1 May 89 18:57:27 -0700.]
"We remind you basics of datalog" still isn't English. It would have
to be "We remind you of the basics of datalog".
∂01-May-89 1928 Mailer re: democracy
To: RWF@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from RWF rcvd 01-May-89 18:19-PT.]
RWF asks how the Russians and Chinese learn about democracy.
For a more accurate answer than I can give, one should ask the
Russian and Chinese people in our midst. For example, one told
me he saw a book giving the constitutions of capitalist
countries. Presumably in the Soviet Union saw that book.
Of course, like here the majority aren't interested in
constitutions and have forgotten what they were taught (true and
false both) about their own system of government and others.
I'm somewhat surprised that RWF relates democracy only to our
own form of it. Plenty of others manage democracy with varied
constitutions - including the unwritten British constitution.
Soviets and Chinse who want to know how democracies work have
a variety of sources of information.
1. Observation of their own system. It doesn't take a
genius or a knowledge of foreign systems to figure out that
elections with only one candidate are anomalous.
2. There is plenty of word-of-mouth information, probably
some of it descended from before the revolution.
3. There is foreign radio.
4. There have always been some foreign books brought in.
There are pre-revolutionary books.
5. There is information about foreign contested elections.
Of course, the Soviet newspapers and other instruments of propaganda
often say that the parties in foreign elections are the same, but
the fact that the results of the election are often not predicted
makes an impact. Also Soviet media sometimes express preferences
regarding foreign elections.
6. All the documents you mention are in some libraries,
perhaps in the closed collections, and I have never seen any of
them in Soviet bookstores. Ask a native if which if any have
been published in translation at all. Of course,
pre-revolutionary translations are available to some.
So far as I know, neither the Soviets nor the Chinese
ever engaged in mass collections and burnings of unsuitable
older books.
∂01-May-89 2246 Mailer MBAs and engineers
To: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
When Einstein was asked how he managed to do such great work
in physics, he replied, "By always thinking about it".
The man who is successful at making a company profitable
will be the man who is always thinking about just that -
whether his original background be business administration
or engineering. If he starts as an engineer, he cannot
spend much of his time thinking about engineering once
he takes charge of a company. Should it turn out that
the company's main problem is designing good new products,
then he may get to spend a lot of time thinking about that.
If it's sales, he has to think about that.
Unfortunately, the Einstein principle also applies to rising in a
company or other bureaucracy. Often the man will rise who is
always thinking about how to rise, spending only such time as is
absolutely necessary on thinking about the company's business.
∂02-May-89 0826 Mailer re: Pat Buchanan has gone off the deep end
To: STEINBERGER@KL.SRI.COM, P.REDLICH@GSB-WHY.STANFORD.EDU
CC: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from STEINBERGER@KL.SRI.COM sent Tue, 2 May 89 07:30:35 PDT.]
Well, I guess I should come out and defend Buchanan. This is
a limited defense, since I haven't read his column recently and
am relying on the quotes from Redlich.
Let us begin with the fact that a poll of New York blacks showed
that 47 percent thought Bernard Goetz "did the right thing" in
shooting the four black thugs he thought were about to attack
him and only 16 percent thought he did the wrong thing. Then
consider the further fact that the largest cause of death
among teen-age and other young black men is murder and that
middle class blacks not living in the "ghetto" are not much
more likely to be murdered than whites. Go on to the fact
that black residents of "ghetto" communities consider law
and order their main problem.
These facts lead me to the conclusion that Buchanan might
do these communities some good, whereas Redlich and Steinberger
can only do them harm.
The problem is that a predatory culture has developed since
the early 1960s among certain black young men. The history
of earlier predatory cultures, Northmen, Goths, Moghuls, Mongols
Aztecs doesn't suggest much optimism. They were either
smashed or conquered everything in sight and mellowed over
hundreds of years. The "ghetto" culture isn't going to
conquer America.
The resources of a modern society are far greater
than those of older societies so maybe something can be done.
However, it won't be done by knee-jerk liberalism. As Pravda
said in response to the Andreyeva letter urging a return
to the Brezhnev era, "We have already tried that, comrades".
Let Redlich and Steinberger say whether they think there is
a genuine "law and order" problem other than police shooting
innocent blacks. If either thinks there is, let him say
what should be done about it. Then, I'll try again.
∂02-May-89 1819 JMC re: children in developing countries??
To: rohit@Polya.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message sent Tue, 2 May 89 10:17:40 -0700.]
Two organizations that do this are Oxfam and Save the Children Federation.
Librarians know how to find the addresses of organizations.
∂02-May-89 1836 Mailer re: democracy
To: peyton@Polya.Stanford.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from peyton@polya.stanford.edu sent Tue, 2 May 1989 18:03:07 PDT.]
Alas, democratic elections don't always go the way I would like
them to. I favor democracy anyway. I don't accept Liam Peyton's
characterization of the U.S. role in Nicaragua. However, the
1979 anti-Somoza revolution was ok, but the Sandinistas
suppressed the democracy many of their 1979 supporters in and out
of Nicaragua thought they were fighting for. The 1984 elections
did not allow free campaigning by the opposition, and various
Sandinistas intimidated people by announcing that they would not
accept a vote against them. We'll see about the 1990 elections.
As for China, I don't understand the student demonstrations as
being against the economic reforms. They were in favor of
freedom of speech, free elections (especially on campus) and
against official corruption. At least, that was what their
slogans said. It's in the Soviet Union, that there is said
to be substantial worker opposition to perestroika.
∂02-May-89 1902 Mailer re: Pat Buchanan has gone off the deep end
To: STEINBERGER@KL.SRI.COM, paulf@JESSICA.STANFORD.EDU
CC: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from STEINBERGER@kl.sri.com sent Tue, 2 May 89 13:58:10 PDT.]
Here's what I conclude from 47 percent of blacks thinking Goetz did
the right thing and only 16 percent opposed, although the "black
leaders" took the opposite position. The average New York black
more often imagines himself in Goetz's position of being
menaced by 4 black thugs than in the position of being shot by
a crazy white man who misinterprets something he says.
I think Steinberger's "knee jerk liberal position" is wrong in
saying that the main cause ghetto violence is social injustice
and that the main solution is to reduce this injustice. The
violence mainly arose after Johnson's Great Society undertook
to cure the injustice and made many laws intended to have that
effect. Many of these laws and court decisions have improved
the lot of most blacks and moved many of them into the middle
class. However, included among the liberal measures were the
following:
1. Well-intentioned measures that made law enforcement
harder.
2. Rules preventing eviction of violent people from
housing projects resulting in their being taken over by gangs.
3. Rent control measures that benefitted a random
selection of the middle class but caused housing in poor areas to
be abandoned and destroyed. This helped promote homelessness.
Apparently the landlord that rented to Abbey Hoffman for $90
per month wasn't motivated to abandon the building.
There are lots more, but that's enough.
What about the solution?
I don't believe anything will work but law enforcement to whatever
degree may be required. I would like to relax civil rights
protections as little as possible but as much as necessary.
I would like to restore the protections as soon as possible.
What relaxations may be required?
1. Imprisonment in whatever prisons society chooses to afford
for whatever period is necessary to incapacitate criminals, i.e.
to keep most (say 80 percent) of them off the streets. If the
prisons can be kept nice, fine. If the only way to keep the
convicted violent criminals in prison is to rent them to
the Soviet or Chinese gulag, let that be done.
2. It may be necessary to give police the power to use their
nightsticks at the cost of occasional injustice.
3. Removing the Miranda rule is worth doing, although by itself
it won't do much.
4. Executing gang leaders when gang members commit murder requires
no change in present law and should be done.
All the above follows from the "predatory society" theory and
the historical fact that predatory societies in the past
have either conquered or been violently suppressed.
I don't think niceness or affirmative action can work. Once one
has adopted the attitude that other people are prey, it is just
too much fun to be given up, and it is just too attractive to
teenagers. This isn't a racist theory. There have been plenty
of white predatory societies.
∂02-May-89 2025 JMC invitation requirements
To: VAL
I intend to invite Natasha Rodman and her husband and daughter to visit.
What do you know about the required form of invitation letter? Is it
primarily Soviet or American requirements that have to be met?
∂02-May-89 2221 Mailer re: Pat Buchanan has gone off the deep end
To: karish@FOREL.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from karish@forel.stanford.edu sent 3 May 89 03:27:20 GMT.]
In our middle class community, we can afford to forbid police to
use their nightsticks to administer summary justice. We don't
have ten people beaten up by gangs every time a policeman refrains
from using his nightstick. Other communities are less fortunate.
When Mr. Karish says we have no choice, does he really mean to
say any murder rate in the ghetto is preferable to giving the
police there more power? Finally, does he think the strategy
of socializing the next generation is working?
∂03-May-89 1158 JMC Craig Fields appointed head of DARPA
To: faculty@SCORE.Stanford.EDU
a202 1048 03 May 89
AM-BRF--Military Move,0116
Cheney Names Head of Pentagon Research Agency
WASHINGTON (AP) - Craig I. Fields, a longtime executive with the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, has been selected by
Defense Secretary Dick Cheney to become the agency's leader.
Fields, 42, will replace Raymond S. Colladay as the director of
DARPA. The agency is the Pentagon arm responsible for investigating
advanced scientific applications for future weapons.
Fields joined DARPA in 1974 and has held a variety of leadership
posts over the years. He is now the deputy director for research, a
post in which he has concentrated on computer technology,
microelectronics, artificial intelligence and manufacturing
technology.
Fields won the President's Distinguished Executive Rank Award for
outstanding service in 1988.
AP-NY-05-03-89 1332EDT
***************
∂03-May-89 1447 JMC
To: VAL
05-09 Tues. 1030, Hoover 130, Observations on the Soviet elections, especially
the elections in the Academy of Sciences
∂03-May-89 1732 JMC Janapense Trip
To: CLT
∂03-May-89 1541 levinth@sierra.STANFORD.EDU Janapense Trip
Received: from sierra.STANFORD.EDU by SAIL.Stanford.EDU with TCP; 3 May 89 15:41:33 PDT
Received: by sierra.STANFORD.EDU (3.2/4.7); Wed, 3 May 89 15:41:24 PDT
Date: Wed, 3 May 89 15:41:24 PDT
From: levinth@sierra.STANFORD.EDU (Elliott C. Levinthal)
To: jmc@sail
Subject: Janapense Trip
John , spoke to Mark Pullen. there seems to be no security or
classification issue with regard to your trip to Japan . The only
question was money. they felt that 6 people from Lucid and Stanford
was more than they wanted to pay for. You will receive, by the end of
this week, ( check with Pullen if this doesn't happen-
Pullen@vax.darpa.mil ) for yourself and two other people, one from
Stanford and one from Lucid. Let me know if there is anything further
you wish me to do.
Elliott
Replying-To: levinth@sierra.STANFORD.EDU
Reply-Subject: re: Janapense Trip
Reply-Text:
[In reply to message sent Wed, 3 May 89 15:41:24 PDT.]
Thanks. I'll have to check with Pullen again, because the one who
shouldn't go is me.
∂03-May-89 1733 JMC re: Janapense Trip
To: levinth@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Wed, 3 May 89 15:41:24 PDT.]
Thanks. I'll have to check with Pullen again, because the one who
shouldn't go is me.
∂03-May-89 1758 Mailer re: Pat Buchanan has gone off the deep end
To: mogul@decwrl.dec.com, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from mogul@decwrl.dec.com sent 3 May 89 19:01:41 GMT.]
No I don't agree to Jeff Mogul's proposal to:
(1) Executing corporate officers when their employees
knowingly take actions leading to the death of other
people "should be done."
In the first place, it's ambiguous. Does it include the case when their
employees knowingly take the actions and their actions just happen to lead
to death? Secondly, it would seem to apply to anyone in charge of a
sufficiently large corporation. The head of IBM has to know that at
least one of his employees, in the course of his duties will run over
someone in a company car. With 240,000 employees, it's a certainty.
Revise your proposal, and I'll think about it.
Also I have to revise mine to exclude innocent actions on the part of
the gang leader that just happen to lead to death.
∂03-May-89 2214 JMC re: undergraduate seminar
To: JONES@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Wed 3 May 89 18:37:19-PDT.]
I haven't decided yet. Do you have any suggestions?
∂04-May-89 0057 JMC
To: MPS
What is your present home phone number?
∂04-May-89 1303 JMC
To: VAL
(∀X)(sterile(X) ≡ (∀Y)(bacterium(Y) ∧ in(Y,X) ⊃ dead(Y)))
(∀X Y)(hot(X) ∧ in(Y,X) ⊃ hot(Y))
(∀Y)(bacterium(Y) ∧ hot(Y) ⊃ dead(Y))
hot(a)
************
sterile(X) :- not[bacterium(Y,X), alive(Y)]
∂04-May-89 1456 JMC re: Thesis
To: weening@GANG-OF-FOUR.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Thu, 4 May 89 14:48:20 PDT.]
Yes.
I'll be here about 4pm.
∂04-May-89 1639 JMC re: OK. I think I found the problem
To: I.iONLYonTUES@MACBETH.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Thu 4 May 89 13:20:46-PDT.]
This is one test too many.
∂04-May-89 1734 JMC Japan
To: pullen@VAX.DARPA.MIL
CC: JSW@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
CC: CLT@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
I would like Dan Pehoushek from the Stanford Qlisp group to go to
Japan instead of me. He has some good new results and will also
benefit from hearing what other people are doing. Thus the
Stanford travellers would be Joe Weening and Dan. Most of the
people who will be at the meeting have already heard what I
have to say on this subject.
∂04-May-89 1745 JMC re: Dartmouth Conference???
To: georgeff%aaii.OZ@UUNET.UU.NET
[In reply to message sent Fri, 5 May 89 09:49 EAST.]
The Dartmouth conference was in the summer of 1956. Before 1969, there
were sometimes sessions on AI at meetings of IEEE and ACM I suppose.
You can read some of it in Pamela McCorduck's book, Machines Who Think.
∂04-May-89 1757 JMC paper
To: rich.thomason@CAD.CS.CMU.EDU
It's the next message. I have made quite a few improvements and fixed
several misprints. Unfortunately, I have been unable to appreciably
improve the section on contexts. I need some more ideas to do that.
∂04-May-89 1758 JMC
To: rich.thomason@CAD.CS.CMU.EDU
%thomas[f88,jmc] Another try at AI and logic for Thomason
%see thomas[e88,jmc] for some dropped material
\input memo.tex[let,jmc]
\title{Artificial Intelligence, Logic and Formalizing Common Sense}
!\section{Introduction}
%thomason comments in f88.in[let,jmc]/575p
This is a position paper about the relations among
artificial intelligence (AI), mathematical logic and the
formalization of common sense knowledge and reasoning. It also
treats other problems of concern to both AI and philosophy. I thank
the editor for inviting it. The position advocated is that
philosophy can contribute to AI if it treats some of its
traditional subject matter in more detail and that this will
advance the philosophical goals also. Actual formalisms (mostly
first order languages) for expressing common sense facts are
described in the references.
Common sense knowledge includes the basic facts about events
(including actions) and their effects, facts about knowledge and how
it is obtained, facts about beliefs and desires. It also includes
the basic facts about material objects and their properties.
One path to human-level AI uses mathematical logic to
formalize common sense
knowledge in such a way that common sense problems can be
solved by logical reasoning. This methodology requires
understanding the common sense world well enough to formalize
facts about it and ways of achieving goals in it. Basing AI on
understanding the common sense world is different from basing it
on understanding human psychology or neurophysiology.
This approach
to AI, based on logic and computer science, is complementary to
approaches that start from the fact that humans exhibit intelligence,
and that explore human psychology or human neurophysiology.
This article discusses the problems and difficulties, the
results so far, and some improvements in logic and logical languages
that may be required to formalize common sense. Fundamental
conceptual advances are almost certainly required. The object of the
paper is to get more help for AI from philosophical logicians. Some
of the requested help will be mostly philosophical and some will be
logical. Likewise the concrete AI approach may fertilize
philosophical logic as physics has repeatedly fertilized mathematics.
There are three reasons for AI to emphasize common sense
knowledge rather than the knowledge contained in scientific
theories.
(1) Scientific theories represent compartmentalized
knowledge. In presenting a scientific theory, as well as in
developing it, there is a commonsense pre-scientific stage. In
this stage, it is decided or just taken for granted what
phenomena are to be covered and what is the relation between
certain formal terms of the theory and the commonsense world.
Thus in classical mechanics it is decided what kinds of bodies
and forces are to be used before the differential equations are
written down. In probabilistic theories, the sample space is
determined. In theories expressed in first order logic, the
predicate and function symbols are decided upon. The axiomatic
reasoning techniques used in mathematical and logical theories
depend on this having been done. However, a robot or computer
program with human-level intelligence will have to do this for
itself. To use science, common sense is required.
Once developed, a scientific theory remains imbedded
in common sense. To apply the theory to a specific problem,
commonsense descriptions must be matched to the terms of the theory.
For example, $d = {1\over 2} gt↑2$ does not in itself identify
$d$ as the distance a body falls in time $t$ and identify $g$
as the acceleration due to gravity.
(McCarthy and Hayes 1969) uses the {\it situation
calculus} introduced in that paper to imbed the above formula
in a formula describing the common sense situation, for example
%
$$\eqalign{
&dropped(x,s) \wedge height(x,s) = h \wedge d = {1\over 2}gt↑2 \wedge d < h\cr
\supset &\exists s'(F(s,s') \wedge time(s') = time(s)+t
\wedge height(x,s') = h - d).}$$
%
Here $x$ is the falling body, and we are presuming a language
in which the functions $height$, $time$, etc. are formalized
in a way that corresponds to what the English words suggest.
$s$ and $s'$ denote {\it situations} as discussed in that paper,
and $F(s,s')$ asserts that the situation $s'$ is in the future
of the situation $s$.
(2) Commonsense reasoning is required
for solving problems in the common sense world. From the problem
solving or goal-achieving point of view, the commonsense world is
characterized by a different {\it informatic situation} than that
{\it within} any formal scientific theory. In the typical common
sense informatic
situation, the reasoner doesn't know what facts are relevant to
solving his problem. Unanticipated obstacles may arise that involve
using parts of his knowledge not previously thought to be relevant.
(3) Finally, the informal metatheory of any scientific
theory has a commonsense informatic character. By this I mean
the thinking about the structure of the theory in general and the
research problems it presents. Mathematicians invented the
concept of a group in order to make previously vague parallels
between different domains into a precise notion. The thinking
about how to do this had a commonsense character.
It might be supposed that the common sense world would admit a
conventional scientific theory, e.g. a probabilistic theory. But no
one has yet developed such a theory, and AI has taken a somewhat
different course that
involves nonmonotonic extensions to the kind of reasoning used in
formal scientific theories. This seems likely to work better.
Aristotle, Leibniz, Boole and Frege all included common sense
knowledge when they discussed formal logic. However,
formalizing much of common sense knowledge and reasoning proved
elusive, and the twentieth century emphasis has been on formalizing
mathematics. Some important philosophers, e.g. Wittgenstein, have
claimed that common sense knowledge is unformalizable or mathematical
logic is inappropriate for doing it. Though it is possible to give a
kind of plausibility to views of this sort, it is much less easy to
make a case for them that is well supported and carefully worked out.
If a common sense reasoning problem is well presented, one is well on
the way to formalizing it. The examples that are presented for this
negative view borrow much of their plausibility from the inadequacy of
the specific collections of predicates and functions they take into
consideration. Some of their force comes from not formalizing
nonmonotonic reasoning, and some may be due to lack of logical tools
still to be discovered. While I acknowledge this opinion, I haven't
the time or the scholarship to deal with the full range of such
arguments. Instead I will present the positive case, the problems that
have arisen, what has been done and the problems that can be foreseen.
These problems are often more interesting than the ones suggested by
philosophers trying to show the futility of formalizing common sense, and
they suggest productive research programs for both AI and philosophy.
In so far as the arguments against the formalizability of
common sense attempt to make precise intuitions of their authors,
they can be helpful in identifying problems that have to be solved.
For example, Hubert Dreyfus (1972) said that computers couldn't have
``ambiguity tolerance'' but didn't offer much explanation of the
concept. With the development of nonmonotonic reasoning, it became
possible to define some forms of {\it ambiguity tolerance} and show
how they can and must be incorporated in computer systems. For
example, it is possible to make a system that doesn't know about
possible {\it de re}/{\it de dicto} ambiguities and has a
default assumption that amounts to saying that a reference holds
both {\it de re} and {\it de dicto}. When this assumption
leads to inconsistency, the ambiguity can be discovered and
treated, usually by splitting a concept into two or more.
If a computer is to store facts about the world and reason
with them, it needs a precise language, and the program has to embody
a precise idea of what reasoning is allowed, i.e. of how new formulas
may be derived from old. Therefore, it was natural to try to use
mathematical logical languages to express what an intelligent computer
program knows that is relevant to the problems we want it to solve and
to make the program use logical inference in order to decide what to
do. (McCarthy 1959) contains the first proposals to use logic in AI
for expressing what a program knows and how it should reason.
(Proving logical formulas as a domain for AI had already been
studied by several authors).
The 1959 paper said:
\begingroup\narrower\narrower
% COMMON.TEX[E80,JMC] TeX version Programs with Common Sense
%
The {\it advice taker} is a proposed program for solving problems by
manipulating sentences in formal languages. The main difference
between it and other programs or proposed programs for manipulating
formal languages (the {\it Logic Theory Machine} of Newell, Simon and
Shaw and the Geometry Program of Gelernter) is that in the previous
programs the formal system was the subject matter but the heuristics
were all embodied in the program. In this program the procedures will
be described as much as possible in the language itself and, in
particular, the heuristics are all so described.
The main advantages we expect the {\it advice taker} to have
is that its behavior will be improvable merely by making statements to
it, telling it about its symbolic environment and what is wanted from
it. To make these statements will require little if any knowledge of
the program or the previous knowledge of the {\it advice taker}. One
will be able to assume that the {\it advice taker} will have available
to it a fairly wide class of immediate logical consequences of anything
it is told and its previous knowledge. This property is expected to
have much in common with what makes us describe certain humans as
having {\it common sense}. We shall therefore say that {\it a program
has common sense if it automatically deduces for itself a sufficiently
wide class of immediate consequences of anything it is told and what
it already knows.}
\par\endgroup
The main reasons for using logical sentences extensively in AI
are better understood by researchers today than in 1959. Expressing
information in declarative sentences is far more modular than
expressing it in segments of computer program or in tables. Sentences
can be true in much wider contexts than specific programs can be
useful. The supplier of a fact does not have to understand much about
how the receiver functions, or how or whether the receiver will use it.
The same fact can be used for many purposes, because the logical
consequences of collections of facts can be available.
The {\it advice taker} prospectus was ambitious in 1959, would
be considered ambitious today and is still far from being immediately
realizable. This is especially true of the goal of expressing the
heuristics guiding the search for a way to achieve the goal in the
language itself. The rest of this paper is largely concerned with
describing what progress has been made, what the obstacles are, and
how the prospectus has been modified in the light of what has been
discovered.
The formalisms of logic have been used to differing
extents in AI. Most of the uses are much less ambitious than
the proposals of (McCarthy 1959). We can distinguish four
levels of use of logic.
1. A machine may use no logical sentences---all its
``beliefs'' being implicit in its state. Nevertheless, it is often
appropriate to ascribe beliefs and goals to the program, i.e. to
remove the above sanitary quotes, and to use a principle of
rationality---{\it It does what it thinks will achieve its goals}.
Such ascription is discussed from somewhat different points of view
in (Dennett 1971), (McCarthy 1979a) and
(Newell 1981). The advantage is that the intent of the machine's
designers and the way it can be expected to behave may be more readily
described {\it intentionally} than by a purely physical description.
The relation between the physical and the {\it intentional}
descriptions is most readily understood in simple systems that admit
readily understood descriptions of both kinds, e.g. thermostats. Some
finicky philosophers object to this, contending that unless a system
has a full human mind, it shouldn't be regarded as having any mental
qualities at all. This is like omitting the numbers 0 and 1 from the
number system on the grounds that numbers aren't required to count
sets with no elements or one element.
Indeed if your main interest is the null set or unit sets, numbers
{\it are} irrelevant. However, if your interest is the number system
you lose clarity and uniformity
if you omit 0 and 1. Likewise, when one studies phenomena like belief,
e.g. because one wants a machine with beliefs and which reasons about
beliefs, it works better not to exclude simple cases from the formalism.
One battle has been over whether it should be forbidden to ascribe to a simple
thermostat the belief that the room is too cold.
(McCarthy 1979a) says much more about ascribing mental qualities
to machines, but that's not where the main action is in AI.
2. The next level of use of logic involves computer programs
that use sentences in machine memory to represent their beliefs but
use other rules than ordinary logical inference to reach conclusions.
New sentences are often obtained from the old ones by ad hoc programs.
Moreover, the sentences that appear in memory belong to a
program-dependent subset of the logical language being used. Adding
certain true sentences in the language may even spoil the functioning
of the program. The languages used are often rather unexpressive
compared to first order logic, for example they may not admit
quantified sentences, or they may use a
different notation from that used for ordinary facts to represent
``rules'', i.e. certain universally quantified implication sentences.
Most often, conditional rules are used in just one
direction, i.e. contrapositive reasoning is not used.
Usually the program cannot infer new rules; rules
must have all been put in by the ``knowledge engineer''. Sometimes
programs have this form through mere ignorance, but the usual
reason for the restriction is the practical desire to make the program
run fast and deduce just the kinds of conclusions its designer
anticipates.
We
believe the need for such specialized inference will turn out to be
temporary and will be reduced or eliminated by improved ways of
controlling general inference, e.g. by allowing the heuristic rules to
be also expressed as sentences as promised in the above extract from
the 1959 paper.
3. The third level uses first order logic and also logical
deduction. Typically the sentences are represented as clauses, and the
deduction methods are based on J. Allen Robinson's (1965) method of
resolution. It is common to use a theorem prover as a problem solver,
i.e. to determine an $x$ such that $P(x)$ as a byproduct of a proof of
the formula $\exists xP(x)$.
This level is less used for practical
purposes than level two, because techniques for controlling the
reasoning are still insufficiently developed, and it is common for the
program to generate many useless conclusions before reaching the desired
solution. Indeed, unsuccessful experience (Green 1969) with this method
led to more restricted uses of logic, e.g. the STRIPS system of (Nilsson
and Fikes 1971).
%The promise of (McCarthy 1959) to express the
%heuristic facts that should be used to guide the search as logical
%sentences has not yet been realized by anyone.
The commercial ``expert system shells'', e.g. ART, KEE and
OPS-5, use logical representation of facts, usually ground facts only,
and separate facts from rules. They provide elaborate but not always
adequate ways of controlling inference.
In this connection it is important to mention logic programming,
first introduced in Microplanner (Sussman et al., 1971)
and from different points of view by Robert Kowalski (1979) and Alain
Colmerauer in the early 1970s.
A recent text is (Sterling and Shapiro 1986). Microplanner
was a rather unsystematic collection of tools, whereas Prolog relies
almost entirely on one kind of logic programming, but the main idea
is the same. If one uses a restricted class of sentences, the so-called
Horn clauses, then it is possible to use a restricted form of logical
deduction. The control problem is then much eased, and it is possible
for the programmer to anticipate the course the deduction will take.
The price paid is that only certain kinds of facts are conveniently
expressed as Horn clauses, and the depth first search built into
Prolog is not always appropriate for the problem.
Even when the relevant facts can be expressed as Horn
clauses supplemented by negation as failure, the reasoning
carried out by a Prolog program may not be appropriate. For
example, the fact that a sealed container is sterile if all the
bacteria in it are dead and the fact that heating a can kills a
bacterium in the can are both expressible as Prolog clauses.
However, the resulting program for sterilizing a container will
kill each bacterium individually, because it will have to index
over the bacteria. It won't reason that heating the can kills
all the bacteria at once, because it doesn't do universal
generalization.
Here's a Prolog program for testing whether a container
is sterile. The predicate symbols have obvious meanings.
\smallskip
{\tt\obeyspaces\obeylines
not(P) :- P, !, fail.
not(P).
sterile(X) :- not(nonsterile(X)).
nonsterile(X) :- bacterium(Y), in(Y,X), not(dead(Y)).
hot(Y) :- in(Y,X), hot(X).
dead(Y) :- bacterium(Y), hot(Y).
bacterium(b1).
bacterium(b2).
bacterium(b3).
bacterium(b4).
in(b1,c1).
in(b2,c1).
in(b3,c2).
in(b4,c2).
hot(c1).}
\smallskip
Giving Prolog the goal $sterile(c1)$ and $sterile(c2)$ gives
the answers $yes$ and $no$ respectively. However, Prolog has
indexed over the bacteria in the containers.
The following is a Prolog program that can verify whether
a sequence of actions, actually just heating it, will sterilize
a container. It involves introducing situations analogous to
those discussed in (McCarthy and Hayes 1969).
{\tt\obeyspaces\obeylines
not(P) :- P, !, fail.
not(P).
sterile(X,S) :- not(nonsterile(X,S)).
nonsterile(X,S) :- bacterium(Y), in(Y,X), not(dead(Y,S)).
hot(Y,S) :- in(Y,X), hot(X,S).
dead(Y,S) :- bacterium(Y), hot(Y,S).
bacterium(b1).
bacterium(b2).
bacterium(b3).
bacterium(b4).
in(b1,c1).
in(b2,c1).
in(b3,c2).
in(b4,c2).
hot(C,result(heat(C),S)).}
When the program is given the goals $sterile(c1,heat(c1,s0))$
and $sterile(c2,heat(c1,s0))$ it answers $yes$ and $no$ respectively.
However, if it is given the goal $sterile(c1,s)$, it will fail because
Prolog lacks what logic programmers call ``constructive negation''.
The same facts as are used in first Prolog program can be expressed in
in a first order language as follows.
%
$$(\forall X)(sterile(X) \equiv (\forall Y)(bacterium(Y) \wedge in(Y,X) \supset dead(Y))),$$
$$(\forall X Y)(hot(X) \wedge in(Y,X) \supset hot(Y)),$$
$$(\forall Y)(bacterium(Y) \wedge hot(Y) \supset dead(Y)),$$
%
and
%
$$hot(a).$$
%
However, from them we can prove $sterile(a)$ without having
to index over the bacteria.
Expressibility in Horn clauses, whether supplemented by
negation as failure or not, is an important property of a set of
facts and logic programming has been successfully used for many
applications. However, it seems unlikely to dominate AI
programming as some of its advocates hope.
Although third level systems express both facts and rules
as logical sentences, they are still rather specialized. The axioms
with which the programs begin are not general truths about the world
but are sentences whose meaning and truth is limited to the narrow
domain in which the program has to act. For this reason, the ``facts''
of one program usually cannot be used in a database for other programs.
4. The fourth level is still a goal. It involves representing
general facts about the world as logical sentences. Once put in
a database, the facts can be used by any program. The facts would
have the neutrality of purpose characteristic of much human information.
The supplier of information would not have to understand
the goals of the potential user or how his mind works. The present
ways of ``teaching'' computer programs by modifying them or
directly modifying their databases amount to ``education
by brain surgery''.
A key problem for achieving the fourth level is to develop
a language for a general common sense database. This is difficult,
because the {\it common sense informatic situation} is complex.
Here is a preliminary list of features and
considerations.
1. Entities of interest are known only partially, and the
information about entities and their relations that may be relevant
to achieving goals cannot be permanently separated from irrelevant
information.
%
(Contrast this with the situation in gravitational
astronomy in which it is stated in the informal introduction to
a lecture or textbook that
the chemical composition and shape of a body are irrelevant to the
theory; all that counts is the body's mass, and its initial position
and velocity).
Even within gravitational astronomy, non-equational theories arise
and relevant information may be difficult to determine. For example, it was
recently proposed that periodic extinctions discovered in the
paleontological record are caused by showers of comets induced by a
companion star to the sun that encounters and disrupts the Oort cloud of
comets every time it comes to perihelion. This theory is qualitative
because neither the orbit of the hypothetical star nor those of the comets
is available.
2. The formalism has to be {\it epistemologically adequate},
a notion introduced in (McCarthy and Hayes 1969). This means that
the formalism must be capable of representing the information that
is actually available, not merely capable of representing actual
complete states of affairs.
For example, it is insufficient to have a formalism that
can represent the positions and velocities of the particles in a
gas. We can't obtain that information, our largest computers don't
have the memory to store it even if it were available, and our
fastest computers couldn't use the information to make predictions even
if we could store it.
As a second example, suppose we need to be able to predict
someone's behavior. The simplest example is a clerk in a store.
The clerk is a complex individual about whom a customer may know
little. However, the clerk can usually be counted on to accept
money for articles brought to the counter, wrap them as appropriate
and not protest when the customer then takes the articles from the store.
The clerk can also be counted on to object if the customer attempts
to take the articles without paying the appropriate price. Describing
this requires a formalism capable of representing information about
human social institutions. Moreover, the formalism must be capable
of representing partial information about the institution, such as
a three year old's knowledge of store clerks. For example, a three
year old doesn't know the clerk is an employee or even what that
means. He doesn't require detailed information about the clerk's
psychology, and anyway this information is not ordinarily available.
The following sections deal mainly with the advances we see
as required to achieve the fourth level of use of logic in AI.
!\section{Formalized Nonmonotonic Reasoning}
It seems that fourth level systems require extensions
to mathematical logic. One kind of extension is formalized {\it nonmonotonic
reasoning}, first proposed in the late 1970s (McCarthy 1977, 1980, 1986),
(Reiter 1980), (McDermott and Doyle 1980), (Lifschitz 1989a).
Mathematical logic has been monotonic
in the following sense. If we have $A \vdash p$ and $A ⊂ B$, then we also
have $B \vdash p$.
If the inference is logical deduction, then exactly the same
proof that proves $p$ from $A$ will serve as a proof from $B$. If the
inference is model-theoretic, i.e. $p$ is true in all models of $A$,
then $p$ will be true in all models of $B$, because the models of $B$
will be a subset of the models of $A$. So we see that the monotonic
character of traditional logic doesn't depend on the details of the
logical system but is quite fundamental.
While much human reasoning is monotonic,
some important human common sense reasoning is not. We
reach conclusions from certain premisses that we would not reach if
certain other sentences were included in our premisses. For example,
if I hire you to build me a bird cage, you conclude that it is appropriate
to put a top on it, but when you learn the further
fact that my bird is a penguin you no longer draw that
conclusion. Some people think it is possible to try to save
monotonicity by saying that what was in your mind was not a general rule
about asking birds flying but a probabilistic rule. So
far these people have not worked out any detailed
epistemology for this approach, i.e. exactly what probabilistic
sentences should be used. Instead AI has moved to directly formalizing
nonmonotonic logical reasoning. Indeed it seems to me that
when probabilistic reasoning (and not just the axiomatic
basis of probability theory) has been fully formalized, it will
be formally nonmonotonic.
Nonmonotonic reasoning is an active field of study.
Progress is often driven by examples, e.g. the Yale shooting
problem (Hanks and McDermott 1986), in which obvious
axiomatizations used with the available reasoning formalisms
don't seem to give the answers intuition suggests. One direction
being explored (Moore 1985, Gelfond 1987, Lifschitz 1989a)
involves putting facts about belief and knowledge explicitly in
the axioms---even when the axioms concern nonmental domains.
Moore's classical example (now 4 years old) is ``If I had an elder
brother I'd know it.''
Kraus and Perlis (1988) have proposed to divide much nonmonotonic
reasoning into two steps. The first step uses Perlis's (1988)
autocircumscription to get a second order formula characterizing
what is possible. The second step involves default reasoning to
choose what is normally to be expected out of the previously established
possibilities. This seems to be a promising approach.
(Ginsberg 1987) collects the main papers up to 1986. Lifschitz (1989c)
summarizes some example research problems of nonmonotonic reasoning.
!\section{Some Formalizations and their Problems}
(McCarthy 1986) discusses several formalizations, proposing
those based on nonmonotonic reasoning as improvements of earlier
ones. Here are some.
1. Inheritance with exceptions. Birds normally fly, but there
are exceptions, e.g. ostriches and birds whose feet are encased in
concrete. The first exception might be listed in advance, but the
second has to be derived or verified when mentioned on the basis of
information about the mechanism of flying and the properties of
concrete.
There are many ways of nonmonotonically axiomatizing the
facts about which birds can fly. The following axioms using
a predicate $ab$ standing for ``abnormal'' seem
to me quite straightforward.
%\leql{a4a:}
$$(\forall x)(\neg ab(aspect1(x)) \supset \neg flies(x)).\leql{aiva}$$
%
Unless an object is abnormal in $aspect1$, it can't fly.
It wouldn't work to write $ab(x)$ instead of $ab(aspect1(x))$,
because we don't want a bird that is abnormal with respect to its ability
to fly to be automatically abnormal in other respects. Using aspects limits
the effects of proofs of abnormality.
%leql{a5:}
$$(\forall x)(bird(x) \supset ab(aspect1(x))).\leql{av}$$
%leql{a6:}
$$(\forall x)(bird(x) \wedge \neg ab(aspect2(x)) \supset flies(x))\leql{avi}$$
%
Unless a bird is abnormal in $aspect2$, it can fly.
When these axioms are combined with other facts about the
problem, the predicate $ab$ is then to be {\it circumscribed}, i.e.
given its minimal extent compatible with the facts being taken
into account. This has the effect that a bird will be considered
to fly unless other axioms imply that it is abnormal in
$aspect2$. (\eqref{av}) is called a cancellation of inheritance
axiom, because it explicitly cancels the general presumption that
objects don't fly. This approach works fine when the inheritance
hierarchy is given explicitly. More elaborate approaches, some
of which are introduced in (McCarthy 1986) and improved in (Haugh
1988), are required when hierarchies with indefinite numbers of
sorts are considered.
2. (McCarthy 1986) contains a similar treatment of the
effects of actions like moving and painting blocks using the
situation calculus. Moving and painting are axiomatized entirely
separately, and there are no axioms saying that moving a block
doesn't affect the positions of other blocks or the colors of
blocks. A general ``common sense law of inertia''
%
$$(\forall p e s)(holds(p,s) \wedge \neg ab(aspect1(p,e,s)) \supset holds(p,result(e,s))),$$
%
asserts that a fact $p$ that holds in a situation $s$ is presumed
to hold in the situation $result(e,s)$ that results from an event
$e$ unless there is evidence to the contrary. Unfortunately, Lifschitz
(1985 personal communication) and Hanks and McDermott (1986)
showed that simple treatments of the common sense law of inertia
admit unintended models. Several
authors have given more elaborate
treatments, but in my opinion, the results are not yet entirely
satisfactory. The best treatment so far seems to be that of
(Lifschitz 1987).
!\section{Ability, Practical Reason and Free Will}
An AI system capable of achieving goals in the common
sense world will have to reason about what it and other actors
can and cannot do.
For concreteness, consider a robot that must act in the same
world as people and perform tasks that people give it. Its need
to reason about its abilities puts the traditional philosophical
problem of free will in the following form. What view shall we
build into the robot about its own abilities, i.e. how shall we
make it reason about what it can and cannot do? (Wishing to
avoid begging any questions, by {\it reason} we mean {\it
compute} using axioms, observation sentences, rules of inference
and nonmonotonic rules of conjecture.)
Let $A$ be a task we want the robot to perform, and let $B$
and $C$ be alternate intermediate goals either of which would
allow the accomplishment of $A$. We want the robot to be able
to choose between attempting $B$ and attempting $C$. It would be
silly to program it to reason: ``I'm a robot and a deterministic
device. Therefore, I have no choice between $B$ and $C$. What
I will do is determined by my construction.'' Instead it must
decide in some way which of $B$ and $C$ it can accomplish. It
should be able to conclude in some cases that it can accomplish
$B$ and not $C$, and therefore it should take $B$ as a subgoal
on the way to achieving $A$. In other cases it should conclude
that it {\it can} accomplish either $B$ or $C$ and should choose
whichever is evaluated as better according to the criteria we
provide it.
(McCarthy and Hayes 1969) proposes conditions on the
semantics of any formalism within which the robot should reason.
The essential idea is that what the robot can do is determined by
the place the robot occupies in the world---not by its internal
structure. For example, if a certain sequence of outputs from
the robot will achieve $B$, then we conclude or it concludes that
the robot can achieve $B$ without reasoning about whether the
robot will actually produce that sequence of outputs.
Our contention is that this is approximately how any
system, whether human or robot, must reason about its ability to
achieve goals. The basic formalism will be the same, regardless
of whether the system is reasoning about its own abilities
or about those of other systems including people.
The above-mentioned paper also discusses the complexities
that come up when a strategy is required to achieve the goal and
when internal inhibitions or lack of knowledge have to be taken
into account.
!\section{Three Approaches to Knowledge and Belief}
Our robot will also have to reason about its own knowledge
and that of other robots and people.
This section contrasts the approaches to knowledge and
belief characteristic of philosophy, philosophical logic and
artificial intelligence. Knowledge and belief have long been
studied in epistemology, philosophy of mind and in philosophical
logic. Since about 1960, knowledge and belief have also been
studied in AI. (Halpern 1986) and (Vardi 1988) contain recent
work, mostly oriented to computer science including AI.
It seems to me that philosophers have generally treated
knowledge and belief as {\it complete natural kinds}. According
to this view there is a fact to be discovered about what
beliefs are. Moreover, once it is decided what the objects of
belief are (e.g. sentences or propositions), the definitions of
belief ought to determine for each such object $p$ whether the
person believes it or not. This last is the completeness mentioned
above. Of course, only human and sometimes animal beliefs have
mainly been considered. Philosophers have differed about whether
machines can ever be said to have beliefs, but even those who admit
the possibility of machine belief consider that what beliefs are
is to be determined by examining human belief.
The formalization of knowledge and belief has been studied
as part of philosophical logic, certainly since Hintikka's book (1964),
but much of the earlier work in modal logic can be seen as applicable.
Different logics and axioms systems sometimes correspond to the
distinctions that less formal philosophers make, but sometimes the
mathematics dictates different distinctions.
AI takes a different course because of its different objectives,
but I'm inclined to recommend this course to philosophers also, partly
because we want their help but also because I think it has
philosophical advantages.
The first question AI asks is: Why study knowledge and belief
at all? Does a computer program solving problems and achieving goals
in the common sense world require beliefs, and must it use sentences
about beliefs? The answer to both questions is approximately yes. At
least there have to be data structures whose usage corresponds closely
to human usage in some cases. For example, a robot that could use
the American air transportation system has to know that travel agents
know airline schedules, that there is a book (and now a computer
accessible database) called the OAG that contains this information.
If it is to be able to plan a trip with intermediate stops it has
to have the general information that the departure gate from an
intermediate stop is not to be discovered when the trip is first
planned but will be available on arrival at the intermediate stop.
If the robot has to keep secrets, it has to know about how information
can be obtained by inference from other information, i.e. it has
to have some kind of information model of the people from whom
it is to keep the secrets.
However, none of this tells us that the notions of
knowledge and belief to be built into our computer programs must
correspond to the goals philosophers have been trying to
achieve. For example, the difficulties involved in building a
system that knows what travel agents know about airline schedules
are not substantially connected with questions about how the
travel agents can be absolutely certain. Its notion of knowledge
doesn't have to be complete; i.e. it doesn't have to determine
in all cases whether a person is to be regarded as knowing a
given proposition. For many tasks it doesn't have to have
opinions about when true belief doesn't constitute knowledge.
The designers of AI systems can try to evade philosophical
puzzles rather than solve them.
Maybe some people would suppose that if the question of
certainty is avoided, the problems formalizing knowledge and
belief become straightforward. That has not been our experience.
As soon as we try to formalize the simplest puzzles involving
knowledge, we encounter difficulties that philosophers have rarely
if ever attacked.
Consider the following puzzle of Mr.~S and Mr.~P.
{\it Two numbers $m$ and $n$ are chosen such that $2 \leq m \leq n \leq 99$.
Mr.~S is told their sum and Mr.~P is told their product. The following
dialogue ensues:}
{\obeylines\it
Mr.~P: I don't know the numbers.
Mr.~S: I knew you didn't know them. I don't know them either.
Mr.~P: Now I know the numbers.
Mr.~S: Now I know them too.
In view of the above dialogue, what are the numbers?}
Formalizing the puzzle is discussed in (McCarthy 1989).
For the present we mention only the following aspects.
1. We need to formalize {\it knowing what}, i.e. knowing what
the numbers are, and not just {\it knowing that}.
2. We need to be able to express and prove non-knowledge as well as
knowledge. Specifically we need to be able to express the fact that as
far as Mr.~P knows, the numbers might be any pair of factors of the known
product.
3. We need to express the joint knowledge of Mr.~S and Mr.~P of
the conditions of the problem.
4. We need to express the change of knowledge with time, e.g.
how Mr.~P's knowledge changes when he hears Mr.~S say that he knew that
Mr.~P didn't know the numbers and doesn't know them himself.
This includes inferring what Mr.~S and Mr.~P still won't know.
The first order language used to express the facts of this
problem involves an accessibility relation $A(w1,w2,p,t)$,
modeled on Kripke's semantics for modal logic. However, the
accessibility relation here is in the language itself rather than
in a metalanguage. Here $w1$ and $w2$ are possible worlds, $p$
is a person and $t$ is an integer time. The use of possible
worlds makes it convenient to express non-knowledge. Assertions
of non-knowledge are expressed as the existence of accessible
worlds satisfying appropriate conditions.
The problem was successfully expressed in the language
in the sense that an arithmetic condition determining the values
of the two numbers can be deduced from the statement. However, this
is not good enough for AI. Namely, we would like to include facts
about knowledge in a general purpose common sense database. Instead
of an {\it ad hoc} formalization of Mr.~S and Mr.~P, the problem
should be solvable from the same general facts about knowledge that
might be used to reason about the knowledge possessed by travel agents
supplemented only by the facts about the dialogue. Moreover, the
language of the general purpose database should accommodate all
the modalities that might be wanted and not just knowledge. This
suggests using ordinary logic, e.g. first order logic, rather than
modal logic, so that the modalities can be ordinary functions or
predicates rather than modal operators.
Suppose we are successful in developing a ``knowledge formalism''
for our common sense database that enables the program controlling
a robot to solve puzzles and plan trips and do the other tasks that
arise in the common sense environment requiring reasoning about knowledge.
It will surely be asked whether it is really {\it knowledge} that
has been formalized. I doubt that the question has an answer.
This is perhaps the question of whether knowledge is a natural kind.
I suppose some philosophers would say that such problems are
not of philosophical interest. It would be unfortunate, however, if
philosophers were to abandon such a substantial part of epistemology
to computer science. This is because the analytic skills that
philosophers have acquired are relevant to the problems.
!\section{Reifying Context}
%contex[w89,jmc] Reifying context - for paper for Thomason
We propose the formula $holds(p,c)$ to assert that the
proposition $p$ holds in context $c$. It expresses explicitly
how the truth of an assertion depends on context. The relation
$c1 \leq c2$ asserts that the context $c2$ is more general than
the context $c1$.
Formalizing common sense reasoning needs contexts as objects,
in order to match human ability to consider context
explicitly. The proposed database of general common sense knowledge
will make assertions in a general context called $C0$. However, $C0$
cannot be maximally general, because it will surely involve unstated
presuppositions. Indeed we claim that there can be no
maximally general context. Every context involves unstated presuppositions,
both linguistic and factual.
Sometimes the reasoning system will
have to transcend $C0$, and tools will have to be provided to do
this. For example, if Boyle's law of the dependence of the volume
of a sample of gas on pressure were built into $C0$, discovery of
its dependence on temperature would have to trigger a process of
generalization
that might lead to the perfect gas law.
The following ideas about how the formalization might
proceed are tentative. Moreover, they appeal to recent logical
innovations in the formalization of nonmonotonic reasoning. In
particular, there
will be nonmonotonic ``inheritance rules'' that allow default
inference from $holds(p,c)$ to $holds(p,c')$, where $c'$ is
either more general or less general than $c$.
Almost all previous discussion of context has been in
connection with natural language, and the present paper
relies heavily on examples from natural language. However, I
believe the main AI uses of formalized context will not be in
connection with communication but in connection with reasoning
about the effects of actions directed to achieving goals. It's
just that natural language examples come to mind more readily.
As an example of intended usage, consider
%
$$holds(at(he,inside(car)),c17).$$
%
Suppose that this sentence is intended to assert that a
particular person is in a particular car on a particular occasion,
i.e. the sentence is not just being used as a
linguistic example but is meant seriously. A corresponding
English sentence is ``He's in the car'' where who he is and which
car and when is determined by the context in which the sentence
is uttered. Suppose, for simplicity, that the sentence is said
by one person to another in a situation in which the car is
visible to the speaker but not to the hearer and the time at
which the the subject is asserted to be in the car is the same
time at which the sentence is uttered.
In our formal language $c17$ has to carry the information about
who he is, which car and when.
Now suppose that the same fact is to be conveyed as in
example 1, but the context is a certain Stanford Computer Science
Department 1980s context. Thus familiarity with cars is
presupposed, but no particular person, car or occasion is
presupposed. The meanings of certain names is presupposed, however.
We can call that context (say) $c5$. This more general context requires
a more explicit proposition; thus, we would have
%
$$holds(at(``Timothy McCarthy'',inside((\iota x)(iscar(x)\wedge
belongs(x,``John McCarthy'')))),c5).$$
%
A yet more general context might not identify a
specific John McCarthy, so that even this more explicit sentence would need
more information. What would constitute an adequate identification
might also be context dependent.
Here are some of the properties formalized contexts might have.
1. In the above example, we will have $c17 \leq c5$, i.e. $c5$ is
more general than $c17$.
There will be nonmonotonic rules like
%
$$(\forall c1\ c2\ p)(c1 \leq c2) \wedge holds(p,c1) \wedge \neg ab1(p,c1,c2) \supset holds(p,c2)$$
%
and
%
$$(\forall c1\ c2\ p)(c1 \leq c2) \wedge holds(p,c2) \wedge \neg ab2(p,c1,c2) \supset holds(p,c1).$$
%
% VLADIMIR SUGGESTS THAT THESE ARE INSUFFIENTLY GENERAL
Thus there is nonmonotonic inheritance both up and down in the generality
hierarchy.
2. There are functions forming new contexts by specialization.
We could have something like
%
$$c19 = specialize({he = Timothy McCarthy, belongs(car, John McCarthy)},c5).$$
We will have $c19 \leq c5$.
3. Besides $holds(p,c)$, we may have $value(term,c)$, where
$term$ is a term. The domain in which $term$ takes values is defined
in some outer context.
4. Some presuppositions of a context are linguistic and some
are factual. In the above example, it is a linguistic matter who the
names refer to. The properties of people and cars are factual, e.g.
it is presumed that people fit into cars.
5. We may want meanings as abstract objects. Thus we might
have
%
$$meaning(he,c17) = meaning(``Timothy McCarthy'',c5).$$
6. Contexts are ``rich'' entities not to be fully described.
Thus the ``normal English language context'' contains factual assumptions
and linguistic conventions that a particular English speaker may not
know. Moreover, even assumptions and conventions in a context that
may be individually accessible cannot be exhaustively listed. A person
or machine may know facts about a context without ``knowing the context''.
7. Contexts should not be confused with the situations of the
situation calculus of (McCarthy and Hayes 1969). Propositions about
situations can hold in a context. For example, we may have
%
$$holds(Holds1(at(I,airport),result(drive-to(airport,result(walk-to(car),S0))),c1).$$
%
This can be interpreted as asserting that under the assumptions embodied
in context $c1$, a plan of walking to the car and then driving to the airport
would get the robot to the airport starting in situation $S0$.
8. The context language can be made more like natural
language and more extensible if we introduce notions of entering
and leaving a context. These will be analogous to the notions
of making and discharging assumptions in natural deduction systems,
but the notion seems to be more general. Suppose we have $holds(p,c)$.
We then write
\noindent $enter c$.
\noindent This enables us to write $p$ instead of $holds(p,c)$.
If we subsequently infer $q$, we can replace it by $holds(q,c)$
and leave the context $c$. Then $holds(q,c)$ will itself hold in
the outer context in which $holds(p,c)$ holds. When a context
is entered, there need to be restrictions analogous to those
that apply in natural deduction when an assumption is made.
One way in which this notion of entering and leaving
contexts is more general than natural deduction is that formulas like
$holds(p,c1)$ and (say) $holds(not\ p,c2)$ behave differently
from $c1 \supset p$ and $c2 \supset \neg p$ which are their natural deduction
analogs. For example, if $c1$ is associated with the time 5pm
and $c2$ is associated with the time 6pm and $p$ is $at(I, office)$,
then $holds(p,c1) \wedge holds(not\ p,c2)$ might be used to infer that
I left the office between 5pm and 6pm. $(c1 \supset p) \wedge (c2 \supset \neg p)$
cannot be used in this way; in fact it is equivalent to
$\neg c1 \vee \neg c2$.
9. The expression $Holds(p,c)$ (note the caps) represents
the proposition that $p$ holds in $c$. Since it is a proposition,
we can assert $holds(Holds(p,c),c')$.
10. Propositions will be combined by functional analogs of
the Boolean operators as discussed in (McCarthy 1979b).
Treating propositions involving quantification is
necessary, but it is difficult to determine the right formalization.
11. The major goals of research into formalizing context
should be to determine the rules that relate contexts to their
generalizations and specializations. Many of these rules will
involve nonmonotonic reasoning.
!\section{Remarks}
The project of formalizing common sense knowledge and
reasoning raises many new considerations in epistemology and
also in extending logic. The role that the following ideas
might play is not clear yet.
\noindent Epistemological Adequacy often Requires Approximate Partial Theories
(McCarthy and Hayes 1969) introduces the notion of epistemological
adequacy of a formalism. The idea is that the formalism used by
an AI system must be adequate to represent the information that
a person or program with given opportunities to observe can actually
obtain. Often an epistemologically adequate formalism for some
phenomenon cannot take the form of a classical scientific theory.
I suspect that some people's demand for a classical scientific
theory of certain phenomena leads them to despair about formalization.
Consider a theory of a dynamic phenomenon, i.e. one that changes
in time. A classical scientific theory represents the state of
the phenomenon in some way and describes how it evolves with time, most
classically by differential equations.
What can be known about commonsense phenomena usually doesn't
permit such complete theories. Only certain states permit prediction
of the future. The phenomenon arises in science and engineering
theories also, but I suspect that philosophy of science sweeps these
cases under the rug. Here are some examples.
(1) The theory of linear electrical circuits is complete
within its model of the phenomena. The theory gives the response
of the circuit to any time varying voltage. Of course, the theory
may not describe the actual physics, e.g. the current may overheat
the resistors. However, the theory of sequential digital circuits
is incomplete from the beginning. Consider a circuit built from
NAND-gates and D flipflops and timed synchronously by an appropriate
clock. The behavior of a D flipflop is defined by the theory
when one of its inputs is 0 and the other is 1 when the inputs
are appropriately clocked. However, the behavior is not defined
by the theory when both inputs are 0 or both are 1. Moreover,
one can easily make circuits in such a way that both
inputs of some flipflop get 0 at some time.
This lack of definition is not an oversight. The actual
signals in a digital circuit are not ideal square waves but have
finite rise times and often overshoot their nominal values.
However, the circuit will behave as though the signals were
ideal provided the design rules are obeyed. Making both
inputs to a flipflop nominally 0 creates a situation in
which no digital theory can describe what happens, because
the behavior then depends on the actual time-varying signals
and on manufacturing variations in the flipflops.
(2) Thermodynamics is also a partial theory. It tells
about equilibria and it tells which directions reactions go, but
it says nothing about how fast they go.
(3) The commonsense database needs a theory of the
behavior of clerks in stores. This theory should cover
what a clerk will do in response to bringing items to the
counter and in response to a certain class of inquiries.
How he will respond to other behaviors is not defined by
the theory.
(4) (McCarthy 1979a) refers to a theory of skiing that
might be used by ski instructors. This theory regards the skier
as a stick figure with movable joints. It gives the consequences
of moving the joints as it interacts with the shape of the ski
slope, but it says nothing about what causes the joints to be
moved in a particular way. Its partial character corresponds
to what experience teaches ski instructors. It often assigns
truth values to counterfactual conditional assertions like, ``If
he had bent his knees more, he wouldn't have fallen''.
\noindent Meta-epistemology
% meta[s88,jmc] Message to AILIST on metaepistemology
% meta[e85,jmc] Meta-epistemology
% metaep[f82,jmc] A proposal for meta-epistemology
If we are to program a computer to think about its own
methods for gathering information about the world, then it needs
a language for expressing assertions about the relation between
the world, the information gathering methods available to an
information seeker and what it can learn. This leads to a subject
I like to call meta-epistemology. Besides its potential applications
to AI, I believe it has applications to philosophy considered in
the traditional sense.
Meta-epistemology is proposed as a mathematical theory
in analogy to metamathematics. Metamathematics considers the
mathematical properties of mathematical theories as objects.
In particular model theory as a branch of metamathematics deals
with the relation between theories in a language and interpretations
of the non-logical symbols of the language. These interpretations
are considered as mathematical objects, and we are only sometimes
interested in a preferred or true interpretation.
Meta-epistemology considers the relation between the world,
languages for making assertions about the world, notions of what
assertions are considered meaningful, what are accepted as rules
of evidence and what a knowledge seeker can discover about the
world. All these entities are considered as mathematical objects.
In particular the world is considered as a parameter.
Thus meta-epistemology has the following characteristics.
1. It is a purely mathematical theory. Therefore, its
controversies, assuming there are any, will be mathematical
controversies rather than controversies about what the real world
is like. Indeed metamathematics gave many philosophical issues
in the foundations of mathematics a technical content. For
example, the theorem that intuitionist arithmetic and Peano
arithmetic are equi-consistent removed at least one area of
controversy between those whose mathematical intuitions support
one view of arithmetic or the other.
2. While many modern philosophies of science assume some
relation between what is meaningful and what can be verified or
refuted, only special meta-\hfill\break
epistemological systems will have the
corresponding mathematical property that all aspects of the world
relate to the experience of the knowledge seeker.
This has several important consequences for the task of
programming a knowledge seeker.
A knowledge seeker should not have a priori prejudices
(principles) about what concepts might be meaningful. Whether
and how a proposed concept about the world might ever connect
with observation may remain in suspense for a very long time
while the concept is investigated and related to other concepts.
We illustrate this by a literary example. Moli\'ere's
play {\it La Malade Imaginaire} includes a doctor who explains
sleeping powders by saying that they contain a ``dormitive
virtue''. In the play, the doctor is considered a pompous fool
for offering a concept that explains nothing. However, suppose
the doctor had some intuition that the dormitive virtue might be
extracted and concentrated, say by shaking the powder in a
mixture of ether and water. Suppose he thought that he would get
the same concentrate from all substances with soporific effect.
He would certainly have a fragment of scientific theory subject
to later verification. Now suppose less---namely, he only
believes that a common component is behind all substances whose
consumption makes one sleepy but has no idea that he should try
to invent a way of verifying the conjecture. He still has
something that, if communicated to someone more scientifically
minded, might be useful. In the play, the doctor obviously sins
intellectually by claiming a hypothesis as certain. Thus a
knowledge seeker must be able to form new concepts that have only
extremely tenuous relations with their previous linguistic
structure.
\noindent Rich and poor entities
Consider my next trip to Japan. Considered as a plan it is
a discrete object with limited detail. I do not yet even plan to
take a specific flight or to fly on a specific day. Considered as
a future event, lots of questions may be asked about it. For example,
it may be asked whether the flight will depart on time and what precisely
I will eat on the airplane. We propose characterizing the actual trip
as a rich entity and the plan as a poor entity. Originally, I thought
that rich events referred to the past and poor ones to the future, but
this seems to be wrong. It's only that when one refers to the past
one is usually referring to a rich entity, while the future entities
one refers to are more often poor. However, there is no intrinsic
association of this kind. It seems that planning requires reasoning
about the plan (poor entity) and the event of its execution (rich
entity) and their relations.
(McCarthy and Hayes 1969) defines situations as rich entities.
However, the actual programs that have been written to reason in
situation calculus might as well regard them as taken from a
finite or countable set of discrete states.
Possible worlds are also examples of rich entities as
ordinarily used in philosophy. One never prescribes a possible
world but only describes classes of possible worlds.
Rich entities are open ended in that we can always introduce
more properties of them into our discussion. Poor entities can often
be enumerated, e.g. we can often enumerate all the events that we
consider reasonably likely in a situation. The passage from considering
rich entities in a given discussion to considering poor entities is
a step of nonmonotonic reasoning.
It seems to me that it is important to get a good formalization
of the relations between corresponding rich and poor entities.
This can be regarded as formalizing the relation between the world
and a formal model of some aspect of the world, e.g. between the
world and a scientific theory.
!\section{Acknowledgements}
I am indebted to Vladimir Lifschitz and Richmond Thomason
for useful suggestions. Some of the prose is taken from
(McCarthy 1987), but the examples could not be given precisely,
since {\it Daedalus} allows no formulas.
The research reported here was partially supported by the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Contract No. N00039-84-C-0211.
!\section{References}
\noindent
{\bf Dennett, D.C. (1971)}: ``Intentional Systems'', {\it Journal of Philosophy}
vol. 68, No. 4, Feb. 25.
\noindent
{\bf Dreyfus, Hubert L. (1972):} {\it What Computers Can't Do:
the Limits of Artificial Intelligence}, revised edition 1979,
New York : Harper \& Row.
\noindent
{\bf Fikes, R, and Nils Nilsson, (1971)}:
``STRIPS: A New Approach to the Application of
Theorem Proving to Problem Solving,'' {\it Artificial Intelligence}, Volume 2,
Numbers 3,4, January,
pp. 189-208.
\noindent
{\bf Gelfond, M. (1987)}: ``On Stratified Autoepistemic Theories'',
{\it AAAI-87} {\bf 1}, 207-211.
\noindent
{\bf Ginsberg, M. (ed.) (1987)}: {\it Readings in Nonmonotonic Reasoning},
Morgan Kaufmann, 481 p.
\noindent
{\bf Green, C., (1969)}:
``Application of Theorem Proving to Problem Solving.'' In IJCAI-1, pp. 219-239.
\noindent
{\bf Halpern, J. (ed.) (1986):}
{\it Reasoning about Knowledge}, Morgan Kaufmann,
Los Altos, CA.
\noindent
{\bf Hanks, S. and D. McDermott (1986)}: ``Default Reasoning, Nonmonotonic
Logics, and the Frame Problem'', in AAAI-86, pp. 328-333.
\noindent
{\bf Haugh, Brian A. (1988)}: ``Tractable Theories of Multiple Defeasible
Inheritance in Ordinary Nonmonotonic Logics'' in {\it Proceedings of the Seventh
National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-88)}, Morgan-Kaufman.
\noindent
{\bf Hintikka, Jaakko (1964)}: {\it Knowledge and Belief; an Introduction
to the Logic of the Two Notions}, Cornell Univ. Press, 179 p.
\noindent
{\bf Kowalski, Robert (1979)}: {\it Logic for Problem Solving},
North-Holland, Amsterdam.
\noindent
{\bf Kraus, Sarit and Donald Perlis (1988)}: ``Names and Non-Monotonicity'',
UMIACS-TR-88-84, CS-TR-2140, Computer Science Technical Report Series,
University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742.
\noindent
{\bf Lifschitz, Vladimir (1987)}: ``Formal theories of action'',
in: {\it The Frame Problem in Artificial Intelligence,
Proceedings of the 1987 Workshop}, reprinted in (Ginsberg 1987).
\noindent
{\bf Lifschitz, Vladimir (1989a)}: {\it Between Circumscription and
Autoepistemic Logic}, to appear in the Proceedings of the First
International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation
and Reasoning, Morgan-Kaufman.
\noindent
{\bf Lifschitz, Vladimir (1989b)}: {\it Circumscriptive Theories: A
Logic-based Framework for Knowledge Representation}, this collection.
\noindent
{\bf Lifschitz, Vladimir (1989c)}: {\it Benchmark Problems for Formal
Nonmonotonic Reasoning}, in {\it Non-Monotonic Reasoning}, 2nd International
Workshop, Grassau, FRG, Springer-Verlag
\noindent
{\bf McCarthy, John (1959)}: ``Programs with Common Sense'', in {\it
Proceedings of the Teddington Conference on the Mechanization of
Thought Processes}, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London.
% common[e80,jmc],
% common.tex[e80,jmc]
\noindent
{\bf McCarthy, John and P.J. Hayes (1969)}: ``Some Philosophical Problems from
the Standpoint of Artificial Intelligence'', in D. Michie (ed), {\it Machine
Intelligence 4}, American Elsevier, New York, NY.
% phil.tex[ess,jmc] with slight modifications
\noindent
{\bf McCarthy, John (1977)}:
``On The Model Theory of Knowledge'' (with M. Sato, S. Igarashi, and
T. Hayashi), {\it Proceedings of the Fifth International Joint Conference
on Artificial Intelligence}, M.I.T., Cambridge, Mass.
\noindent
{\bf McCarthy, John (1977)}:
``Epistemological Problems of Artificial Intelligence'', {\it Proceedings
of the Fifth International Joint Conference on Artificial
Intelligence}, M.I.T., Cambridge, Mass.
% ijcai.c[e77,jmc]
\noindent
{\bf McCarthy, John (1979a)}:
``Ascribing Mental Qualities to Machines'' in {\it Philosophical Perspectives
in Artificial Intelligence}, Ringle, Martin (ed.), Harvester Press, July 1979.
% .<<aim 326, MENTAL[F76,JMC],
% mental.tex[f76,jmc]>>
\noindent
{\bf McCarthy, John (1979b)}:
``First Order Theories of Individual Concepts and Propositions'',
in Michie, Donald (ed.) {\it Machine Intelligence 9}, (University of
Edinburgh Press, Edinburgh).
% .<<aim 325, concep.tex[e76,jmc]>>
\noindent
{\bf McCarthy, John (1980)}:
``Circumscription - A Form of Non-Monotonic Reasoning'', {\it Artificial
Intelligence}, Volume 13, Numbers 1,2, April.
% .<<aim 334, circum.new[s79,jmc], cirnew.tex[s79,jmc]>>
\noindent
{\bf McCarthy, John (1983)}: ``Some Expert Systems Need Common Sense'',
in {\it Computer Culture: The Scientific, Intellectual and Social Impact
of the Computer}, Heinz Pagels, ed.
vol. 426, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.
%paper
%presented at New York Academy of Sciences Symposium.
% common[e83,jmc]
%common.tex[e83,jmc]
\noindent
{\bf McCarthy, John (1986)}:
``Applications of Circumscription to Formalizing Common Sense Knowledge''
{\it Artificial Intelligence}, April 1986
% circum.tex[f83,jmc]
{\bf McCarthy, John (1987)}:
``Mathematical Logic in Artificial Intelligence'', in
{\it Daedalus}, vol. 117, No. 1, American Academy of Arts and Sciences,
Winter 1988.
% logic.2[w87,jmc]
\noindent
{\bf McCarthy, John (1989)}: ``Two Puzzles Involving Knowledge'' in
{\it Formalizing Common Sense} Ablex 1989.
\noindent
{\bf Moore, R. (1985)}: ``Semantical Considerations on Nonmonotonic Logic'',
{\it Artificial Intelligence} {\bf 25} (1), 75-94.
\noindent
{\bf Perlis, D. (1988)}: ``Autocircumscription'', {\it Artificial Intelligence},
{\bf 36} pp. 223-236.
\noindent
{\bf Reiter, Raymond (1980)}: ``A Logic for Default Reasoning'', {\it Artificial
Intelligence}, Volume 13, Numbers 1,2, April.
\noindent
{\bf Russell, Bertrand (1913)}: ``On the Notion of Cause'',
{\it Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society}, 13, pp. 1-26.
\noindent
{\bf McDermott, D. and J. Doyle, (1980)}:
``Non-Monotonic Logic I,'' {\it Artificial Intelligence\/},
Vol. 13, N. 1
\noindent
{\bf Newell, Allen (1981)}: ``The Knowledge Level,'' {\it AI Magazine\/},
Vol. 2, No. 2
\noindent
{\bf Robinson, J. Allen (1965)}: ``A Machine-oriented Logic Based
on the Resolution Principle''. {\it JACM}, 12(1), 23-41.
\noindent
{\bf Sterling, Leon and Ehud Shapiro (1986)}: {\it The Art of Prolog}, MIT Press.
\noindent
{\bf Sussman, Gerald J., Terry Winograd, and
Eugene Charniak (1971)}: ``Micro-planner Reference Manual,'' Report AIM-203A,
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge.
\noindent
{\bf Vardi, Moshe (1988)}:
{\it Conference on Theoretical Aspects of Reasoning about Knowledge},
Morgan-Kaufmann, Los Altos, CA.
!\smallskip\centerline{Copyright \copyright\ 1989 by John McCarthy}
\smallskip\noindent{This draft of thomas[f88,jmc]\ TEXed on \jmcdate\ at \theTime}
\vfill\eject\end
We begin with a simpler example than the rule for using
boats. Suppose that the sentence ``The library has the book''
is being used for communication, i.e. not just being considered
as a sample sentence. It is being used in a context that
has a time associated with it and which refers to a particular
book under discussion and a particular library. We propose to
formalize the assertion by
%
$$holds(has(library,book),c17),$$
%
where $has$ is conceptually a predicate, but if we are using
first order logic, $has$ is a function whose value is a term
suitable to be the first argument of $holds$. The context
constant $c17$ should give further specification of the meaning
of $has$, since the sentence could mean either that the book is
in the library at the present moment or that the book is one of
those owned by that library. This ambiguity may be resolvable in
a language with predicate functions $has1$ and $has2$, but it
isn't obvious that there won't be additional ambiguities within
$has1$ and $has2$ that have to be resolved by context.
Consider a general 1980s American academic common sense
context. Call it $c1$. In $c1$, the phenomena of books and libraries
are ``sufficiently definite''. The context is not necessarily associated
with the English language. You could imagine a discussion in which
one person is speaking English and another is speaking Russian and
they are both communicating with a machine in a suitable first order
logical language. We won't try to define ``sufficiently definite'',
but the condition would be violated if the hearer went to the wrong
library or returned with the wrong book.
We might now have the sentence
%
$$holds(time(1988.dec.14.pst.1540,
physically(has)(spec(``Stanford_Mathematics'',library),
book(Author: Hintikka,Title: Knowledge and Belief))),c1).$$
%
Context $c17$ is a specialization of $c1$, and the two
sentences are equivalent.
dec 29 Discuss what happens when a flip-flop has to be used outside
of its specified regime.
meaning(scalpel,c19) = meaning(give(scalpel),c7)
!yet to do
jan 7
discuss at some point elaboration tolerance, epistemological adequacy
and ambiguity tolerance - note ref to dreyfus
probably under remarks
discuss reification in general
analogy with resonances in physics - weak entities
\noindent Reification in general
A previous section discussed reification of context. However,
natural language uses many more reifications than that, and it seems
that many of them will be useful in AI. Here are some examples.
1. (McCarthy 1980) mentions the missionaries-and-cannibals
problem and discusses the possibility that there is something wrong
with the boat. In ordinary language, it is sometimes useful to say
that there are two things wrong with the boat, i.e. ``things wrong
with the boat'' can be identified and counted. It appears that in
ordinary language a broken motor and a leak are two different things,
while the people who fix boats do not regard the boat having a leak
and having a hole as two different things.
2.
Some entities used in common sense thought and language seem
to be {\it weak entities}. They are used, but attempts to make them
precise fail. It is common to propose abandoning them for that reason.
I don't think AI can let itself do that. Weak entities are useful,
and we need to understand how to treat them theoretically.
!************
sterile(X) :- not[bacterium(Y,X), alive(Y)]
∂04-May-89 1949 JMC re: paper
To: thomason@CAD.CS.CMU.EDU
[In reply to message sent Thu, 4 May 1989 21:00:30 EDT.]
I assume you got it.
∂05-May-89 1304 JMC re: SAIL going private
To: ARK
[In reply to message rcvd 05-May-89 09:45-PT.]
My inclination is to let SAIL die according to the original schedule
of January. Do you have another idea?
∂05-May-89 1430 JMC re: SAIL going private
To: ARK
[In reply to message rcvd 05-May-89 14:05-PT.]
Before, you asked what you could do. There are two things.
(1) Survey current SAIL users and find out what they would do starting
January and figure out what it would cost. Would it be more or less than
keeping SAIL alive?
My current plan involves using X-terminals. They have just become available.
(2) My problem is the SAIL character set. Have I harangued you on the
problem of making machines handle arbitrary character sets? Not just
fixed foreign language character sets, but whatever a particular user
may want.
∂07-May-89 1443 JMC re: Dartmouth Conference???
To: georgeff%aaii.OZ@UUNET.UU.NET
[In reply to message sent Sat, 6 May 89 14:45 EAST.]
Papert was not involved in AI at the time. Newell and Simon came
for just a day or two. I didn't know of their importance when I first
organized the conference.
∂07-May-89 1444 JMC re: making contact
To: ariel%bimacs.BITNET@FORSYTHE.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Sun, 7 May 89 13:15:41 +0200.]
558-30-4793
∂07-May-89 1445 JMC re: Go left, young censor
To: op@POLYA.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Sun, 7 May 1989 6:49:48 PDT.]
I saw it. Do you know him?
∂07-May-89 2007 JMC $5K
To: CLT
The Japanese that paid the $3K agreed to $5K for a 3 day visit
in July.
∂08-May-89 0940 JMC
To: CLT
I have borrowed $16K. Check tomorrow. There is $13K cash in joint acct.
∂08-May-89 0941 JMC
To: CLT, VAL
We need new NSF proposal budget at $130K per year.
∂08-May-89 1033 JMC The contractor
To: CLT
called. Hazel took the message. His father and grandfather
died, and he has rushed off to Sonoma. You should call him.
Hazel also telephoned the Department with the same message.
∂08-May-89 1143 JMC re: new NSF budget
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 08-May-89 11:01-PT.]
Yes, I heard that the reviews were excellent, but they are only going
to give us $130K per year.
∂08-May-89 1517 JMC please phone tomorrow morning
To: MPS
Mimi Scrandis at SE2 212 840-6595 and tell her she can include
my name in the letter to Governor Cuomo.
∂08-May-89 1557 JMC re: my M.Sc. thesis
To: eyal@COYOTE.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Mon, 8 May 89 15:53:19 PDT.]
I don't want to do it, because I think you can find someone who is at
least familiar with classical logic, very likely a philosopher. Why
don't you ask John Etchemendy in the Philosophy Department if he
would be interested or could suggest someone.
∂08-May-89 1656 JMC visa information
To: MPS
On p.3 of Visa Views in my out box is a coupon with an address.
Please copy the coupon, return original to VAL, and fill it out
for me to get information and forms. There's a dollar clipped to
it.
∂08-May-89 1807 JMC igaras.1
To: MPS
answers letter to Earnest in out box.
∂08-May-89 2118 Mailer "nuclear information"
To: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
Michael Mariotte, Executive Director of the Nuclear Information
and Resource Service has a letter in the New York Times, May 8,
saying, "For example, Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island
is having success with methods of burning coal that do not produce
carbon dioxide." He finishes with, "Scrapping Shoreham isn't
folly; indeed, it can be a strong step toward creating an
environmentally sound energy future that does not leave a
legacy of carbon dioxide or radioactive waste".
Suppose Mr. Mariotte discovers that he is mistaken about the
possibility of burning coal without producing carbon dioxide.
What chance is there that this would change his mind about
nuclear energy or the position of his organization?
Zero.
∂09-May-89 0028 JMC dinner and peanuts
To: beeson@UCSCD.UCSC.EDU
Many thanks for the dinner. Peanuts are native to
South America but were transported elsewhere very
early.
∂09-May-89 0808 Mailer re: "nuclear information"
To: STEINBERGER@KL.SRI.COM
CC: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from STEINBERGER@KL.SRI.COM sent Tue, 9 May 89 07:38:05 PDT.]
Let me make one thing perfectly clear - as the saying goes. I don't
believe that the laws of chemistry allow the "burning of coal without
producing carbon dioxide". The reaction of burning is
C + O2 → CO2 + heat.
Coal is carbon and burning combines it with oxygen. Ash can be
reduced and the emission of SO2 can be reduced, because burning
the sulfur contaminants in coal is not wanted. There is no way
of getting energy from coal without combining it with something,
and oxygen is the only something available in significant
quantities.
In short, "Nuclear Information and Resource Service" is a pompous
name for a publicity effort that doesn't even know high school
chemistry.
∂09-May-89 0838 JMC
To: VAL
My talk at Hoover on the Soviet elections is 1030 today.
∂09-May-89 0912 JMC re: Visa Views
To: MPS
[In reply to message rcvd 09-May-89 09:07-PT.]
Just the one asking for information and forms for inviting people
to make personal visits.
∂09-May-89 1320 JMC reply to message
To: CR.APC@FORSYTHE.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Mon, 8 May 89 08:22:17 PDT.]
Here's what I suggested to Osserman. It would be good if someone
were to move that the Senate resolve as follows.
The SCLC statement was revised in order to take into account
First Amendment concerns expressed by many individuals and by a student
petition. Some may find it ambiguous now or later whether it fully
addresses these concerns. Therefore, we propose the following additional
paragraph.
"These rules concerning expression are to be interpreted in
accordance with the First Amendment. Specifically, no expression is
to be considered in violation of the Fundamental Standard that
the First Amendment would prevent a municipality or state from
making a violation of law."
∂09-May-89 1438 Mailer re: "nuclear information"
To: STEINBERGER@KL.SRI.COM
CC: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from STEINBERGER@kl.sri.com sent Tue, 9 May 89 14:00:34 PDT.]
First, one more point about "nuclear information". I don't
believe that Brookhaven is trying to burn coal without producing
carbon dioxide. I think this klutz Mariott confused it with
something they are trying to do, e.g. burning coal without
producing sulfur dioxide. That is possible and worthwhile.
However, it is carbon dioxide that MIGHT cause a greenhouse
effect.
Second, Steinberger seems to be convinced that it has been shown that
there is some virtue in using less energy per se. The only virtue
in using less energy is economic. However, saving money, i.e. saving
human labor, by saving energy has to compete with other ways of saving
money. It has to compete for capital resources, for public attention
and for engineering capability. Passing laws to put saving energy
ahead of other ways of saving money is a very bad idea. The reason I
think this way is that nuclear energy works just fine. France generates
75 percent of its electricity from nuclear energy, and Japan has just
passed the U.S. in the fraction of its electricity that is nuclear.
In short I think the Reagan Administration had approximately the right
policy on energy, except that they didn't fight against the legalistic
roadblocks that the courts and previous administrations had placed
against nuclear energy.
∂09-May-89 1902 JMC Please decorate
To: MPS
nation[s89,jmc] so that it has larger print and fits
more nicely on the page.
∂10-May-89 1058 JMC reply to message
To: CLT
[In reply to message rcvd 10-May-89 10:09-PT.]
Done.
∂10-May-89 1242 Mailer re: "nuclear information"
To: STEINBERGER@KL.SRI.COM, S.SALUT@HAMLET.STANFORD.EDU
CC: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from STEINBERGER@kl.sri.com sent Wed, 10 May 89 07:49:27 PDT.]
The problem with Government activities is only secondarily the fact that
"pointy-headed bureaucrats" make wrong decisions compared to private
enterprise. The big problem is that Government activities are determined
by politics. Consider subsidies for tobacco growers, Government funded
anti-smoking campaigns, affirmative action and energy efficiency standards
for cars and refrigerators.
It isn't that some dumb bureaucrat has decided that the Government should
simultaneously subsidize the growing of tobacco and fund campaigns against
smoking. The bureaucrats may be dumb, but they aren't that dumb. The
Congressmen from the tobacco growing states demand continuation of the
subsidies. They think their duty to their constituents requires a battle
for the subsidies, and every time they think about being re-elected they
are reminded of it.
How can they prevail given that there are so few tobacco growing
states? Simple, they have votes to trade. Maybe they even trade
votes with people who want Government funded anti-smoking
campaigns. After all, while some of these people are fanatical
anti-smokers, others need merely to satisfy their constituents
that they are acting in their interests.
Once affirmative action programs have been started, institutional interests
arise in their continuation that are entirely independent of whether
they are correcting injustices or simply advancing the interests of
certain groups.
Consider mileage standards for cars. The makers have greatly
increased mileage in response to these standards. All good? My
wife's 1985 Cadillac Cimarron is more powerful than my 1973
Mazda. However, the owner's manual says it can't tow any
trailer, while the Mazda can Why? There are two possibilities.
Mileage is improved by reducing weight. One way to reduce weight
is to make the radiator smaller. It also reduces frontal area,
improving mileage. However, it makes the car far more likely to
overheat when stuck behind other cars on a grade or when pulling
a trailer. Another possibility is that the frame has been made
weaker to save weight. If there were enough complaint, the
bureaucracy that enforces the mileage regulations might pile on
other regulations against overheating and weak frames. In the
meantime, the people who want to pull trailers, e.g. horse trailers,
have a way out. They buy small trucks, which aren't subject to
the mileage rules. The sale of small trucks has greatly increased
in recent years. Perhaps the bureaucratic solution is requiring
truck buying permits. A suitable board could examine whether you
have an ecologically sound reason for buying a truck.
Consider efficiency standards for refrigerators. A few years ago
my daughter and her husband bought a GE refrigerator. When they
complained that it was very noisy, GE sent them a brochure explaining
how its being noisy was good for them, because it saved energy.
I do not see how vote-trading can be eliminated from Government. Without
it, democratic Government might function so badly that it would be
replaced by dictatorship. However, I think the situation has gotten
worse in recent years because of the increase in single-issue lobbies.
The single-issue voter, for example, the environmentalist will choose
the candidate endorsed by (say) the Sierra Club. The candidate will
have accumulated a "pro-environment" record by voting for every
environmentalist measure, even those he personally considers stupid.
For example, the Sierra Club reversed its pro-nuclear policy in 1975
because of its alliances, and its Congressional friends had to reverse
their policies also.
Remember this. The harm done by greedy interests is limited. They can
always be bought off by money. The harm done by an ideologically
motivated fanatic is unlimited; he can't be bought off even if millions
die. The world's experience with religious and politically motivated
corruption shows that it really does kill lots of people. To put it
in terms of a saying,
A true man of principle will cut his mother's throat for a principle.
∂10-May-89 1302 JMC re: "nuclear information"
To: S.SALUT@HAMLET.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Wed 10 May 89 12:55:50-PDT.]
How about "Science and Lawyers' Science"?
∂10-May-89 1332 JMC
To: VAL
Henry Hamburger, knowledge models and cog. syst., program manager, 202 357-9569
hhamburg@b.nsf.gov
Budget will have to be $130K per year.
McCarthy and Lifschitz $130K per year,
info, robotics , intelligent of systems, Y.T. Chen is Hamburger's boss.
Peter Freeman is his boss.
CISE, Bill Wolf
Hamburger needs:
updating of current support
What can we do with what we will get?
Budget can come email, but need formal document also as soon
as possible.
∂10-May-89 1554 JMC simpso.3 is urgent
To: MPS
The enclosure consists of three things.
1. propos[s89,jmc]
2. thomas[f88,jmc]
3. VAL's formal theories of action, to be copied from Ginsberg's
Nonmonotonic Reasoning
The whole thing should go Federal Express today.
Schwartz gets the whole works also, but it can go in one
package if the parts are separated nicely, since the address
is the same.
∂10-May-89 1850 JMC re: rec.humor.funny
To: weening@Gang-of-Four.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message sent Wed, 10 May 89 18:21:09 PDT.]
I talked with Coladarci yesterday, and he'll let me know.
∂10-May-89 1928 JMC I made only linguistic changes.
To: VAL
∂10-May-89 1855 VAL Report: please approve
John McCarthy visited the Institute of Philosophy in Moscow from April 2 to
April 15. He gave the following lectures:
1. What philosophy should be built into robots?
2. Formalization of common sense knowledge and reasoning.
3. Mathematical problems of formalizing commonsense knowledge and reasoning
(at the Steklov Institute).
4. New features of programming languages (at the Institute of Program Systems).
Vladimir Lifschitz visited the Institute of Philosophy from April 4 to April
18. He gave the following lectures:
1. Mathematical models of default reasoning.
2. Mathematical models of introspection.
3. Reasoning about action and change.
4. Difficult problems in the theory of nonmonotonic reasoning.
McCarthy and Lifschitz also met with faculty and graduate students
of the Department of Philosophy of the Moscow University and with the Editorial
Board of the journal Voprosy Filosofii.
∂11-May-89 0850 JMC re: Books
To: MPS
[In reply to message rcvd 11-May-89 08:12-PT.]
Go ahead.
∂11-May-89 1117 JMC reply to message
To: MPS
[In reply to message rcvd 11-May-89 11:05-PT.]
I'd be glad to have the award named after me provided I get
to choose the recipient.
∂11-May-89 1204 JMC re: your schedule in Tokyo
To: wada%tomo.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp@RELAY.CS.NET
[In reply to message sent Wed, 10 May 89 13:55:50 JST.]
I am not planning to attend the LISP conference in Sendai. We
can only send two people, the others have more need to attend,
and I have too many meetings scheduled. However, I will be in
Japan, Tokyo I think, from July 6 to July 8, and we can meet
then if you are available.
∂11-May-89 1207 JMC re: Workshop on Parallel Lisp
To: ito%ito.ito.ecei.tohoku.junet@relay.cc.u-tokyo.ac.jp
[In reply to message sent Wed, 10 May 89 21:37:51+0900.]
Unfortunately, I can't come. I have nothing new to say about
parallel LISP, whereas both Weening and Pehoushek have new
results. I will be in Japan on a business trip from July 6-8.
∂11-May-89 1210 JMC re: Message from Tak
To: okuno@NTT-20.NTT.JP
[In reply to message sent 11 May 89 17:58:24 JST.]
I'll give you an answer about the ELIS machines in a few days.
What is your plan for them after February?
∂11-May-89 1255 Mailer failed mail returned
To: Mailer@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
In processing the following command:
MAIL
The following message was unsent because of a syntax error:
------- Begin undelivered message: -------
11-May-89 1255 Mailer re: "nuclear information"
To: byrd@PORTIA.Stanford.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from byrd@Portia.Stanford.EDU sent 11 May 89 17:13:21 GMT.]
I have considerable reservations about conservation measures
stimulated by the power company. These are generally a
consequence of coercion by liberals, whose influence or even
control of state utilities commissions that set rates permit them
to coerce power companies into making propaganda and giving
incentives for their causes.
Maybe insulation beyond what ordinary economic incentives would
motivate is a good idea - more likely it isn't. For example, it
raises the cost of new housing. This keeps middle class people
in their old homes that might otherwise be available for poorer
people. At the bottom of the scale, it contributes to
homelessness. It also creates a vested interest in the
continuation of a program that will persist when the program
loses its point.
Energy should be regarded as a commodity like any other. Making
it the basis of a religion leads to irrational policies. Most of
the arguments about the special importance of conserving it are
lawyers' science and politicians' science. Lawyers are
interested in those scientific arguments that will win their
cases, and politicians are interested in those scientific
arguments that support their claims for power.
My own opinion is that the future increases in standard of living
will involve using more energy per capita rather than less. My
further opinion is that the political coalitions that use
anti-nuclear sentiments as a claim on power are running out of
gas. Therefore, I believe that there will be a revival of
nuclear energy in this country. Maybe it will come soon, but it
will surely come when Japan generates the 75 percent more than
half of its electricity from nuclear energy as France does now.
Americans can ignore France but not Japan.
The objections to nuclear energy are unsound and mostly insincere.
If the Sierra Club were really motivated by fear of radiation,
radon in homes would excite them. Of course, if the radon in
homes could somehow be blamed on corporations, you'd see action.
In the 1950s, uranium mill tailings were used as aggregate for
house foundations in Colorado. When fear of radiation was
promoted to a level that made this a bad idea, corporations
and the Government were blamed, and a Government program was
instituted to keep the radon out. When it was later discovered
that much higher levels of radon, often levels illegal in a
uranium mine, were common in many parts of the country, the
"public interest" organizations yawned. Someone from the
Consumer Federation of America said in response to an inquiry,
"We're only concerned with corporate pollution."
------- End undelivered message -------
∂11-May-89 1542 JMC re: New budget for the NSF proposal
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 11-May-89 15:28-PT.]
I'll be in in by 4:30.
∂11-May-89 1547 JMC paradox?
To: VAL
The apparent paradox seems to me to be a consequence of minimizing
ab before constructing the negation. Suppose we had an axiom
of the existence of the negation of any propositional fluent,
perhaps along with other axioms about the existence of fluents.
Since we have no form of comprehension unless we explicitly put
it in, it is not surprising that circumscription can give
rise to unintended minimal models. Did I misunderstand?
∂12-May-89 0009 JMC
To: MPS
Did the proposal go to Simpson?
∂12-May-89 1608 JMC re: More MADness
To: jussi%hpljak@HPLABS.HP.COM
[In reply to message sent Fri, 12 May 89 11:39:13 PDT.]
I intend to try.
∂12-May-89 1646 JMC
To: MPS@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, chandler@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU
Tuesday afternoon is not suitable for me.
∂12-May-89 1654 JMC
To: LES
Professor Shigeru Igarashi
Institute of Information Sciences
University of Tsukaba
Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305
Japan
∂13-May-89 1249 JMC re: paper
To: thomason@CAD.CS.CMU.EDU
[In reply to message sent Sat, 13 May 1989 13:26:57 EDT.]
Both suggestions are agreeable, and the formatting is ok. I should
have no problem in looking at the printed copy next week if it
arrives early in the week.
∂14-May-89 1154 JMC
To: CLT
It always hurts when you go off without saying anything.
∂14-May-89 1428 JMC
To: op@POLYA.STANFORD.EDU
I have an American Spectator for you.
∂14-May-89 1510 Mailer elephant query
To: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
Does anyone know of some bit of literature (perhaps children's or humorous)
with a saying in praise of the elephant like "The elephant is loyal ...".
Perhaps some other animal was referred to though not dogs.
∂14-May-89 1641 JMC
To: ARK
Thanks, Arthur.
∂14-May-89 1742 JMC re: Elephant query
To: PSTINSON@GSB-WHAT.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Sun 14 May 89 17:29:29-PST.]
Thanks, that looks like what I want. I'll look further.
∂14-May-89 1844 JMC re: Faithful Elephants
To: HPM@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message rcvd 14-May-89 18:28-PT.]
Thanks, that's just what I need for the slogan of Elephant 2000,
the language whose programs remember and keep their promises.
∂14-May-89 2006 JMC re: elephant query
To: larrabee@POLYA.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Sun, 14 May 89 19:18:26 -0700.]
Thanks.
∂14-May-89 2243 JMC
To: barwise@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
Who's the local expert on speech acts?
∂14-May-89 2248 JMC
To: john@RUSSELL.Stanford.EDU
Who's the local expert on speech acts?
∂15-May-89 0957 JMC reply to message
To: chandler@POLYA.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Mon, 15 May 1989 8:58:29 PDT.]
OK, how about 11am?
∂15-May-89 1146 JMC reply to message
To: op@POLYA.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Mon, 15 May 1989 11:41:40 PDT.]
OK, but I have no special opinion on what articles to read,
especially as I have forgotten exactly what we discussed. It
seems to me that I was interested in what is most offensive to
liberals. The take-off on Quayle is extremely unusual, maybe
unique. I don't recall either a left or right wing magazine
ridiculing a political ally. Admittedly the provocation was
extreme.
∂15-May-89 1308 JMC
To: MPS
hanson.1. Letter in out box, file when done.
∂15-May-89 1443 JMC
To: MPS
balch.1
∂15-May-89 1537 Mailer demonstrations and aggression
To: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
A long time ago our ancestors lived in tribal societies. Judging from
more recent tribal societies, these were in a continual state of low
grade war. The more successful tribes, our ancestors, were the ones
whose young men made successful raids on other tribes. Evidence
suggests that Spring is the best time for such raids.
Now we have demonstrations, a pale ghost of tribal warfare. The current
occupation of the President's office has the following demands.
rescind the tuition hike
hire and Asian-American history professor
Create a full-time dean for the chicano community
hire a native american studies professor
establish a discrimination grievances board
increasing financial aid
increasing funding for teaching assistants
Presumably any of these are things Stanford might do, but it might
find other things of higher priority. Not very many people will
get very excited about these priorities as opposed to others.
However, there is a possibility that the police can be provoked
into doing something unwise. Then there will be a real issue, and
aggressive people who don't find the above demands exciting will
find an excuse for action.
All though the police are also recruited from a population of young
men with aggressive tendencies (else why join the police), they are
reasonably well disciplined, and the authorities much prefer to wait
out the demonstrators.
Anyway it's better than tribal warfare.
What's people's estimate of the number of demonstrators who will
be found in violation of the Fundamental Standard?
Now the Peking University student demonstrators have a justified cause.
∂15-May-89 1804 Mailer re: elephant query
To: geddis@Polya.Stanford.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from geddis@polya.Stanford.EDU sent 15 May 89 23:07:28 GMT.]
The Dr. Seuss quote turns out to be what I had in mind.
∂16-May-89 1058 JMC re: Paper
To: MPS
[In reply to message rcvd 16-May-89 10:18-PT.]
Wait a bit. We'll get a version in the mail that will be closer
to the version that will be printed. We'll make copies of that
for a new file.
∂16-May-89 2256 JMC re: complete solution of pill problem
To: beeson@UCSCD.UCSC.EDU
[In reply to message sent Tue, 16 May 89 09:13:20 -0700.]
All right then, what's the distribution of the remaining
half pills?
∂16-May-89 2335 Mailer re: demonstrations and aggression
To: T.TEDEBEAR@MACBETH.STANFORD.EDU
CC: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from T.TEDEBEAR@MACBETH.STANFORD.EDU sent Mon 15 May 89 23:13:10-PDT.]
Sun Bear asks me my position on the demands of the occupiers.
Here are some remarks.
rescind the tuition hike
Since the rate of inflation went down, universities have
raised tuition faster than inflation. There is still plenty of
demand for Stanford undergraduate education, so I suppose they
can continue until either the demand drops or they reach full
cost. Full cost won't be easy to calculate, but Stanford isn't
close. I'd rather they stopped well short of it, since much
of Stanford's gifts are aimed at supporting undergraduate
education.
hire an Asian-American history professor
This seems like a dumb idea if it means history of the
Asian-American community rather than the history of Asia. I
suppose Stanford has historians of Asia. It seems like a
mechanical analog of a demand for black history professors.
Create a full-time dean for the chicano community
Another bad idea. Chicanos aren't that different
from the rest of us. It's another step toward making
Stanford into a source of patronage for various groups, i.e.
like education bureaucracy jobs in New York City.
hire a native american studies professor
Reasonable if there isn't one and a good one can
be found.
establish a discrimination grievances board
A bad idea. One more board is not what Stanford
needs. But not a very bad idea. One more board wouldn't
add very much harm.
increasing financial aid
They probably increase it every year. I presume the
demand is for a bigger increase.
increasing funding for teaching assistants
Probably a good idea. Remember that Stanford can't
easily economize on professors, because of tenure and long
term appointments, so that economy drives tend to affect TAs.
None of these causes justifies interfering with the
operation of the University. Demonstrations in White Plaza
are appropriate. Maybe they already had one, and it didn't
much impress student opinion, let alone the University.
That's the breaks. If too few people support your demands,
you have no right to throw a fit. You can give up or you
can keep demanding in the hopes of influencing more people
next year.
Steinberger missed my point about tribal life. It wasn't
that modern social conditions are akin to tribal societies, it's
that the biological characteristics that made for successful
tribe members still exist and take strange and various forms in
modern society. Admittedly this is conjectural, and I don't have
an immediate idea of how it could be verified by anthropologists
and geneticists. Studies of identical twins adopted into
different families might enable an estimate of how much of
teen-age combativeness is biological and how much social.
It is an oversimplification to suppose that Stanford
exists solely for undergraduate students. It also does
graduate education. I am here, because it wanted to do
computer science research and hired me away from M.I.T.
by offering a full professorship and more money back in
1962. I came, because Stanford seemed like a good place
to be a computer scientist, and I haven't had cause to
regret it. If the extreme partisans of emphasizing
undergraduate education had got there way, I'd be somewhere
else.
Stanford attracts support of many kinds. Only some of it
is aimed at undergraduate education. Of course, research,
graduate education and undergraduate education are mutually
supportive.
Someone who thinks Stanford should concentrate
entirely on undergraduate education should transfer to
one of the many fine schools that do. Surely, when you
read the Stanford propaganda before you came, you must
have noticed that Stanford also brags about its research
and graduate education. You didn't suppose they were
without cost, did you?
∂16-May-89 2348 JMC my suspicious mind
To: suppes@CSLI.Stanford.EDU
Was your information that Sadovsky was ill direct from him?
Otherwise, it could be one of these old style Soviet
substitutions. I finally read through Chereshkin's paper.
It was rather free of content.
∂17-May-89 1034 JMC velikh.1
To: MPS
Please find out the address of the Presidium of the USSR Academy
of Sciences from our National Academy in Washington. That's
the address for the letter.
∂17-May-89 1653 JMC re: Senior Faculty Meeting 5/16/89
To: BSCOTT@SCORE.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message sent Wed 17 May 89 16:50:37-PDT.]
Abstain on both.
∂17-May-89 1657 JMC re: Senior Faculty Meeting 5/16/89
To: BSCOTT@SCORE.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message sent Wed 17 May 89 16:50:37-PDT.]
Please change my vote to NO on Karp.
∂17-May-89 2136 JMC
To: MPS
Send David Chudnovsky soviet[f88,jmc].
∂17-May-89 2333 Mailer demonstrations and aggression
To: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
I am surprised that people are surprised that the
demonstrators say their actions should not be
regarded as criminal. According to the practice
of the 1960s and 1970s, they would suffer no
actual penalty. Those steeped in the literature
about that period might have similar expectations.
Indeed they may get off yet. A judge with
nostalgic memories of his own student days may
find a flaw in the way in which they were told
to leave the President's office.
Incidentally, has any reader of the
San Jose Mercury-News seen any comment on this
event by its political editor Phil Trounstine,
a demonstrator from the days in which windows
were smashed?
∂18-May-89 1342 JMC re: Jussi Ketonen
To: SLOAN@SCORE.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message sent Thu 18 May 89 13:24:46-PDT.]
Yes.
∂18-May-89 1453 JMC
To: MPS
simon.2[let
∂18-May-89 1726 JMC My recommendation of rejection
To: MPS
of the Kugel paper that came today is in refere[s89,jmc].
Print it and xerox it onto their form.
∂19-May-89 0916 JMC re: Paper
To: MPS
[In reply to message rcvd 19-May-89 08:25-PT.]
Make it two.
∂19-May-89 0917 JMC re: Paper
To: MPS
[In reply to message rcvd 19-May-89 08:25-PT.]
Actually, there is no need to correct it on the proof, because
I intend to send Thomason email about the corrections.
∂19-May-89 1010 JMC
To: VAL
Noon at the Faculty Club?
∂19-May-89 1806 JMC re: Your Abstention on Winograd Promotion
To: BSCOTT@Score.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message sent Fri 19 May 89 15:44:05-PDT.]
No. I'm not surprised that that book would give rise to a cult.
∂19-May-89 1811 JMC
To: CLT@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, JSW@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
Sorry I forgot to leave the philosophy seminar on time for our meeting.
∂19-May-89 1841 Mailer demonstrators with heads in the sand
To: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
As a person with some memories of the late 60s and early 70s, I was
pleasantly surprised by the sensible positions taken by su-etc
contributors. Either the su-etc contributors are unrepresentative
or students have become more sensible or passions are not so
inflamed. I wasn't actually on campus those days, so maybe my
impression is incorrect. Would anyone else with memories of those
days care to comment?
With regard to the question of a professor of Asian-American history,
it would be nice to know how many people would take such a course.
Would anyone major in it? Would anyone undertake to teach it?
∂21-May-89 1219 Mailer re: Protesters and Martin Luther King Junior
To: S.SALUT@HAMLET.STANFORD.EDU
CC: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from S.SALUT@hamlet.stanford.edu sent Sun 21 May 89 00:17:56-PDT.]
I'm still mulling over the fact that the current Stanford
protesters are being given a much harder time than those of 15
years ago. I agree they deserve it, but the earlier protesters
deserved it even more. One possibility is that they failed to
make fierce accusations against Kennedy and Stanford generally.
If they had accused Kennedy and the Trustees of racism and of
making some decision for racist reasons, then the issue could
have been made to seem one of whether Kennedy was as racist as
they said rather than one of their own actions.
The Chinese protesters in Beijing have a leadership and policy
problem. The Chinese government and communist party are indeed
illegitimate. The government wasn't even elected in
old-fashioned Soviet fake elections. There have been no national
elections in China since the ones the Kuomintang ran in 1947.
Thus there is no limit to what the students can legitimately
demand. The question is what they can practically demand.
The most prominent leader of the Chinese student protesters,
Wu'er Kaixi, is a 21 year old education major. He took part
in the hunger strike and was hospitalized at least once.
They will have a hard time institutionalizing their success
in mobilizing millions of supporters. Probably they should
play bad cop, good cop with the aid of someone like Fang
Lizhi, someone they probably trust and the Government knows
(even if the Government doesn't like him).
∂21-May-89 1318 JMC AI Letters
To: VAL@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, SJG@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
May 21
1. In search of partially extensional expressions, I noticed that
``Mike's telephone number'' in ``Pat knows Mike's telephone number''
is extensional in Mike, even though it is not extensional in
``Mike's telephone number''. Thus if Mike is Mary's husband and
has the same telephone number, it follows from the above that
``Pat knows Mary's husband's telephone number'' even though ``Pat
knows Mary's telephone number'' doesn't follow. The formalism
in ``First order theories of individual concepts and propositions''
doesn't provide for this.
2. I was thinking about how to publish this short observation. The
correct place is ``AI Letters'', a publication that doesn't exist.
Here's what it should be like.
a. It appears monthly both on-line and on-paper.
b. It has length restrictions but no shortness restrictions.
c. The editor can accept items on his own and so can certain
other editors. It is improper to submit an item to more than one
editor simultaneously, but it is ok to try to get another editor to
accept something that one has rejected, provided that the second
editor is informed of the rejection. The editors can argue about
whether one of them is accepting too much junk.
d. Submissions are electronic in TEX form. There may be
some restrictions associated with a requirement that an item should be
TEXable when combined with other items. Thus it should not reset
any TEX global variables and it should not force page boundaries.
The text should be readable in TEX source form, e.g. a reader should
not have to mentally execute the author's macros. Some Latex form
might be appropriate.
e. Electronic publication should be free and one form
might be as a Usenet newsgroup. However, other electronic
publications should also be allowed.
f. A C program to TEX articles in a way acceptable to X-Windows
should exist.
g. Libraries will ordinarily receive the paper version.
h. The publisher should be an organization like AAAI or a
publisher like Morgan Kaufman. If the latter, they should be
familiar with TEX and have access to electronic mail both for
submissions and distribution.
∂21-May-89 2104 JMC re: passport for overseas travel
To: U.UNDERDOG@HAMLET.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Sun 21 May 89 16:52:01-PDT.]
The Post Office in Palo Alto and maybe Stanford has application
forms with all possible material. I think a week is the normal
time, provided you have a birth certificate or previous passport,
but just before summer might take longer. Getting the passport
is quite independent of what travel you want to do.
∂22-May-89 1254 Mailer re: Demonstration Straw Poll
To: jln@PORTIA.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message sent 22 May 89 18:39:01 GMT.]
Unfortunately, the questions make one presumption - that Stanford is
in need of ethnic/racial reform. Anyone disagreeing with this will
have difficulty choosing answers to questions 2 and 6.
∂22-May-89 1256 JMC re: Demonstration Straw Poll
To: jln@PORTIA.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent 22 May 89 18:39:01 GMT.]
baxccx, where x means that the question makes a presumption that I
don't accept.
∂22-May-89 1336 Mailer re: Chinese protesters
To: MRC@cac.washington.edu, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from MRC@cac.washington.edu sent Mon, 22 May 1989 9:10:42 PDT.]
MRC doesn't know what he is talking about when he says,
"If the students win, there will be a change in Party
leadership, and not a change in the basic system."
I believe that not even Wu'er Kaixi, the freshman at Beijing Normal
University who is chairman of the student committee, or Wang Dan, the
Peking University student leader, could answer that question today.
One could find out something by polling some of the 40,000 mainland
Chinese students studying in the U.S. However, they certainly can't
predict even their own reactions to the increase in influence the
students will have if they win.
It is clear that they are demanding freedom of speech and press and
free elections in the Western sense, and not in the perverted
communist sense that has served as a cloak for dictatorship. They
have made that clear.
An analyst writing (I think) in the New York Times has also made a
pronouncement whose truth he can have no information about. He wrote
that while some of the junior officers may oppose repressing the
students, the older officers will support Deng. How can he know how
these older officers will react to a situation they never imagined
would arise?
∂22-May-89 1519 JMC re: office at Cordura after this quarter
To: BETSY@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Mon 22 May 89 14:46:39-PDT.]
I use the desk several times a week for about 3 hours at a time.
∂22-May-89 1647 Mailer re: revolution by bboard and internet?
To: rick@HANAUMA.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from rick@hanauma.stanford.edu sent 22 May 89 21:17:17 GMT.]
rick@hanauma (Richard Ottolini) writes
I'd presume that all inter-institutional network
traffic is monitored by many of the world's
intelligence agencies and cataloged by the more
paranoid ones such as NSA.
I wouldn't presume that. Foreign agencies would have difficulty with
anything that could reasonably count as monitoring. They would have
to use personnel to stick their necks out to the point where there
would be a serious risk of arrest. For the NSA to do it would be
illegal, but one could imagine their doing it anyway. However, they
would take a risk that a whistleblower would disrupt their operations
to the extent that whistleblowers disrupted CIA operations.
I don't regard it as an absolutely sure bet, but I'll offer to bet
Ottolini $100 that no article will appear in the New York Times in the
next 15 years exposing the NSA as having cataloged "all
inter-institutional network traffic". If he wants to moderate his
claim, I might still take the bet.
∂22-May-89 1656 JMC re: sit cal and temp log
To: SHOHAM@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU, VAL@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message from SHOHAM@Score.Stanford.EDU sent Mon 22 May 89 16:48:29-PDT.]
I'll be away next week, but the following week would be ok.
∂22-May-89 2225 JMC
To: VAL
Have you talked to Hamburger?
∂23-May-89 0557 JMC re: passports
To: U.UNDERDOG@HAMLET.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Tue 23 May 89 03:00:31-PDT.]
I used the photo place in Town and Country Village. I believe that
some office at Stanford will also do it if you make an appointment.
∂23-May-89 0947 JMC
To: VAL
I'll be a little bit late this morning.
∂23-May-89 1417 JMC reply to message
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 23-May-89 13:13-PT.]
thomas[f88,jmc]
∂23-May-89 1904 JMC letters
To: MPS
Redo the Velikhov letter. I'll send it now. Also mccart.3 is
a letter that should have a format for sending from my home.
∂23-May-89 2311 Mailer $17,000 per year
To: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
The newsletter Contentions (Leftists call it "Connipitions"),
published by the Committee for the Free World, has a continuing
series of course descriptions. Here's a nice juxtaposition.
Amherst College
The Criticism of Values
The aim is to study eruptions agains contemporary values occurring at
verious moments in Western history. Attention will be paid both to the
relation between the emerging critical perspectives and their cultural
setting, and to the pertinence of the perspectives to late
twentieth-century experience and assumption.
The major texts are: Sophocles, Antigone; Plato Gorgias; The Gospels;
Augustine, Confessions; More, Utopia; Shakespeare, King Lear;
Swift, Gulliver's Travels; Burke, Reflections on the Revolution
in France; Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education of Man; Marx,
Capital (vol. 1); Nietsche, On the Geneology of Morals;
Freud, Civilization and its Discontents; Solzhenitsyn,
Cancer Ward. (Seven of these works will figure as texts for
class discussion; the others will figure in essays and
examinations.)
The course will conclude with the reading of a document from
recent American public life of interests to critics for current
values. For 1989 the document will be the Judiciary Committee
hearings on the nomination of judge Bork.
Students should complete a reading of the texts before the
first meeting of the course. Two class meetings per week.
Second semester. Professor DeMott.
*****
State University of New York at Buffalo, American Studies Department
New World Imagination
Students will try to imagine how they are connected fully with all
forms of life as participants in evolutionary development and
ecological processes, with special attention to ecstatic
experiences and to social life before we domesticated plants,
animals, and each other.
*****
Clearly things could be much worse than they are likely to become
at Stanford. Also better.
∂23-May-89 2314 Mailer Physics question
To: vera@PORTIA.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
Sure, according to Einstein's formula E = mc**2, and assuming that
the energy stored in the spring was one joule, i.e. equivalent to
raising a kilogram 1/10 meter, its mass will have increased by
1/(c**2) kilograms, i.e. 10**(-17) kilograms, i.e. about the mass of
than 200 million air molecules. Probably this increase in mass is
small compared to the absorption or evaporation of water molecules,
the evaporation of paint, changes in buoyancy in air due to
temperature changes, the mass of the grease and sweat that came
of the hand of whoever wound it up, etc. It is probably not measurable,
but I wouldn't be absolutely sure of that given the cleverness
of physicists and the techniques available today.
Can some physicist say whether it might be measurable?
∂23-May-89 2311 Mailer $17,000 per year
To: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
The newsletter Contentions (Leftists call it "Connipitions"),
published by the Committee for the Free World, has a continuing
series of course descriptions. Here's a nice juxtaposition.
Amherst College
The Criticism of Values
The aim is to study eruptions agains contemporary values occurring at
verious moments in Western history. Attention will be paid both to the
relation between the emerging critical perspectives and their cultural
setting, and to the pertinence of the perspectives to late
twentieth-century experience and assumption.
The major texts are: Sophocles, Antigone; Plato Gorgias; The Gospels;
Augustine, Confessions; More, Utopia; Shakespeare, King Lear;
Swift, Gulliver's Travels; Burke, Reflections on the Revolution
in France; Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education of Man; Marx,
Capital (vol. 1); Nietsche, On the Geneology of Morals;
Freud, Civilization and its Discontents; Solzhenitsyn,
Cancer Ward. (Seven of these works will figure as texts for
class discussion; the others will figure in essays and
examinations.)
The course will conclude with the reading of a document from
recent American public life of interests to critics for current
values. For 1989 the document will be the Judiciary Committee
hearings on the nomination of judge Bork.
Students should complete a reading of the texts before the
first meeting of the course. Two class meetings per week.
Second semester. Professor DeMott.
*****
State University of New York at Buffalo, American Studies Department
New World Imagination
Students will try to imagine how they are connected fully with all
forms of life as participants in evolutionary development and
ecological processes, with special attention to ecstatic
experiences and to social life before we domesticated plants,
animals, and each other.
*****
Clearly things could be much worse than they are likely to become
at Stanford. Also better.
∂24-May-89 1159 JMC re: mtg
To: shoham@TIME.STANFORD.EDU, VAL@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message from shoham@time.Stanford.EDU sent Wed, 24 May 1989 9:32:40 PDT.]
OK with me also.
∂24-May-89 1218 JMC Summer RA appointments
To: CLT
∂24-May-89 0958 littell@polya.Stanford.EDU Summer RA appointments
Received: from polya.Stanford.EDU by SAIL.Stanford.EDU with TCP; 24 May 89 09:58:02 PDT
Received: by polya.Stanford.EDU (5.61/25-eef) id AA07406; Wed, 24 May 89 09:57:22 -0700
Date: Wed, 24 May 89 09:57:22 -0700
From: Angelina M. Littell <littell@polya.Stanford.EDU>
Message-Id: <8905241657.AA07406@polya.Stanford.EDU>
To: faclist@polya.Stanford.EDU
Cc: littell@polya.Stanford.EDU
Subject: Summer RA appointments
Please send me a list of students you plan to support during the
summer quarter 88/89, along with their source of support and percentage of
time. I need this information as soon as possible. The RA appointment forms
need to be processed soon so that the students receive their bills with
the correct tuition applied.
Thank you.
--Angie
∂24-May-89 1251 Mailer re: Stanford sit-in compared to Chinese situation
To: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, singh@SIERRA.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from singh@sierra.stanford.edu sent Wed, 24 May 89 09:27:53 PDT.]
It is worthwhile to compare the sit-in in the President's office
with the Chinese demonstrations.
1. In both cases the demonstrations are intended to
achieve goals not achievable by sending the authorities a letter.
2. The Chinese demonstrations are not occupying anyone's
offices. The analogy here would be if a demonstration in White
Plaza were forbidden.
3. The Stanford Administration is legitimate. The laws
of the U.S. and of California provide for non-profit corporatins
that administer their own affairs as directed by
self-perpetuating boards of trustees. These laws could be
changed if the legislature or the voters could be persuaded to do
so. In fact no-one has challenged the legitimacy of the
governance of the University.
4. The rule by the Communist Party in China is not
legitimate. No-one there had the opportunity to vote on it. The
Party reserves for itself the power to decide what shall be
printed, what shall be broadcast, what speeches can be made and
where. It has abused this power. The Party isn't even
internally democratic. Its members don't have the right to run
candidates for Central Committee positions against those
nominated by the Politbureau.
5. Anyone can escape the very limited jurisdiction of
Stanford University by leaving it. Chinese people do not have
the right or power to escape the unlimited rule of the Communist
Party.
Enough?
In fact the su-etc critics of the occupation have discussed the
demands. There's a poll on the subject being conducted.
∂24-May-89 1430 Mailer re: Physics question
To: vera@PORTIA.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from vera@Portia.Stanford.EDU sent 24 May 89 20:00:38 GMT.]
It is a consequence of the theory of relativity that potential energy has
mass - not much mass for ordinary scale potential energy. However, the
mass difference between an atom of plutonium and the sum of the masses
of the particulate products of its disintegration is large enough to
heat these products to a high temperature. It is said that this can
even produce explosions.
∂24-May-89 2206 JMC re: NSF Proposal
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 24-May-89 18:45-PT.]
I know about the salary, and we'll do what ever Stanford ordinarily does
about this NSF rule. Ask Sharon to mail it. As for the DARPA
proposal, get Sharon to prepare a routing sheet, etc., because
I need to sign all the documents tomorrow, so the proposal
can be sent out while I'm away next week.
∂24-May-89 2207 JMC re: New office
To: manning@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Wed, 24 May 89 19:18:21 PDT.]
Please replace JMC@SAIL by JMC-LISTS@SAIL on the list
ee-faculty@sierra. I prefer to get mail sent to mailing
lists at this other address.
∂25-May-89 0915 JMC re: AI letter idea
To: ginsberg@Polya.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message sent Thu, 25 May 89 07:45:49 -0700.]
I got your message and was somewhat discouraged, but not
enough to make me abandon the idea.
∂25-May-89 0948 JMC
To: CLT
Corneila Shonkwiler, 723-2633, after 7am tomorrow
∂25-May-89 1537 JMC
To: CLT
Is there anything I have to do before I leave for Canada, 9am tomorrow?
∂25-May-89 1556 JMC
To: sacook@THEORY.TORONTO.EDU
Cocke 7,Hopcroft 3,Pippenger 0
∂25-May-89 1739 Mailer re: More death penalty/Thin Blue Line
To: STEINBERGER@KL.SRI.COM, MRC@cac.washington.edu
CC: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from STEINBERGER@kl.sri.com sent Thu, 25 May 89 16:41:39 PDT.]
From Ric Steinberger:
People convicted of committing violent crimes: Lock
them up. Treat and rehabilitate when feasible. Force
them to pay their debts to society and their victims as
much as possible. Free them only when there is a good
degree of certainty they will not repeat such crimes.
But murder them not; it brutalizes all of us and is
unlikely to prevent further violent crimes.
I deny having been brutalized by the execution of Ted Bundy. How
would the reverse be proved. Indeed perhaps Steinberger would
explain how he himself has been brutalized by this execution in
Florida.
This argument, not unique to Steinberger, is another example of
comparing the ideal results of a policy liberals advocate with
the actual results in states doing otherwise. The comparison
should be between states where liberals are in control, e.g. New York
where successive Democratic governors have successfully vetoed
death penalty laws or California where the judges have successfully
prevented any executions and states like Florida and Texas that
have executed quite a few. The states where executions have
been resumed might also be compared with the same states in
the period when the Supreme Court prevented executions. I
predict the differences will be only in
(1) costs of maintaining criminals in prison
(2) satisfaction of citizens with the system
(3) the number of people killed and injured by murderers given
the maximum penalty allowed by non-death-penalty states.
The deterrent effects, even if real, won't be measurable in
face of the noise.
I am a relative advocate of the death penalty. That is, I advocate
it under present conditions. If we were richer and the crime
problem were less, I'd go for Steinberger's proposal.
∂25-May-89 1951 Mailer re: protestors
To: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from wab@sumex-aim.stanford.edu sent Thu, 25 May 1989 10:54:24 PDT.]
William Brown writes:
I also have more news for you. It is the OBLIGATION of
citizens to challenge, and if necessary, violate unjust
laws for the betterment of society (or didn't you know
that King was jailed many times?)
Which unjust law did the Stanford protesters violate?
∂25-May-89 2013 Mailer re: Stanford sit-in compared to Chinese situation
To: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
CC: singh@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
There are plenty of ways to try to change things at Stanford. For example,
the Committee for First Amendment Writes got more than 500 verified
student signatures on a petition that the Academic Senate take up
the restrictions on speech proposed by the SCLC. This got considerable
concessions from the SCLC and perhaps the abandonment of the whole
project. Surely with the support of the elected slate of the COP,
the coalition could have got that many signatures for their demands.
I suppose they went at it the way they did out of a sentimental and
romantic nostalgia for the 60s.
A petition might very well have failed to achieve the results. Then a
legitimate (though foolish) action would be a student strike. I doubt
they would have got enough support for that to be interesting.
As the saying goes ``You can't always get what you want.'' It looks
like they got what they needed, however.
My opinion is that their demands are of the kind that when all
legitimate channels have been tried, the only honorable and democratic
thing to do is give up.
As for China, the students are challenging the legitimacy of many
aspects of communist rule. They challenge the Party's power to
(1) forbid strikes,
(2) forbid demonstrations - not just in Tienanmen square (which, however,
was created for demonstrations),
(3) forbid student unions and other unions not controlled by the Party,
(4) keep secret the incomes of leaders of the Party and country and
keep secret the privileges enjoyed by their families.
There are a few more, but I forget.
I'm not sure whether they have yet challenged the Party's rule without
free elections, but if they haven't done so yet, it is from discretion,
and the challenge will be made sooner or later.
∂26-May-89 0654 Mailer Stanford's first Vice-President for Administration
To: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
From Campus Report:
"Su Schaffer, Stanford's first woman vice-president, sees her
biggest challenge as building `a work environment that
recognizes, supports and thrives on cultural diversity.' "
Given that the position is new and the priority of its first
holder, and her background as a vice-president of United
Airlines, we can expect the overhead rate to pass 100 percent in
the near future.
∂26-May-89 0733 JMC (→22104 2-Jun-89)
To: "#___JMC.PLN[2,2]"
I will be in Edmonton, Alberta till June 2.
∂02-Jun-89 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 will be in Edmonton, Alberta till June 2.
∂02-Jun-89 2358 JMC re: signatures for Bob Byer
To: BETSY@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Fri 26 May 89 09:57:45-PDT.]
You just missed me. I am just back from Canada, and I don't know
what the Bob Byer support issue is.
∂03-Jun-89 0004 JMC re: changing offices
To: BETSY@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Tue 30 May 89 14:37:30-PDT.]
I have no problem with moving whenever convenient and won't be
annoyed if my stuff (little) has been moved while I was in
Canada.
∂03-Jun-89 0012 JMC re: contentions
To: ALTMAN@SCORE.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message sent Thu 1 Jun 89 16:29:22-PDT.]
Contentions (ISSN: 1041-1771) is published monthly (except
August) by the Committee for the Free World, 211 East 51 Street
New York, NY 10022.
∂03-Jun-89 1308 Mailer inordinate fear of communism
To: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
What a pity that 12 years after President Carter announced that
America had overcome its ``inordinate fear of communism'' that
this fear has spread to China and the Soviet Union.
Seriously, today we have the Stanford radicals identifying
their movement with the protests in Peking. 20 years ago,
such radicals called criticism of the Chinese communists
imperialist propaganda. When the communists terrorized
all potential protesters, American radicals could claim
that there was no protest, and American liberals found
much to praise in ``people's democracy''.
In fact, the Stanford radicals are akin to the Chinese
government, not the protesters. What's the evidence?
(1) The Chinese communists (and others) were born in
just such protests.
(2) Both have the same authoritarian attitudes and
willingness to use whatever force they can muster
to achieve their goals.
Let the Stanford radicals get power and see how they
abuse it. Give them power for 50 years, and you would
get the same kind of arrogant gerontocracy.
They too would use tanks against free speech.
∂03-Jun-89 1731 JMC re: changing offices
To: BETSY@CSLI.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message sent Sat 3 Jun 89 15:26:41-PDT.]
Yes, I'm back for a while. I can't sign the letter to Byer, because
it implies commitments I don't want to make.
∂04-Jun-89 0029 JMC
To: CLT
If you want me to pay Zella Thurs, say what she's getting.
∂04-Jun-89 0035 Mailer the Ayatollah
To: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
Maybe Khomeini died to soon, and the Iranians aren't sufficiently
tired of fanaticism.
∂04-Jun-89 1634 Mailer re: inordinate fear of communism
To: karish@FOREL.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from karish@forel.stanford.edu sent 4 Jun 89 19:49:37 GMT.]
Here's the only part of Chuck Karish's reply I want
to take further.
If a demonstration had paralyzed the government for
weeks, and were threatening to spread seditious
behavior to a large fraction of the population,
American officials would do the same. They've used
deadly force against demonstrators who posed much less
of a threat to the status quo than the Chinese
protestors now pose.
My feeling is that the Chinese regime is in serious
trouble. They've renounced Mao's cult of personality,
and lost contact with the nationalistic idealism from
which it grew. I don't see what's left to provide a
basis for the continuity of Chinese political
institutions.
The kind of demonstration the Chinese students put on is
is not one that would paralyze the Government in a
democratic country. The students were very careful to
do it that way. Mitch Snyder and his movement for the
homeless put on such demonstrations all the time in
Washington. The Tienanmen Square demonstrations are
like a campout in White Plaza. The Stanford Administration
would not feel compelled to take action against such a
demonstration, and it wouldn't violate the policy against
disruption. (Marcuse called this ``repressive tolerance'' with his
usual cute dishonesty). The Chinese Government was paralyzed, to the
extent that it was, only because it was divided on whether to attack a
non-disruptive demonstration.
I don't understand Mr. Karish's ``I don't see what's left to provide a
basis for the continuity of Chinese political institutions.''
The worst interpretation is that he thinks the Chinese Government
had no alternative to sending in tanks, because ``the continuity
of Chinese political institutions'' is a must. Giving it that
interpretation would agree with right wing prejudices about
left wingers, but I'd rather hear a clarification.
The Chinese Government has a clear alternative - allow more
democracy, including free speech and elections - either quickly
or gradually. Gorbachev is showing the way. This alternative
is indeed likely to interfere with ``the continuity of Chinese
political institutions'', i.e. the dictatorship of the Politburo
of the Chinese Communist Party.
Perhaps the ``continuity'' can be maintained by murder on a
sufficient scale, kicking this generation of students out of the
universities, suffering the mass defection of the students sent abroad
and mass firings and imprisonment of intellectuals. Perhaps not even
that will work. While Deng and Li seem to have regained control of
the Party bureaucracy, it appears that large numbers of communists and
military men prefer letting ``the continuity of Chinese political
institutions'' take its chances to the murder required to preserve it.
∂04-Jun-89 1644 JMC re: changing offices
To: BETSY@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Sun 4 Jun 89 16:19:05-PDT.]
I don't see any present reason to submit any proposals through CSLI,
until my contacts with CSLI results in wanting to submit a proposal
jointly with other CSLI people. The Computer Science Department
provides me with space for my group, and I imagine it would be
to CSD's disadvantage to have me submit proposals otherwise.
(I just learned it charges me a 5 percent tax on salaries for
its administrative help). Would the CSLI tax be smaller or
larger?
∂04-Jun-89 1712 JMC re: changing offices
To: BETSY@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Sun 4 Jun 89 16:54:53-PDT.]
That's how it's done in CSD, and it comes to 5 percent not
counting computer support which is paid for separately.
∂05-Jun-89 0104 Mailer Nicaragua and China events
To: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
Can anyone find out what the press and radio in Nicaragua,
also Cuba, is saying about China? It is an indication
of how the Sandinistas will deal with the similar situations
that are likely to arise. I expect Cuba has taken the
side of the Chinese dicatorship.
I looked at the Communist People's World in Kepler's. It has
a long article by Gus Hall, head of the American Communist
Party saying that the troubles are caused by a lack of political
education due to Mao's cultural revolution. The imperialists
are also to blame.
Also does anyone know what the Soviet press is saying?
∂05-Jun-89 1456 JMC re: Rumor reposted from soc.culture.china (was A must !)
To: cphoenix@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent 5 Jun 89 17:48:12 GMT.]
The message you quote refers to "a minute ago". However, we have the
time of your message but not the time of the message you quote. It
would be good to have the time of quoted messages when they refer to
fast moving situations.
∂05-Jun-89 1523 JMC
To: swanson@POLYA.STANFORD.EDU
16th 10am
∂06-Jun-89 0101 JMC re: China
To: PAF
[In reply to message rcvd 06-Jun-89 00:43-PT.]
Anything in particular turn up?
∂06-Jun-89 1444 Mailer re: Nicaragua and China events
To: arean@Polya.Stanford.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from arean@polya.Stanford.EDU sent 6 Jun 89 21:31:47 GMT.]
It was my understanding that the Pope, as head of the Catholic
Church, doesn't forbid political statements by priests. What he
forbids is priests holding government office. When this rule was
promulgated (late 1970s?), it obliged Robert Drinan, a Jesuit
priest, to give up being a Democrat Congressman from Massachusetts.
Certainly no Polish priests have held office in the communist
government of Poland. I don't know about Filipino priests, but I
haven't heard of any holding government office.
This is a relatively recent ruling. Drinan had no problem when he was
first elected, and historically cardinals were sometimes prominent in
the governments of Catholic countries, e.g. Richelieu and Mazarin.
Since I'm an atheist, it always gives me pleasure to defend the Pope.
∂06-Jun-89 1650 Mailer re: China
To: peyton@Polya.Stanford.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from peyton@polya.stanford.edu sent Tue, 6 Jun 1989 13:07:11 PDT.]
1. ``Marxism'' is capitalized, because it is derived from a proper name,
``capitalism'' is the name of an economic organization of society and
is an ordinary noun and so not capitalized.
2. The USSR didn't condemn the massacre; however, it reported it.
Truth is a step toward virtue.
3. I asked about the positions taken by various communist countries, because it
is an indication of their own future behavior. As expected Cuba supported
the Chinese Government and repeated its lies about what happened. Vietnam
did too. Evidently its totalitarian communist ideology took precedence
over its hostility to China. Nicaragua's support for the Chinese Government
was the most interesting. Ideology took precedence over considerations
of presenting a democratic image. That may be an indication of future
behavior.
4. Questions for su-etc supporters of the Sandinistas, and
su-etc opponents of aid to the Contras.
a. Is the Sandinista support of the Chinese Government
(as reported in today's S.F. Chronicle) an item of interest?
Worth reporting in the Chronicle and worth mentioning on su-etc?
b. Is it any indication of the Sandinista attitude toward demands
for democracy in Nicaragua?
c. Is it relevant to American organizations that support the
Sandinistas?
d. Is it relevant to future U.S. Government policy toward
Nicaragua?
5. Curious about left wing attitudes toward the Chinese
situation, I looked at the rack of left wing papers in Kepler's
book store. All predated the massacre. The most interesting was
the People's Daily World, which had an ``analysis'' by Gus Hall,
who has been head of the U.S. Communist Party for many years. He
wrote that the demonstrations showed that the Cultural Revolution
had produced ideological confusion, and the demonstrations were
evidence that this confusion had not been overcome.
The Trotskyist paper said that the demonstrations showed that
Trotsky had been right - I forget how. The Socialist Labor Party's
Weekly People said that the demonstrations emphasized the China
wasn't really socialist. Others attacked the U.S. media for
distortion and maybe for instigation. Sorry I don't remember
more precisely the positions taken.
Almost all confined the story to inside pages. Anyone
interested can see for himself. Turn left when you enter
Kepler's Menlo Park store; the racks are on the front wall.
If you see the papers printed after the massacre began, please
let us know what they say.
∂06-Jun-89 1811 Mailer re: Nicaragua and China events
To: gumby@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU, MRC@CAC.WASHINGTON.EDU
CC: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from gumby@sumex-aim.stanford.edu sent Tue, 6 Jun 1989 17:51:57 PDT.]
Huh? Hitler? Again I find myself defending the Catholic Church.
It's perhaps fair to say that the Church, as such, supported
Franco. I'm not really sure. But, in what sense did it support
Petain? In what sense did it support Hitler? It attempted to be
neutral in World War II, and it can certainly be criticized for
that. However, its tradition was neutrality, except when the
war was against its enemies, or (in its more corrupt days) it was
sufficiently bribed. Anyway the Vatican is located in Italy.
Perhaps Gumby meant some other, more moderate, criticism - with
which I might even agree.
In conservative opinion, including mine, the present Pope's
current statements about economic justice are often (mistakenly)
anti-capitalist and pro-socialist.
However, the Church doesn't support the Sandinistas, because they
have attacked it in various ways.
∂06-Jun-89 1820 Mailer re: global environment program at Stanford
To: rick@HANAUMA.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from rick@hanauma.stanford.edu sent 6 Jun 89 21:16:06 GMT.]
I fear that the future "global environment program at Stanford"
will have a substantial component of dishonest, and harmful
doomsaying. I hope my fears are mistaken. Scientists are
being recruited to parrot propaganda, which they do in
a mistaken glow of environmental virtue. I just received a
letter from the Chief Scientist of the Department of Transportation
announcing his resignation together with an article entitled
"The Misuse of Environmental Science". Yesterday there was
a seminar in geology in which the speaker expressed his opinion
that the evidence for the greenhouse effect from CO2 was very
thin. However, the Greenhouse Bandwagon is very thick.
∂06-Jun-89 2153 Mailer re: Avoiding Blacks...
To: wab@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU
CC: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from wab@sumex-aim.stanford.edu sent Tue, 6 Jun 1989 21:27:44 PDT.]
There aren't any ``white functions'', i.e. functions to which non-whites
are not admitted or require more of an invitation than white outsiders
to the particular group. That there should be is contrary to the
policy of Stanford and often contrary to law.
On the other hand, there are specifically black functions. There
are nationality functions, Jewish functions and functions associated
with particular religions. That's the way things are these days.
I'm not familiar with the particular function you mentioned. Is it
somehow obvious that non-blacks are welcome?
∂06-Jun-89 2222 JMC re: China
To: norman@isl.UUCP
[In reply to message sent 7 Jun 89 04:20:50 GMT.]
I did not have the Nation in mind, and the Nation wasn't on that
rack, which is for publications in a newspaper format. I would
have expected the Nation to oppose the crackdown. Its articles
and editorials have generally opposed Soviet actions against
human rights for some years now. Let me assure you that my
motive was curiosity about the Communist Party
attitude. The American communists generally follow the Soviet
line when they can figure out what it is. However, Soviet
publications in the past could get away with ignoring
unsuitable news, and Western communists could not. For this
reason, when I was in the Soviet Union at a time when
non-communist Western newspapers were unavailable, the Western
communist newspapers were enormously more informative than
Pravda.
Today the Soviet media report most of the important news, but
have the luxury of waiting to comment until the Party decides
what the comment should be. Western communist newspapers
don't have that luxury. That's why I found Gus Hall's article
interesting.
Looking at the other leftist papers was an afterthought, and
also I had to leave before I was done, because the store was
closing.
I reported all I remembered. I would be pleased if you would
visit Kepler's and give a more thorough summary.
∂06-Jun-89 2230 JMC re: Nicaragua and China events
To: MRC@CAC.WASHINGTON.EDU
[In reply to message sent Tue, 6 Jun 1989 18:58:08 PDT.]
MRC, do you really think the Sandinistas (note spelling) are
catholic zealots, not caring about massacres so long as the
victims aren't catholic? I'll bet they complain about South
Africa and about the people killed by the rebels
in Afghanistan. Marxist ideology is by far the simpler
explanation. Ask some of the leftists who have been there
about the ideological atmosphere.
This message was not sent to su-etc.
∂06-Jun-89 2241 JMC re: Avoiding Blacks...
To: wab@SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message sent Tue, 6 Jun 1989 22:23:35 PDT.]
Your message didn't get to su-etc, although it was obviously not
intended just for me. I didn't see su-etc in the list of
addressees. I'm too old for fraternity parties, and like
you don't drink anyway. I'm a bit surprised about blacks
not going to Grateful Dead concerts. It seems to me that
when I used to go to rock concerts, there were some blacks,
but perhaps I remember incorrectly.
What kind of party is a chill-out? Does that just refer to it
being outdoors? Maybe the su-etc readers need to know that
too.
∂07-Jun-89 0109 JMC China
To: norman%isl.UUCP@FORSYTHE.Stanford.EDU
I did not have the Nation in mind, and the Nation wasn't on that
rack, which is for publications in a newspaper format. I would
have expected the Nation to oppose the crackdown. Its articles
and editorials have generally opposed Soviet actions against
human rights for some years now. Let me assure you that my
motive was curiosity about the Communist Party
attitude. The American communists generally follow the Soviet
line when they can figure out what it is. However, Soviet
publications in the past could get away with ignoring
unsuitable news, and Western communists could not. For this
reason, when I was in the Soviet Union at a time when
non-communist Western newspapers were unavailable, the Western
communist newspapers were enormously more informative than
Pravda.
Today the Soviet media report most of the important news, but
have the luxury of waiting to comment until the Party decides
what the comment should be. Western communist newspapers
don't have that luxury. That's why I found Gus Hall's article
interesting.
Looking at the other leftist papers was an afterthought, and
also I had to leave before I was done, because the store was
closing.
I reported all I remembered. I would be pleased if you would
visit Kepler's and give a more thorough summary.
------- End undelivered message -------
∂07-Jun-89 0151 Mailer A triumph of stupidity
To: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
Further comments at the end.
Voters Opt to Close California Nuclear Plant
By STEVE GEISSINGER
Assciated Press Writer
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Voters decided to close the Rancho Seco
nuclear power plant on Tuesday, marking the first time an electorate
has chosen to shut down an operating reactor.
With absentee ballots in and all precincts reporting, 112,138 or
53.4 percent voted to close the troubled plant, while 97,698 or 46.6
percent voted to keep it open.
Election officials had projected a heavy special election turnout of
up to 50 percent of the 529,658 registered voters in the Sacramento
Municipal Utility District, which operates the plant 25 miles
southeast of California's capital.
Voters in the district that includes most of Sacramento County and
parts of Placer County gave the plant a reprieve in June 1988, but
put it on probation until the election this year.
Though the vote was not binding on the utility district, a majority
of its elected board members said they would follow the will of the
people.
Rancho Seco critics feared the 15-year-old facility was unsafe and
they were angered by rising utility bills. They also pointed to a
$400 million repair bill after a 1985 accident in which the reactor
was cooled too fast, raising fears of structural damage and causing a
27-month shutdown.
Supporters said the 913-megawatt plant's bad days were over since it
had been overhauled and had new management.
For the past 17 years, opponents of atomic power have tried
unsuccessfully to shut down nuclear power plants by appealing to
voters.
While nuclear opponents have failed to persuade voters to close down
any existing plants, they have won elections that prevented new
nuclear plants from being built in some states.
The industry, fearful that closing one of the few publicly owned
nuclear power plants in the nation could strengthen the hand of
critics of privately owned plants elsewhere, raised $580,000 to push
for its continued operation.
Opponents, which included the Campaign California environmental
group formed by Assemblyman Tom Hayden and his estranged wife, Jane
Fonda, raised $111,000, according to the latest campaign reports.
Since its restart in April 1988, the plant has been nagged by a
series of mechanical problems that shut it down or forced cutbacks in
power production. Overall, since restart, the plant has run at about
47 percent of its operating capacity.
But plant spokesmen Kerry Shearer said the plant had won praise from
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for improvements since the accident
and that the restart last year was one of the smoothest in the
industry.
Greg Cooke, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman, said other
ballot measures aimed at closing or blocking nuclear power plants all
had been voted down. More than a dozen such measures have appeared on
ballots around the country in the last 14 years.
Last November, voters in Massachusetts turned back a referendum that
would have prohibited the generation of nuclear wastes. The measure
was aimed at forcing the closure of the state's two nuclear plants.
*******
Comments:
1. No sooner does one stupidity (communism) show signs of
dying out, than another gains strength - environmental extremism.
2. Another triumph by the people who gave you the
Cambodian massacres - Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda. Here's a quote
from Jane Fonda.
"Much of what America needs to resolve its overwhelming social problems
has become embodied into the life of Jonestown and the works of
People's Temple" - Jane Fonda as quoted by David Evanier in National
Review. 1982 April 16
3. The scientific and engineering community failed to
do anything at all to inform the public. We'll eventually
suffer for this.
4. Probably the fact that Rancho Seco was run by a
public agency contributed to the disaster. Private utilities
put up a fight.
∂07-Jun-89 1340 Mailer re: Nicaragua and China events
To: arean@POLYA.Stanford.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from arean@polya.Stanford.EDU sent 7 Jun 89 20:08:12 GMT.]
The rule that Cardenal, etc. violated was promulgated and enforced
against the afore-mentioned Drinan, S.J. before the Sandinistas
took power, so perhaps one shouldn't say ``using a legalism''.
As for the other matters, my predeliction for occasionally defending
the Pope does not extend to claiming absolute consistency on his
behalf. If the sovereignty of Vatican City and the Pope's rule of
it is to be defended on su-etc, some Catholic will have to undertake
the task. Likewise with Andorra.
∂07-Jun-89 1344 Mailer re: Nicaragua and China events
To: arean@POLYA.Stanford.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from arean@polya.Stanford.EDU sent 7 Jun 89 20:31:21 GMT.]
I consider the Fascist salute and blessing Mussolin's tanks as sufficient
evidence of Vatican support of Franco. The evidence offered concerning
Vatican support of Petain is unconvincing.
∂07-Jun-89 1410 Mailer Soviet coverage of China
To: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
Today's New York Times has an article about it. Soviet media
don't support the Chinese Government explicitly, but they're far
from telling the whole truth. For example, "Soviet television
has featured scenes of students attacking soldiers and setting
fire to vehicles, omitting the footage shown in the West of
soldiers gunning down unarmed protesters."
East Germany accuses the Western press of "seeking to overturn
rule in China by waging a propaganda campaign against the
Beijing leadership."
∂07-Jun-89 1420 JMC change electronic mail address
To: gerlach@SIERRA.Stanford.EDU
Please make the following change in the mailing list ee-faculty@sierra.
JMC@SAIL should be replaced by JMC-LISTS@SAIL. I prefer to receive
announcements at this other electronic. If I'm on other lists, please make
the same change. For person to person mail, I prefer JMC@SAIL, although
I also read the other. Can you make this change?
∂07-Jun-89 1933 JMC
To: MPS
Did I send the letter to Velikhov?
∂07-Jun-89 2322 JMC re: Environmental Science
To: R.RAMJET@MACBETH.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Wed 7 Jun 89 20:10:25-PDT.]
I was sent a draft of an article by S. Fred Singer. The draft
doesn't contain the references, but you can have a copy if you
want. Otherwise, a complete version will appear later. I can
ask where it is to be published.
∂08-Jun-89 1333 Mailer re: Mexico
To: arean@POLYA.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from arean@polya.Stanford.EDU sent 8 Jun 89 19:48:07 GMT.]
Communists are very good fighters in proportion to the resources available
to them and their level of popular support. The Nazis were also very
good fighters, so this isn't a virtue in itself. Combining a fanatical
ideology with no scruples about terror and lies, e.g. killing peasants
who are reluctant to support the cause, is very effective. This applies
whether the communists are out of power and running a guerilla movement
or whether they are in power, repressing a guerilla movement. In fact
they are particularly effective at the latter.
Here's my opinion relative to whether Mexico can be called Marxist.
Mexico, like almost all poorly developed countries, has been strongly
influenced by Marxist, Leninist and other socialist ideas. These ideas
play several roles.
1. The idea of imperialism enables politicians in these countries
to blame the developed countries for their troubles. Blaming the
U.S. is especially popular in Mexico. They can also put pressure
on the U.S. and other rich countries to give them money in various ways.
Mexico, like other such countries, often sides with the Soviet Union
in the U.N.
2. Blaming their own capitalists and restricting their activities
is the single largest source of third world poverty.
3. The Institutional Revolutionary Party has very limited devotion
to electoral democracy. It steals elections and persecutes its
opponents on both left and right. The leftist denunciation of electoral
democracy as a capitalist fraud may help them in this.
4. Socialist ideas link with the nationalist ideas to justify state
control of much industry. State control of industry provides opportunities
for graft, and there is a lot of it.
5. State control of industry led to such a high level of graft and
inefficiency that 10 years of high oil prices left Mexico in worse
shape than when it started. We can compare Mexico with Texas in
that respect. Texas also suffered from the unanticipated decline
in oil prices, but Texas is better off than before the high prices
started, while Mexico is worse off.
6. The collapse of communism in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe
and China and the success of the fully capitalist formerly poor
countries in Asia is gradually sinking in to the third world
statists. However, the way the system supports politicians
ensures that change to more rational economics will be slow.
Necessary change will also be facilitated if it becomes clear
that no combination of threats to support communism, appeals to
charity and appeals to guilt can extract further handouts.
Unfortunately for Mexico, this is unlikely.
7. There is another factor besides convenience to politicians that
accounts for the strength of third world ideology. This is leftist
ideology among intellectuals.
Question: Why is Mexico less prosperous than Taiwan?
∂08-Jun-89 1518 Mailer re: American influence in China
To: U.UNDERDOG@HAMLET.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from U.UNDERDOG@hamlet.stanford.edu sent Thu 8 Jun 89 14:38:21-PDT.]
According to today's NYT, Japan has officially criticized China for the first
time in its postwar history.
∂08-Jun-89 1800 JMC Please mail
To: MPS
the three Soviet campaign platforms to Petr Beckmann.
∂08-Jun-89 1959 JMC re: possible IEEE interview
To: HOFFMAN@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Thu 8 Jun 89 19:17:18-PDT.]
No, I wasn't offended but forgot about it. I've been travelling and
have three more trips to make soon. What is involved?
∂08-Jun-89 2148 JMC re: comments on Lisp book
To: Dave.Touretzky@CS.CMU.EDU
[In reply to message sent Fri, 09 Jun 89 00:14:10 EDT.]
Sure, ship it.
∂09-Jun-89 0801 JMC reply to message
To: CR.APC@FORSYTHE.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Fri, 9 Jun 89 07:54:29 PDT.]
Thanks. I hadn't heard.
∂09-Jun-89 0821 Mailer Academic freedom wins and rhf restored
To: brad%looking@WATERLOO.EDU, JSW@SAIL.Stanford.EDU,
su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, faculty@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU,
cr.apc@FORSYTHE.STANFORD.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
I just received the following message from Professor
Arthur Coladarci, the Academic Secretary of Stanford. The
bureaucratic history is as follows. Prof. Robert Street, v-p for
Information at Stanford decided to ban the newsgroup
rec.humor.funny in January, and this decision was announced by
Ralph Gorin director of Academic Information Resources and John
Sack, Director of the Stanford Data Center over their own names.
There was protest including resolutions by the Computer Science Department
Faculty and Computer Science Department Students and a petition
whose names were collected by electronic mail.
President Donald Kennedy of Stanford announced that he was
referring the issue to the Academic Senate. The Steering
Committee of the Senate asked the Senate Committee on Libraries
for a recommendation on the general principles that applied. The
Committee on Libraries recommended that electronic information be
treated in the same way as printed information, i.e. that it
should not be censored and kept available, subject only to cost
considerations. The Steering Committee agreed with this
recommendation and told Professor Street, who reversed his
previous decision. Otherwise, the matter would have been taken
up by the Senate as a whole.
The outcome is therefore entirely satisfactory, and it took less
than six months. Thanks to everyone who helped in this battle
to extend the same freedom to read that applies to printed
media to computer media.
∂09-Jun-89 0755 CR.APC@Forsythe.Stanford.EDU
Received: from Forsythe.Stanford.EDU by SAIL.Stanford.EDU with TCP; 9 Jun 89 07:55:42 PDT
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 89 07:54:29 PDT
To: jmc@sail
From: "Arthur P Coladarci" <CR.APC@Forsythe.Stanford.EDU>
John: As you already may have heard, Bob Street has decided
to reconnect rec.humor.funnry to the Stanford computer systems.
This action will be reported to the Senate next Thursday.
Art Coladarci
∂09-Jun-89 1508 JMC re: Academic freedom wins and rhf restored
To: Winograd@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Fri, 9 Jun 89 09:16:51 PDT.]
Only about bureaucracy in general. Considering the people involved,
five months is not too bad.
∂09-Jun-89 1516 JMC re: A favor, please?
To: TALEEN@SCORE.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message sent Fri 9 Jun 89 11:34:54-PDT.]
This is what I would write. You can either use it directly or
refer people to me. You can ask Pat to put in letter form.
Taleen Nazarian worked as my secretary one summer. I found her
intelligent, pleasant and obliging in this work. My occasional
contacts with her since that time have only confirmed this
impression. I think she is ready for much more demanding work,
but I don't have direct experience confirming it.
∂09-Jun-89 1524 JMC reply to message
To: CR.APC@FORSYTHE.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Fri, 9 Jun 89 09:15:31 PDT.]
I'll do it.
∂09-Jun-89 1529 Mailer re: Academic freedom wins and rhf restored - clarification
To: cr.apc@FORSYTHE.STANFORD.EDU,
brad%looking@WATERLOO.EDU, JSW@SAIL.Stanford.EDU,
su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, faculty@SCORE.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from JMC sent Fri, 9 Jun 89 07:54:29 PDT.]
Some people thought that everthing after the first sentence of my
message was Professor Coladarci's message to me. His message was only
the last part that had the format of a complet electronic message,
namely,
John: As you already may have heard, Bob Street has
decided to reconnect rec.humor.funnry to the Stanford
computer systems. This action will be reported to the
Senate next Thursday. Art Coladarci
∂09-Jun-89 1532 JMC re: U of Md trip
To: MPS
[In reply to message rcvd 09-Jun-89 15:16-PT.]
Ask Yvonne Clark about non-stops from SF to Washington or
Baltimore. That is more important than the airline.
∂09-Jun-89 1714 Mailer re: rec.humor.funny
To: kolk@SHELBY.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, brad@looking.waterloo.edu
CC: s.street@MACBETH.STANFORD.EDU, g.gorin@MACBETH.STANFORD.EDU,
gq.vvn@FORSYTHE.STANFORD.EDU, cr.apc@FORSYTHE.STANFORD.EDU, siegman@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from kolk@shelby.stanford.edu sent 9 Jun 89 18:22:48 GMT.]
The following part of the statement from Street, Gorin
and Sack announcing the reinstatement of rec.humor.funny implies
that they believe that rec.humor.funny items "perpetuate racism,
sexism, and all forms of intolerance."
We abhor the misuse of University facilities to convey messages that
perpetuate racism, sexism, and all forms of intolerance. Such
materials are present without our endorsement. We are grateful to our
colleagues for their thoughtful deliberations and for their
reaffirmation of the vital importance of the free exchange of ideas.
We have accepted the advice of the Committee on Libraries and the
request of the Senate Steering Committee. We have reconnected this
news group to our computer systems.
Robert L. Street
Vice President,
Information Resources
Ralph Gorin John Sack
Director, Director,
Academic Information Resources Stanford Data Center
They are entitled to that opinion, and it represents a forward
step that they have decided to restore rhf because of "the vital
importance of the free exchange of ideas" in spite of that
opinion. The free exchange of ideas also includes their right to
express or imply the opinion without substantiating it in any way.
Nevertheless, they have insulted and offended Brad Templeton,
and, in my opinion, without justification. If they really mean
what they said about rhf and aren't merely sulking, then they
have a moral (though not legal) obligation to attempt to
substantiate it. If they don't mean it, they owe Templeton an
apology.
I would consider a reply that the statement doesn't necessarily
apply to rhf in particular but only abhors racism, etc. in
general to be mean-spirited, because the only concrete instance
that has been mentioned in connection with their abhorrence is
rhf.
∂09-Jun-89 1725 JMC retransmission to fix incorrectly remembered address
To: brad%looking@WATERLOO.EDU
------- Begin undelivered message: -------
09-Jun-89 1714 Mailer re: rec.humor.funny
To: kolk@SHELBY.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, brad@looking.waterloo.edu
CC: s.street@MACBETH.STANFORD.EDU, g.gorin@MACBETH.STANFORD.EDU,
gq.vvn@FORSYTHE.STANFORD.EDU, cr.apc@FORSYTHE.STANFORD.EDU, siegman@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from kolk@shelby.stanford.edu sent 9 Jun 89 18:22:48 GMT.]
The following part of the statement from Street, Gorin
and Sack announcing the reinstatement of rec.humor.funny implies
that they believe that rec.humor.funny items "perpetuate racism,
sexism, and all forms of intolerance."
We abhor the misuse of University facilities to convey messages that
perpetuate racism, sexism, and all forms of intolerance. Such
materials are present without our endorsement. We are grateful to our
colleagues for their thoughtful deliberations and for their
reaffirmation of the vital importance of the free exchange of ideas.
We have accepted the advice of the Committee on Libraries and the
request of the Senate Steering Committee. We have reconnected this
news group to our computer systems.
Robert L. Street
Vice President,
Information Resources
Ralph Gorin John Sack
Director, Director,
Academic Information Resources Stanford Data Center
They are entitled to that opinion, and it represents a forward
step that they have decided to restore rhf because of "the vital
importance of the free exchange of ideas" in spite of that
opinion. The free exchange of ideas also includes their right to
express or imply the opinion without substantiating it in any way.
Nevertheless, they have insulted and offended Brad Templeton,
and, in my opinion, without justification. If they really mean
what they said about rhf and aren't merely sulking, then they
have a moral (though not legal) obligation to attempt to
substantiate it. If they don't mean it, they owe Templeton an
apology.
I would consider a reply that the statement doesn't necessarily
apply to rhf in particular but only abhors racism, etc. in
general to be mean-spirited, because the only concrete instance
that has been mentioned in connection with their abhorrence is
rhf.
------- End undelivered message -------
∂09-Jun-89 1743 JMC re: Protestors
To: wab@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Fri, 26 May 1989 17:01:08 PDT.]
Mike Shapiro of the Peninsula Times-Tribune is interested in talking
to someone opposed to the restoration of rhf. You're the only one
I can think of now that the officials have reversed themselves.
Call him at 853-5293. He says that if you get the message after 830pm
you should disregard it.
∂09-Jun-89 1839 Mailer re: Mexico
To: karish@FOREL.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from karish@forel.stanford.edu sent 9 Jun 89 14:57:47 GMT.]
I said among other things:
>2. Blaming their own capitalists and restricting their activities
>is the single largest source of third world poverty.
Chuck Karish replied to this item:
Yeah, if they'd all done things the way we do, they'd
all be rich like us. Bull. This reminds me of what
happened to the Aleuts when American missionaries
brought them Christianity. They embraced its values
and abandoned their own beliefs, and treated the
traders who followed the missionaries with Christian
trust and good will. Of course, they were cheated
blind. Now we laugh at the stupid, drunken Eskimos,
too dumb to take care of themselves.
This represents the core of the disagreement about Third World
poverty. When I proposed that the single largest source of Third
World, especially Mexican, poverty is restricting capitalism, Karish
disagreed and replied with a story about the Aleuts and Eskimos.
Unfortunately, this reaction is not peculiar to Karish; telling a
story (true or false) has been the most usual reaction of Third World
politicians since the 1950s. It has some success in getting handouts,
but the handouts are always insufficient, and, as eloquently explained
by Lord Peter Bauer of the London School of Economics, they are
counterproductive.
I have the following questions for Karish with my own opinions
in parentheses.
1. Is Mexico worse off than before the oil boom? (Apparently, yes).
2. If so, why? (Their politicians and other grafters got even greedier,
and they indulged in some public works that did not enhance their
productivity. I'm not too sure exactly how the money was wasted?)
3. Can Mexico become prosperous? (Yes.)
4. If so, how? (By encouraging capitalism and democracy. The
democracy may make it possible to limit graft.)
5. Does Mexican prosperity require a change in U.S. behavior? (No.
They can do it themselves.)
6. Can we help, and should we? (Maybe we can, but it can't be the
centerpiece of their program, i.e. The Alliance for Progress is a
bad idea. If we can do it in such a way as to reduces rather than
increases dependency, we should devote some resources to it.)
7. Is socialism the answer? (In no way.)
∂09-Jun-89 2205 Mailer re: ASSU Senate Actions
To: les@GANG-OF-FOUR.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from les@Gang-of-Four.Stanford.EDU sent 10 Jun 89 04:48:25 GMT.]
The political activities forbidden to tax exempt organizations
are rather limited. I think they are just forbidden to support
candidates of public office. Advocacy of policies and even laws
is not forbidden. I also doubt whether there is any provision
for removing tax exemption for supporting illegal activities; I
conjecture the problem didn't occur to Congress.
∂09-Jun-89 2252 JMC
To: CLT
Has Joe's Research Associate appointmet been started?
∂10-Jun-89 1916 JMC
To: LES
Can the Imagen safely be used to print on transparencies?
∂10-Jun-89 2100 JMC
To: VAL
By the way, my papers are in biojmc.tex[1,jmc]/4p.
∂10-Jun-89 2102 JMC
To: ME
How do I unprotect a directory?
∂10-Jun-89 2352 JMC re: Printing trasparencies
To: LES
[In reply to message rcvd 10-Jun-89 23:48-PT.]
Does that apply to copiers also, or are the Xerox copiers
better with regard to toner? Does using transparencies
labelled for use in copiers help?
∂11-Jun-89 0023 JMC re: Printing trasparencies
To: LES
[In reply to message rcvd 10-Jun-89 23:55-PT.]
My question was related to whether I could reasonably make
transparencies at home.
∂11-Jun-89 0028 JMC re: Printing trasparencies
To: LES
[In reply to message rcvd 11-Jun-89 00:26-PT.]
OK, thanks. I presume the manual tells how to use the manual feed.
∂11-Jun-89 0033 JMC re: Printing trasparencies
To: LES
[In reply to message rcvd 11-Jun-89 00:32-PT.]
Who would know for sure?
∂11-Jun-89 0053 JMC manual feed on Imagen
To: ME
CC: LES
Les tells me that it is best to use manual feed if one wants
to make transparencies on the Imagen. Is there, or can there be,
some way to tell the Imagen to take its paper from the manual
feed? Les thought there might be a spooler switch, but MONCOM
mentions no such thing. It's LATHROP that I have in mind using.
∂11-Jun-89 1138 JMC
To: CLT
∂11-Jun-89 1021 ARK Contined Operation of SAIL
To: ball@POLYA.Stanford.EDU, ME@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
CC: ARK@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU, tom@POLYA.Stanford.EDU,
wheaton@ATHENA.Stanford.EDU
Jim and Marty,
I'd like to meet with you some time this week to discuss the future of
SAIL, and to develop a budget for its continued operation. This budget
will be divided in fixed fractions among the user communities based
approximately on usage ratios, but without direct usage charges. I will
contact both of you during the week to set up a time. If you think someone
else should be in the meeting (e.g., Tom or George), please let me know
and I'll invite them. This is being done at the request of John McCarthy.
Arthur
∂11-Jun-89 1509 JMC Please print
To: MPS
and mail chudno.ns[s89,jmc] to David Chudnovsky.
∂11-Jun-89 2335 Mailer re: So what's wrong with killing protesters?
To: gumby@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from gumby@sumex-aim.stanford.edu sent Sun, 11 Jun 1989 21:10:07 PDT.]
In the U.S. and other civilized countries, wanting to undermine the
state is not a crime. Demonstrating with the desire to
undermine the state is a crime. Acts which are not otherwise
crimes don't become crimes if their object is to undermine the
state. Violence is a crime. Helping a foreign country attack
the U.S. is a crime (treason). Conspiring to overthrow the
Government by force and violence is a crime (Smith Act).
The Chinese Government is denying that it initiated violence
and claiming that all the demonstration and other demands
for freedom of speech, press etc. were conspiracies aimed
at the sporadic counter-violence their own violence provoked.
Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.
I hope this justifies you in thinking it worse.
∂11-Jun-89 2346 Mailer re: So what's wrong with killing protesters?
To: gumby@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from gumby@sumex-aim.stanford.edu sent Sun, 11 Jun 1989 21:10:07 PDT.]
Vital misprint in my last message. I meant to say that demonstrating
with the aim of undermining the state is NOT a crime.
∂12-Jun-89 0041 Mailer re: killing protesters...
To: T.TEDEBEAR@MACBETH.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from T.TEDEBEAR@macbeth.stanford.edu sent Mon 12 Jun 89 00:12:18-PDT.]
It's not Sacco vs. Vanzetti, but Commonwealth of Massachusetts
vs. Sacco and Vanzetti. They were accused of murder in the
course of a payroll robbery in 1920 and were executed in 1927.
Sacco and Vanzetti were anarchists, and the left claimed they
were innocent. A recent opinion is that one was innocent and the
other was guilty, but I forget which was which.
The Smith Act, making it a crime to teach and advocate the
overthrow of the Government by force and violence was passed
about 1950 and was used to imprison about 10 leaders of the
American Communist Party for up to 5 years.
∂12-Jun-89 1139 JMC cash machines taking our card
To: CLT
Star system (includes great western, imperial, wells fargo)
instantteller, includes safeway
∂12-Jun-89 1245 Mailer American prisoners in Vietnam?
To: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
In the last few days, there have been stories about a Japanese
monk who was released from a Vietnamese re-education camp after
14 years imprisonment. He claims to have shared a cell with
Americans. He isn't in great mental shape. The Vietnamese claim
he's lying; they have no American prisoners of war.
As everyone knows, there have been claims of American prisoners of
war remaining in Vietnam. The issue has been pursued by relatives
of MIAs, the organizations of former prisoners, and by some right
wingers. The U.S. Government has been convinced that there aren't
any. Now they are following up the monk's story.
It occurs to me that there could be American civilian prisoners.
The U.S. Government didn't keep track of all American civilians
who might have been in Vietnam. As far as I have heard, the issue
raised has involved only military prisoners, and the Vietnamese
denials I have read about refer to military prisoners.
I remember how the left at Stanford arranged for a Vietnamese
journalist imprisoned by the South Vietnamese government to be
elected an ASSU Visiting Professor. After the communist conquest
of South Vietnam, he was imprisoned by the communists. The ASSU
took no further interest in him.
Perhaps it would help get some people out of Vietnamese re-education
camps if some of the leftist organizations would make representations
on their behalf. Apparently it was Amnesty International that
persuaded the Vietnamese to let the Japanese monk out. Castro let
Armando Valladares out after 20 years, the Chinese have many political
prisoners and are taking more now. The Soviets have apparently released
all prisoners held for political offenses, but there are still some
people held for treason, where the treason consists of attempting
to escape across the border to Finland, an act that isn't illegal
in normal countries and doesn't count as treason anywhere else.
∂12-Jun-89 1641 JMC re: Manual feed on Imagen
To: LES, ME
[In reply to message from LES rcvd 12-Jun-89 15:28-PT.]
Actually, (a) would be a lot simpler for me, since even if I figure out
how to do (b), I'll have to carry the Datamedia from my office to the
garage and back each time I do it.
∂12-Jun-89 1757 JMC re: Manual feed on Imagen
To: ME
[In reply to message rcvd 12-Jun-89 17:29-PT.]
Thanks, I'll try it.
∂12-Jun-89 1815 Mailer re: Nicaraguan news, statements regarding China
To: gscott@PORTIA.Stanford.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from gscott@Portia.Stanford.EDU sent 12 Jun 89 23:40:00 GMT.]
Has Barricada printed any editorial of its own on the Tienanmen massacre?
It's certainly progress that the Nicaraguan youth movement
criticized the massacre. However, their concluding appeal
We apppeal to the experience, to the deliberation, to
the skill of those men who have guided the Chinese
people for 40 years on the road of dignity, so that
this night of sterile violence become an historic
lesson that will never be forgotten, that will never
occur again.
may be answered by a statement, perhaps from the Cubans, that the
Nicaraguan students have insufficient experience with the wiles of the
class enemy.
The Sandinistas are still strongly subject to Cuban influence.
∂12-Jun-89 1818 JMC re: Learning Lisp
To: 90.EJOHNSON@GSB-HOW.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Mon 12 Jun 89 17:55:30-PDT.]
HOW is a dec-20, and there is a common lisp on the dec-20 in the computer
science department, and I believe it's free. Ask the management to
get it for you.
∂12-Jun-89 2056 JMC
To: ME, LES
Thanks. Lathrop now makes what seem to be good slides.
∂12-Jun-89 2209 Mailer re: killing protesters...
To: arean@POLYA.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from arean@polya.Stanford.EDU sent 12 Jun 89 21:30:56 GMT.]
According to an article by John P. Roche in Academic Questions Spring 1989,
Roche was present at a meeting in which Carlo Tresca, a famous
anarchist, ``denounced Sacco for `murdering a comrade.' Sacco, he
said, was guilty but thought he could beat the rap; Vanzetti,
bound by omerta, would never talk or desert his comrade.''
As for Massachusetts "recognizing they didn't get a fair trial", that
they didn't get a fair trial was an article of leftist faith, so
this was bound to happen as soon as Massachusetts elected a
sufficiently leftist government and someone remembered to raise
the issue.
As I recall from my reading (they were executed the year I was born),
the President of Harvard was made head of a commission to check the
fairness of the trial after the worldwide protest. The commission
found the trial fair, which caused the leftists of that day to
refer to Harvard as hangman's house.
∂13-Jun-89 0406 JMC re: travel plans
To: ariel%bimacs.BITNET@FORSYTHE.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Tue, 13 Jun 89 13:19:23 +0200.]
Many thanks for the reservations. My travel plans are
as follows.
jun 17 tw300 sfo 1012 jfk 1835, el al 8m 2340-jun 18 1700, tel aviv
jun 25 el al 9m 0230 tel aviv - jfk 0720.
∂13-Jun-89 1152 Mailer re: correction to (dollar) volume of trade with China; *my* error
To: U.UNDERDOG@HAMLET.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from U.UNDERDOG@hamlet.stanford.edu sent Tue 13 Jun 89 11:40:35-PDT.]
1) Hong Kong (really England)
I'll bet that the UK is separately listed from Hong Kong in the
China trade statistics. Maybe it's listed as part of EEC.
Hong Kong is certainly separate from UK in the sense that
the internal European free trade that includes UK does not
include Hong Kong.
See what you get for being a wise guy. The official way of
listing makes sense.
I remember when wise guys reading about Hong Kong trade with
the U.S. would say that it was really China, getting around
U.S. trade bans. The fact was that Hong Kong was and is
a major manufacturing country. A few years ago, its trade
was larger than that of Communist China.
∂13-Jun-89 1158 JMC EE junk electronic mail
To: turner@SIERRA.Stanford.EDU
I do not like to receive such junk mail as ordinary mail. Please make
sure that JMC@SAIL is replaced by JMC-LISTS@SAIL on all mailing
lists that receive EE Department junk mail. Otherwise, whoever sends
such mail to me will receive two copies back. This is the third
time I have made this request.
∂13-Jun-89 1126 turner@sierra.STANFORD.EDU Summer Time Schedules
Received: from sierra.STANFORD.EDU by SAIL.Stanford.EDU with TCP; 13 Jun 89 11:26:15 PDT
Received: by sierra.STANFORD.EDU (3.2/4.7); Tue, 13 Jun 89 11:20:50 PDT
From: turner@sierra.STANFORD.EDU (Sherry A. Turner)
Date: Tue 13 Jun 89 11:20:48-PDT
Subject: Summer Time Schedules
To: EE-ADMINLIST@sierra.STANFORD.EDU
Cc: EE-FACULTY@sierra.STANFORD.EDU
Message-Id: <613765248.0.TURNER@SIERRA>
Mail-System-Version: <SUN-MM(219)+TOPSLIB(128)@SIERRA>
Time Schedules for Summer Quarter 1988-89 are available for you to pick up in
McCullough 150. You may also pick up the academic Calendars for 1989-90.
Thank you,
-Sherry-
-------
∂13-Jun-89 1434 JMC wrong address gets two copies back
To: shankle@SIERRA.Stanford.EDU, shankle@SIERRA.Stanford.EDU
∂13-Jun-89 1413 shankle@sierra.STANFORD.EDU Spring Quarter Grades
Received: from sierra.STANFORD.EDU by SAIL.Stanford.EDU with TCP; 13 Jun 89 14:13:28 PDT
Received: by sierra.STANFORD.EDU (3.2/4.7); Tue, 13 Jun 89 14:08:18 PDT
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 89 14:08:18 PDT
From: shankle@sierra.STANFORD.EDU (Diane J. Shankle)
To: EE-faculty@sierra.STANFORD.EDU
Cc: EE-adminlist@sierra.STANFORD.EDU
Subject: Spring Quarter Grades
Message-Id: <CMM.0.88.613775297.shankle@>
PLEASE TURN IN YOUR ORANGE PRIORITY GRADING SHEETS BY
10:00 A.M. THURSDAY, JUNE 15TH TO MC C 164.
GENE FRANKLIN
∂13-Jun-89 1715 Mailer re: American prisoners in Vietnam?
To: poser@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from poser@csli.stanford.edu sent 13 Jun 89 23:22:24 GMT.]
``Fell afoul of the authorities'' is a euphemism. He was a prisoner from
1975 when the North Vietnames conquered South Vietnam and was in a
`re-education camp'. They rounded up anybody they thought might have
oppose them or might oppose them in the future. Perhaps the fact that
he became a vietnames citizen was enough.
∂13-Jun-89 2026 JMC re: Lisp book
To: Dave.Touretzky@CS.CMU.EDU
[In reply to message sent Tue, 13 Jun 89 23:09:08 EDT.]
I have only got through the first chapter but got stuck on the history
section. It has several mistakes and one omission. The omission is
that it doesn't mention the Newell-Simon-Shaw work on IPL which
precedes LISP and from whom I learned about list processing
when they came to Dartmouth in 1956. The errors concern the
period right after that. LISP wasn't actually started until
Fall 1958. In the meantime, I got Gelernter at IBM started
on FLPL, Fortran List Processing Language, and he and Carl
Gerberich improved the ideas, especially by making cons
into a function. The period of hand coding LISP began
in September 1958 and ended in Spring 1959 when Steve
Russell hand coded eval and thereby gave us an interpreter.
All this is described in my History of LISP article in
Wexelblatt's History of Programming Languages.
I'll read some more tonight, but I don't know whether I'll
have a quote for you. I'll send you a message Thursday evening
in either case.
∂13-Jun-89 2331 JMC re: Lisp book
To: Dave.Touretzky@CS.CMU.EDU
[In reply to message sent Tue, 13 Jun 89 23:36:06 EDT.]
Another error: On page 77 you have a footnote about usage of the
word "variable". It's wrong. Your usage of variable here does
correspond to the mathematical usage. The "unknowns" of high
school algebra are represented by letters but are not called
variables in high school algebra. They're called unknowns.
Ask a mathematician.
∂14-Jun-89 0928 JMC re: mess
To: CLT
[In reply to message rcvd 14-Jun-89 07:21-PT.]
I'll be more careful.
∂14-Jun-89 1045 JMC re: Alliant presentation
To: weening@GANG-OF-FOUR.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Wed, 14 Jun 89 10:40:07 PDT.]
Please send me a message with your summer schedule and an
email address if possible. Also phone numbers.
parallel-lisp-request@go4
mailing address
Please make mine jmc-lists@sail.stanford.edu.
∂14-Jun-89 1457 JMC re: office space at Cordura
To: ZALTA@CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Wed 14 Jun 89 14:54:57-PDT.]
That's fine with me.
∂14-Jun-89 1509 Mailer Avoiding Blacks
To: davidson@PSYCH.STANFORD.EDU, gray@PESCADERO.STANFORD.EDU,
su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
Martin Davidson writes:
The paradox, of course, is that many ethnic
students do not see themselves as "just like" their
white counterparts. Indeed, the whole point of the
student activism around multicultural education is to
create an institutional environment in which it is
explicitly stated that we, as persons of color, are
different in significant ways from the white Anglo
population and that those differences are as important
as the similarities we share.
What are the significant differences you see?
∂14-Jun-89 1615 JMC reply to message
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 14-Jun-89 16:13-PT.]
ok.
∂14-Jun-89 1631 Mailer re: Avoiding Blacks
To: davidson@PSYCH.STANFORD.EDU
CC: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from davidson@psych.Stanford.EDU sent Wed, 14 Jun 89 16:10:43 PDT.]
Thanks for answering my question so promptly. Not being a
student I have nothing to say about dining room behavior, since I
never observe any. However, I have two other questions for based
on your remark.
Let me respond by introducing an important difference
from my experience--the role of interdependence and
communality in the black community. In contrast to the
ideas of individual achievement and independence so
prevalent in US "mainstream" culture, the early
experiences of many black students (as well as students
from other ethnic groups) were shaped by extended
families and communities.
1. In your opinion do almost all blacks share the communal
cultural tradition? I had imagined that many blacks, confirmed
by the few I know personally, shared the culture of ``individual
achievement and independence''. What is the responsibility of
institutions, e.g. Stanford, to both kinds of blacks? I assume
it is a question of adjusting the rules, since many, perhaps
most, would resist classification? Do you or other blacks
regard such blacks as abnormal?
2. Do you think the orientation to ``communality'' as opposed to
``individual achievement'' reduces individual achievement? If
so, what if any adjustment do you propose in the institutions of
society that allocate rewards and social roles on the basis of
individual achievement?
∂14-Jun-89 1725 JMC re: lunch
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 14-Jun-89 17:23-PT.]
Let me call you at home tonight. It depends on what I do with Timothy
tomorrow.
∂14-Jun-89 1731 JMC re: Joke File
To: AR.RXM@FORSYTHE.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Wed, 14 Jun 89 17:28:19 PDT.]
I don't know how you access it from Forsythe. Ask someone there.
∂14-Jun-89 2031 Mailer re:Stanford graduate expelled from China
To: MRC@CAC.WASHINGTON.EDU, dliu@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU
CC: rick@HANAUMA.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from MRC@cac.washington.edu sent Wed, 14 Jun 1989 18:50:36 PDT.]
Chinese journalists who had been writing lies of various kinds
for years welcomed opportunities to tell more of the truth
for a change. We'll see if they go back to writing lies.
If the past is an indication, only a few of them will refuse
to take part in the self-criticism sessions that will permit
them to resume writing the lies.
What is MRC's reason for supposing that most of them are dead?
MRC will do us all a service if he will keep his copies of
Peking Review and tell us after a year if any of the bylines
over writing he admired during the demonstrations reappear
and what they are saying after a year.
∂14-Jun-89 2059 JMC
To: CLT
gunthe.ns[s89,jmc] News story about Gerry Gunther's visit to his
home town in Germany
∂15-Jun-89 0353 Mailer re: government manipulation of the media (by David Liu)
To: U.UNDERDOG@HAMLET.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from U.UNDERDOG@hamlet.stanford.edu sent Thu 15 Jun 89 02:33:03-PDT.]
The peasants may have few sources of information, but this doesn't prove
that they believe the Government. Chinese agricultural policy and the
feudal and corrupt way the cadres have carried it out involved lots
of lying to the peasants about things they could see with their
own eyes. Maybe they believe the Government about Tienanmen
and the student movement and maybe they don't. As for the guy
who was turned in, his brother-in-law was at some Air Force
Academy, i.e. was an officer bureaucrat in training.
Another remark about the Government propaganda. Their immediate goal
probably isn't that the propaganda should be believed. The
goal is rather to intimidate everyone into repeating it.
Their first objective, probably still far from achieved, is that
no-one will dare say anything different in the presence of a
stranger, for fear of being turned in. The next goal is that
no-one will dare say anything else to co-workers or fellow
students.
As a by-product, if the past is an indication, American travellers
will come back telling us what the Chinese believe, based on
what their tour guides tell them.
∂15-Jun-89 0424 Mailer China again
To: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
It is naive to suppose that a student leader being on the
wanted list proves that he is alive or even that the Government
doesn't know he is dead. Some of the news reports have
made that inference.
The Government seems to be deliberately reviving
institutions of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. They
have been parading their captives on TV with signs on and
evidence of beatings and showing their forced confessions. This
tells people in shorthand how they must behave and what will
happen if they don't. The Western reporters are being
intimidated, on threat of immediate expulsion, from commenting on
this fact. The A.P. rewrite people could add this information to
the stories, but they are typically very ignorant of recent
history.
For example, recent stories about Hungary say that Imre Nagy
led a revolt against the Soviets. This isn't true. He
was Prime Minister during a period of demonstrations and
went along with many of the demands. When the Soviets
moved in with tanks, he fled to the Yugoslav Embassy.
Later he was lured out with promises of amnesty and
was then tried and shot.
Likewise, the A.P. rewrite men often say that the Soviets entered
Afghanistan to aid the Government. Actually, the landed planes
at Kabul Airport, captured and killed the Prime Minister (a
communist whose predecessor got power in an earlier coup), and
installed as Prime Minister an Afghan they brought with them
(Babrak Karmal). I wrote a letter to the head of A.P. complaining
about this pointing out that what their rewrite men were saying
contrasted with the A.P. dispatches of 1979.
I got a nice reply from a vice-president saying they
would fix it, and the stories were correct for a while. Today
it's a random variable what A.P. says about whether the Soviets
came in to aid the Government or came in to overthrow it. That
they overthrew it and killed the Prime Minister has recently been
published in the Soviet Union. However, the rewrite men are too
busy rewriting the news to read recent history, their own
previous stories, or their own current news reports about what
the Soviets are saying about their entry into Afghanistan.
As a right winger, I used to think this showed leftist
influence. Maybe there's some of that, but ordinary ignorance is
at least a major part of the phenomenon. The New York Times is
quite a bit better about knowing recent history.
∂15-Jun-89 1843 Mailer Hong Kong and the Falklands
To: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
The British have two remaining colonial problems - Hong Kong
and the Falklands. Perhaps they could be made to solve each
other.
∂16-Jun-89 0005 Mailer wise guy
To: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
A Stanford graduate student in political science named M. Steven
Fish has a surprising Op-Ed in the June 16 New York Times
entitled "Don't raze the Berlin wall" pointing out but
exaggerating various problems with refugees from East Germany
that might occur if the Wall came down. He is evidently the kind
of "political scientist" who ignores human rights in favor of
realpolitik. He says, without offering evidence, that "Gloating
over the upheavals and changes that are transforming the Communist
world weakens Eastern-bloc proponents of reform ...". That isn't
what the people I talked to in the Soviet Union say.
∂16-Jun-89 0205 Mailer AIDS
To: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
The homosexual community kept the extent
of the AIDS epidemic from being discovered by its opposition
to standard public health measures. The July American
Spectator has informative letters on the subject responding
to an earlier article. The medical profession is finally
coming around to the view that politics prevented it from
taking in the early 80s. One of the letters cites the following
resolution of the Medical Society of the State of New York.
Resolved. That the American Medical Association take the position that:
1. States should apply the same public health measures to contain
the HIV epidemic as are used to control the spread of other
communicable or sexually transmitted diseases; and
2. physicians be permitted to test patients for the presence
of HIV infection in the same manner as they currently test
for other infections and conditions; i.e. when such test
is warranted in the physician's exercise of his medical
judgment, and that states impose no restriction or
obstacles on this ability.
∂16-Jun-89 1009 JMC Proposal 8915663
To: CLT
∂16-Jun-89 1008 tkeenan@note.nsf.gov Proposal 8915663
Received: from note.nsf.gov by SAIL.Stanford.EDU with TCP; 16 Jun 89 10:07:56 PDT
To: jmc@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU
cc: tkeenan@note.nsf.gov
bcc:
Subject: Proposal 8915663
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 89 12:46:51 -0400
From: "Thomas A. Keenan" <tkeenan@note.nsf.gov>
Message-ID: <8906161247.aa01838@note.nsf.gov>
John:
You submitted a proposal with Mason and Talcott entitled
"Axiomitizing Program Equivalence in Typed Functional Languages
with Imperative Features" to the Computer & Computation Theory
program. It has been redirected to my program, Software Systems,
where such material is normally handled. I notice that the
proposal at $157,380 is for a period of one year. This is a
little unusual, most people seek a longer period of support. Is
this what you intended?
Tom
∂16-Jun-89 1011 JMC I hope
To: CLT
the misspelling of "axiomatizing" was his and not "my" mistake.
∂16-Jun-89 1056 JMC re: invitation to banquet
To: ingrid@RUSSELL.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Fri, 16 Jun 89 10:46:22 PDT.]
Thanks, but I will be out of the country.
∂16-Jun-89 1125 Mailer re: AIDS
To: William.Brown@LABREA.STANFORD.EDU
CC: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from William.Brown@labrea.stanford.edu sent Fri 16 Jun 89 10:31:23-PDT.]
I'm not sure what the New York doctors' resolution was referring to,
since it referred to customary practice involving other infectious
diseases. However, it may involve two things. (1) Extending
compulsory reporting requirements to include AIDS. (2) Adding
an HIV test to the list of things a blood sample is to be
tested for without special formalities.
∂16-Jun-89 1347 Mailer re: Hong Kong and the Falklands
To: jim@KAOS.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from jim@kaos.Stanford.EDU sent 16 Jun 89 17:39:00 GMT.]
Mr. Kaos certainly exhibits some prejudices about the inhabitants of the
Falklands. Where do these prejudices come from?
∂16-Jun-89 1358 Mailer re: AIDS
To: William.Brown@LABREA.STANFORD.EDU,
A.ABIE@HAMLET.STANFORD.EDU
CC: S.SUMMER-RAIN@HAMLET.STANFORD.EDU,
su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from William.Brown@labrea.stanford.edu sent Fri 16 Jun 89 13:19:24-PDT.]
I suspect that the New York doctors are asking for something
beyond what the current generation of civil libertarians
considers acceptable, namely making information obtained from
routine blood tests available for vigorous contact tracing. This
is how I thought venereal diseases, cholera, smallpox, staph
infections, etc. were traditionally handled. Could one of the
medical people inform us more precisely, e.g. by looking at a
text published before 1981, what might be in question. Aside
from the "gay discrimination" question, isn't this what has been
effective in the past in limiting the spread of many contagious
diseases and what is likely to be effective with AIDS. I realize
that some medical arguments against this have been given in
connection with AIDS, but I think they are more and more regarded
as specious, i.e. just excuses for deferring to the "gay community",
which was expanding its political assertiveness just when the AIDS
epidemic started.
∂16-Jun-89 1700 JMC Thanks
To: gerlach@SIERRA.STANFORD.EDU
for getting my announcement address changed.
∂16-Jun-89 2030 Mailer rec.humor.funny
To: su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
A week ago, I asked what Street, Gorin and Sack
found offensive about rhf. They were sent copies
of the message, but have chosen to make no reply.
It is common administrative procedure not to
reply to criticism, and I would have been somewhat
surprised if they had replied. However, it is also
sound administrative procedure not to accompany
administrative actions with gratuitous remarks.
I am entirely satisfied with the action they have
taken but took exception to the statement.
We abhor the misuse of University facilities to convey messages that
perpetuate racism, sexism, and all forms of intolerance. Such
materials are present without our endorsement. We are grateful to our
colleagues for their thoughtful deliberations and for their
reaffirmation of the vital importance of the free exchange of ideas.
We have accepted the advice of the Committee on Libraries and the
request of the Senate Steering Committee. We have reconnected this
news group to our computer systems.
Campus report interpreted this statement, or else something they said
directly, as ``reaffirming the University's distaste for the contents
of the file''. It's a fair interpretation that Street, et. al. are
saying that rhf ``perpetuates racism, ...'' and that they abhor
rhf specifically, and that the use of ``we abhor'' is in the name of the
University.
My first reaction was to ask who are they to abhor in the name of
the University without consulting more of the University. For
example, the Academic Senate hasn't expressed its abhorrence of
anything. I didn't think rhf was racist or sexist or offensive
in other ways. su-etc readers didn't either, except a few and
then obliquely.
However, I thought some more, and now I'm reconciled to it.
Professor Street is an authority, and I'm not.
Street is Vice-President for Information Resources, and evidently
the job carries with it the privilege, duty and expertise to
abhor in the name of the University whatever information should
be abhorred, even though academic freedom requires that the
University's libraries, both paper and electronic, retain the
information.
I admire his courage in undertaking this enormous responsibility.
Consider that if he only expresses his abhorrence of rhf, people
may assume that Stanford only abhors rhf of all the 5 million
volumes in its library and the thousands of computer files.
Civil libertarians, feminists, anti-racists and others will point
out thousands of other items that the University ought to abhor.
Street cannot escape the task of building an organization that
will undertake for him the examination of the University's
information resources and abhorring what should be abhorred.
I figure that 200 journeyman readers should be able to
accomplish the task in 50 years. Street has wisely made the
task easier by setting the precedent that no explanation
need be given as to why an item is aborred.
I'm sure the Stanford community will be patient while the job is
being organized, but I think some progress should be shown. Is
it too much to ask that 200 items be abhorred over the summer?
∂17-Jun-89 0037 JMC (→22136 28-Jun-89)
To: "#___JMC.PLN[2,2]"
I will be in Israel until June 25 and in New York and Washington
until June 28. Pat Simmons, mps@sail, 723-6321, will have my
schedule.
∂17-Jun-89 0055 JMC
To: CLT
Full schedule including hotels in cal[1,jmc]/3p.
∂17-Jun-89 0101 JMC Please send
To: MPS
texed copies of soviet[f88,jmc] and
% glasno[w88,jmc]
to Professor Henry Rowen (see directory) and to
H.P. Widmaier at CERAS on Campus.
∂17-Jun-89 0156 JMC for Timothy
To: CLT
I promised a Fischer-Teknik mini-motor. There will
be a message Monday on my answering machine with
a price from a store in SF - address in notes[1,jmc].
If you feel like it send them a check. Otherwise,
I'll do it when I get back.
∂17-Jun-89 0917 JMC
To: CLT
My keys are in my top left dresser drawer.
∂28-Jun-89 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 will be in Israel until June 25 and in New York and Washington
until June 28. Pat Simmons, mps@sail, 723-6321, will have my
schedule.
∂28-Jun-89 2138 JMC re: 7/11 Faculty Meeting
To: chandler@Polya.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message sent Tue, 27 Jun 1989 9:34:29 PDT.]
Yes, I can make it.
∂28-Jun-89 2140 JMC re: No texts?
To: STAGER@SCORE.Stanford.EDU
[In reply to message sent Wed 28 Jun 89 11:52:21-PDT.]
So far as I know, I'm not teaching in the Fall.
Do you have it otherwise?
∂29-Jun-89 0950 JMC
To: MPS
mark.2
∂29-Jun-89 0950 JMC Please send
To: MPS
my review of Bloomfield to Lindley Darden.
∂29-Jun-89 0956 JMC
To: MPS
I got check from Japanese, so wire transfer unnecessary
∂29-Jun-89 1009 JMC
To: MPS
Did I send the letter to Academician Velikhov?
∂29-Jun-89 1010 JMC
To: MPS
I need to make reservations to attend ijcai.
∂29-Jun-89 1010 JMC cbcl
To: cohen@ISI.EDU
Any progress with DARPA?
∂29-Jun-89 1051 Mailer re: question for the profs.
To: U.UNDERDOG@HAMLET.STANFORD.EDU, su-etc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
[In reply to message from U.UNDERDOG@hamlet.stanford.edu sent Wed 28 Jun 89 18:53:08-PDT.]
Yes, mathematics or computer science. In short, I stand pat.
∂29-Jun-89 1315 JMC re: question for the profs.
To: underdog@PORTIA.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Thu, 29 Jun 89 12:46:59 PDT.]
Yes.
∂29-Jun-89 1319 JMC re: Reducing the number of literals in equations
To: THEORY-C@VM1.NODAK.EDU
[In reply to message sent Thu, 29 Jun 89 13:58:53 CDT.]
The question is NP-complete, because the minimal form tells you whether
the expression is a tautology or not.
∂29-Jun-89 1845 JMC Kennedy statement
To: siegman@SIERRA.Stanford.EDU
I was on a trip when the rhf matter was finally
discussed at the Senate. I wasn't able to understand
what Kennedy was saying. Did he disagree with what
the Committee on Libraries proposed as a principle?
Did he assert that electronic media present different
censorship issues from other media? Why did he think
technology made the issue moot? Did he imagine it
was technically impossible to keep rhf out?
Of course, Campus Report ascribed to me a role I didn't
play. I did nothing with the computers under my control
to facilitate rhf except refuse to ban it. Nor did those
computers play any role in keeping it available. I would
probably have done these things had it been necessary, but
it wasn't.
I have only one suggestion with regard to your statement.
Remember that its readers will be at least as confused as
I am about who said what. They will also be confused about
the history of the matter.
∂30-Jun-89 1232 JMC re: An Interview
To: hoffman.pa@XEROX.COM
[In reply to message sent 30 Jun 89 11:35 PDT.]
I'm back and will be going off again on the 4th. Today would be ok
for an interview, say 4pm in Cordura.
∂30-Jun-89 1604 JMC re: proposals
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 30-Jun-89 13:50-PT.]
Please put copies in [pro,jmc].
∂30-Jun-89 2038 JMC re: CS stuff
To: underdog@PORTIA.STANFORD.EDU
[In reply to message sent Fri, 30 Jun 89 19:28:41 PDT.]
No idea. You might try one of the systems faculty, e.g. David Cheriton.