Allen Newell Quotes
6 Sourced Quotes
If you think there is nothing problematic or mysterious about a symbol system solving problems, then you are a child of today, whose views have been formed since mid-century. Plato (and by his account, Socrates) found difficulty understanding even how problems could be entertained, much less how they could be solved. Let me remind you of how he posed the conundrum in the Meno: "And how will you inquire, Socrates, into that which you know not? What will you put forth as the subject of inquiry? And if you find what you want, how will you ever know that this is what you did not know?"
It has been a long road from Plato's Meno to the present, but it is perhaps encouraging that most of the progress along that road has been made since the turn of the twentieth century, and a large fraction of it since the midpoint of the century. Thought was still wholly intangible and ineffable until modern formal logic interpreted it as the manipulation of formal tokens. And it seemed still to inhabit mainly the heaven of Platonic ideals, or the equally obscure spaces of the human mind, until computers taught us how symbols could be processed by machines.
Computer science is an empirical discipline. [...] Each new machine that is built is an experiment. Actually constructing the machine poses a question to nature; and we listen for the answer by observing the machine in operation and analyzing it by all analytical and measurement means available. Each new program that is built is an experiment. It poses a question to nature, and its behavior offers clues to an answer.
"Alena Newell, mwanzilishi wa ""Mifano ya Mfano"" anasema: ""Ikiwa unafikiri hakuna kitu cha kutatanisha au cha ajabu kuhusu mfumo wa ishara za kutatua matatizo, basi wewe ni mtoto wa leo, ambaye maoni yake yameundwa tangu katikati ya karne." Plato (na kwa mujibu wake, Socrates) alipata ugumu wa kuelewa hata jinsi matatizo yangeweza kufurahishwa, na hata jinsi yangeweza kutatuliwa. "Socrates aliandika hivi katika kitabu chake cha Meno: ""Na utaulizaje, Socrates, katika kile usichokijua?" Utatumia nini kama kichwa cha uchunguzi? Na ukipata ulichotaka, utajuaje kwamba hii ndiyo uliyoijua? """Ni njia ndefu kutoka Meno ya Plato hadi leo, lakini labda ni ya kutia moyo kwamba maendeleo mengi kwenye njia hiyo yamefanywa tangu mwanzo wa karne ya ishirini, na sehemu kubwa ya hiyo tangu katikati ya karne." Mawazo bado yalikuwa yasiyoonekana kabisa na yasiyoweza kuelezwa mpaka mantiki ya kisasa ya rasmi iliifafanua kama udanganyifu wa ishara za rasmi. Na bado ilionekana kuishi hasa mbinguni ya mawazo ya Plato, au nafasi sawa ya giza ya akili ya binadamu, mpaka kompyuta walitufundisha jinsi ishara inaweza kuwa kusindika na mashine. Sayansi ya kompyuta ni taaluma ya majaribio. [...] Kila mashine mpya inayojengwa ni jaribio. Kwa kweli kujenga mashine ni swali kwa asili, na sisi kusikiliza kwa ajili ya jibu kwa kuchunguza mashine katika operesheni na kuchambua kwa njia zote za uchambuzi na kipimo inapatikana. Kila programu mpya inayojengwa ni jaribio. Inauliza swali kwa asili, na tabia yake hutoa madokezo ya jibu.