Allen Newell: Quotes about problems

Allen Newell was American cognitive scientist. Explore interesting quotes on problem.

Allen Newell: 14 quotes0 likes

“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?”

Source: Computer Science as Empirical Inquiry: Symbols and Search (1975), pp. 120-121.

“[The] amount of search is not a measure of the amount of intelligence being exhibited. What makes a problem a problem is not that a large amount of search is required for its solution, but that a large amount would be required if a requisite level of intelligence were not applied.”

Source: Computer Science as Empirical Inquiry: Symbols and Search (1975), p. 122.

“Heuristic Search Hypothesis. The solutions to problems are represented as symbol structures. A physical symbol system exercises its intelligence in problem solving by search—that is, by generating and progressively modifying symbol structures until it produces a solution structure.”

Source: Computer Science as Empirical Inquiry: Symbols and Search (1975), p. 120.