Models of My Life

If the quality of a research problem rests on the importance of the questions it addresses and the availability of ideas and techniques that hold out a promise of progress, then the study of mind is a most promising research domain.

Now let’s return from gold seeking to problem seeking. Our metaphor suggests that one way to find a problem, and perhaps even its solution, is to try to solve some other problem.

A still heavier obligation, not always acknowledged, is to leave to future generations as wide and interesting a range of options as our generation inherited from our forebears.

If there are goals, they do not so much guide the search as emerge from it. It needs no summing up beyond the living of it.

The research strategy was the one we have followed through the whole history of A.I. and cognitive science: As we gain an understanding of simpler processes and task domains, we tackle more complex ones. So, in the past ten years, I have moved on to learning processes; to problem representation, including imagery; and to the processes of scientific

Having spent much of my scientific life in such travel, I can offer one piece of advice to others who wish to try an itinerant existence: It is fatal to be regarded as a good economist by psychologists, and a good psychologist by political scientists. Immediately upon landing on alien shores, you must begin to acquire the local culture, not to deny

One heuristic that has been of first importance to my work is missing, however, from the programs I have described in this chapter: To make interesting scientific discoveries, you should acquire as many good friends as possible, who are as energetic, intelligent, and knowledgeable as they can be. Form partnerships with them whenever you can. Then s

Time is the tyrant. One cannot be loyal to two occupations any more than one can to two lovers. Whenever I found that one of my hobbies was seriously taking attention from my research, I dropped it. That happened to chess, and then painting, in the late 1950s. In both cases, I found that I was aspiring to professional competence, which obviously wo

The distinction between the scientific and the professional is largely a distinction between analysis and synthesis. Professionals not only analyze (understand) situations, they act on them after finding appropriate strategies (synthesis). In business, they design products and marketing channels, organize manufacturing processes, and find new finan

I warned you that I would say little about Lee that would tell you how to be a good manager, and I have made good my warning. The principles of good management are simple, even trivial. They are not widely practiced for the same reason that Christianity is not widely practiced. It is not enough to know what the principles are; you must acquire deep