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sn#126873 filedate 1974-10-24 generic text, type T, neo UTF8
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01000 .MACRO B ⊂ BEGIN VERBATIM GROUP ⊃
01100 .MACRO E ⊂ APART END ⊃
01200 .TABBREAK
01300 .EVERY HEADING(⊗3BEINGS⊗*,{DATE},⊗4Doug Lenat⊗*)
01400 .NOFILL
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02000 Professor John McCarthy
02100 Stanford A.I. Lab
02200
02300 .GROUP SKIP 10
02400 Dear John,
02500
02600 .fill
02700 Here is the latest copy of the BEINGs research report. The
02800 major theme is that of representing knowledge and control as
02900 standardized, structured, interacting modules. The difference between
03000 a BEING and pred. calc. is the division of the former into about thirty
03100 fixed subparts. So each BEING is an organized packet of facts.
03200 Unlike ACTORS, which have no fixed formats for messages, and CLASSES,
03300 which have no single universal set of message types, BEINGS have a
03400 fixed set of messages they may pass.
03500 Hopefully, the paper will be of interest to you.
03600 I would greatly appreciate any and all of the following:
03700 criticism of the ideas and of the style of the paper; suggestions for
03800 filling in references which are left as ... currently; getting together
03900 and talking about the paper -- and BEINGS -- with you.
04000 I don't know if there will be any more work on
04100 the specific system described, but the ideas involved -- and the
04200 difficulties -- will probably remain. I am beginning my thesis,
04300 which tentatively involves using the BEINGs concepts to get a program to
04400 understand mathematics.
04500 Send me a note [DBL] when you are ready to meet. My
04600 schedule is nebulous. Please don't circulate the draft, however; I am
04700 not finished polishing it. Thanks again.