The ubiquity of discovery

Abstract

As scientists interested in studying the phenomenon of "intelligence", we first choose a view of Man, develop a theory of how intelligent behavior is managed, and construct some models which can test out and refine that, theory The view we choose is that Man is a symbolic information processor The theory is that sophisticated cognitive tasks can be cast as searches or explorations, and that each human possesses (and efficiently accesses) a large body of info imal uiles of thumb {heinistics) which constrain his search The source of what we colloquially call "intelligence" is seen to be very efficient searching of an a priori immense space Some computational models which incorporate this theory arc described. Among them is AM, a computer program which develops new mathematical concepts and conjectures' involv ing them, A M is guided in this exploration by a collection of 250 more or less general heuristic rules. The operational nature of such models allows experiments to be performed upon them, experiments which help us test and develop hypotheses about intelligence. One interesting result has been the ubiquity of this kind of heuristic guidance: intelligence permeates everyday problem solving and invention, as well as the kind of problem solving and invention that scientists and artists perform.