This paper describes a computer system which uses a combination of coordinate indexing and structure matching techniques to extract from English questions many criteria which can be used for selecting and recognizing answers. A complete index of all content words in text is first searched to find information-rich statements which may be answers to the question. Each of these statements is then dependency analyzed to determine if the words (or synonyms) which correspond to question words maintain the dependency relations holding in the question. A simple semantic evaluation of structurally acceptable answers follows. A human editor working with the computer system helps to resolve syntactic ambiguities which are otherwise a major stumbling block in question-answering systems.

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Reprinted in Marvin Minsky (ed), Semantic Information Processing, pp. 354-402, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1968.

In J. A. Fodor and J. J. Katz, The structure of language. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice- Hall, 137-151.

Reprinted in Marvin Minsky (ed), Semantic Information Processing, pp. 354-402, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1968.

"Among the new languages for instructing computers is a remarkable one called LISP. The name comes from the first three letters of LIST and the first letter of PROCESSING. Not only is LISP a language for instructing computers but it is also a formal mathematical language, in the same way as elëmentary algebra when rigorously defined and used is a formal mathematical language.The LISP language and its implementation on the IBM 7090 computer were worked out by a group including John McCarthy, Stephen B. Russell , Daniel J. Edwards, Paul W. Abrahams, Timothy P. Hart, Michael I. Levin, Marvin L. Minsky, and others.LISP is designed primarily for processing data consisting of lists of symbols. It has been used for symbolic calculations in differential and integral calculus, electrical circuit theory, mathematical logic , game playing, and other fields of intelligent handling of symbols."Information International, Inc, Cambridge, Mass.

"It is well known to be impossible to tile with dominoes a checkerboard with two opposite corners deleted. This fact is readily stated in the first order predicate calculus, but the usual proof which involves a parity and counting argument does not readily translate into predicate calculus. We conjecture that this problem will be very difficult for programmed proof procedures."Stanford Artificial Intelligence Project Memo No. 16

This paper describes a trial-and-error device which learns to play the game of Noughts and Crosses. It was initially constructed from matchboxes and coloured beads and subsequently simulated in essentials by a program for a Pegasus 2 computer. The parameters governing the adaptive behaviour of this automaton are described and preliminary observations on its performance are briefly reported.

A statement in a spoken language may be regarded as a one-dimensional string of symbols used to communicate an idea from the speaker to a listener. The dimensionality of the statement is limited by the need for presenting words in a single time sequence. However, evidence indicates that most information and ideas are not stored by people in one-dimensional arrays isomorphic to these linear strings. This implies that a speaker must use certain complex information manipulating processes to transform the stored information to a linear output string, and that a listener, in order to "understand" the speaker, must use another set of processes to decode this linear string. In order for communication to take place, the information map of both the listener and the speaker must be approximately the same, at least for the universe of discourse.

"This report describes some experiments in constructing a compiler that makes use of heuristic problem~solving techniques such as those incorporated in the General Problem Solver (GPS). The experiments were aimed at the dual objectives of throwing light on some of the problems of constructing more powerful programming languages and compilers, and of testing whether the task of writing a computer program can be regarded as a "problem" in the sense in which that term is used in GPS. The present paper is concerned primarily with the second objective--with analyzing some of the problem-solving processes that are involved in writing computer programs. At the present stage of their development, no claims will be made for the heuristic programming procedures described here as practical approaches to the construction of compilers. Their interest lies in what they teach us about the nature of the programming task." JACM, 10, 493-506. See also: Artificial intelligence and self-organizing systems: Experiments with a Heuristic Compiler. (http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=806076)