GPS: A Program That Simulates Human Thought

Abstract

Effort was directed toward showing that the techniques that have emerged for constructing sophisticated problem-solving programs also provide us with new, strong tools for constructing theories of human thinking. They allow us to merge the rigor and objectivity associated with behaviorism with the wealth of data and complex behavior associated with the gestalt movement. To this end their key feature is not that they provide a general framework for understanding problem-solving behavior (although they do that too), but that they finally reveal with great clarity that the free behavior of a reasonably intelligent human can be understood as the product of a complex but finite and determinate set of laws. Although we know this only for small fragments of behavior, the depth of the explanation is striking. (Author)

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