Machine Discovery

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-iv

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2. Machine Discovery

   1. Machine Discovery

      • Herbert Simon

      Pages 171-200

   2. Comments on Herbert Simon’s Paper

      • Margaret Boden, Gerd Graßhoff, Andrzej Lewenstam, Aleksandar Milosavljević, Raúl E. Valdés-Pérez

      Pages 201-224

   3. Machine Discovery: Reply to Comments

      • Herbert A. Simon

      Pages 225-232

   4. The Process of Discovery

      • Wei-Min Shen

      Pages 233-251

   5. Creating a Discoverer: Autonomous Knowledge Seeking Agent

      • Jan M. Żytkow

      Pages 253-283

3. Varia

   1. Are Dinosaurs Extinct?

      • Richard Creath

      Pages 285-297

   2. Poincaré’s Conventionalism and the Logical Positivists

      • Michael Friedman

      Pages 299-314

4. Back Matter

   Pages 315-318

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Human and machine discovery are gradual problem-solving processes of searching large problem spaces for incompletely defined goal objects. Research on problem solving has usually focused on searching an `instance space' (empirical exploration) and a `hypothesis space' (generation of theories). In scientific discovery, searching must often extend to other spaces as well: spaces of possible problems, of new or improved scientific instruments, of new problem representations, of new concepts, and others. This book focuses especially on the processes for finding new problem representations and new concepts, which are relatively new domains for research on discovery.
Scientific discovery has usually been studied as an activity of individual investigators, but these individuals are positioned in a larger social structure of science, being linked by the `blackboard' of open publication (as well as by direct collaboration). Even while an investigator is working alone, the process is strongly influenced by knowledge and skills stored in memory as a result of previous social interactions. In this sense, all research on discovery, including the investigations on individual processes discussed in this book, is social psychology, or even sociology.

• Action
• knowledge
• memory
• problem solving
• science
• scientific discovery

• Computer Science Department, Wichita State University, USA

  Jan Żytkow

Policies and ethics