How John McCarthy might approach Computer Science

The term "Computer Science" itself requires immediate clarification, lest we fall into loose parlance. What is it, precisely, that we are investigating? Is it merely the tinkering with physical machines, the arrangement of vacuum tubes or, dare I say it, transistors? Or is it something more profound, something that transcends the ephemeral materials of its construction?

I submit that Computer Science, at its core, is the study of computation. It is the formalization of discrete processes, the understanding of how information can be manipulated, transformed, and reasoned upon. The machine, the abacus, the human mind itself – these are all, in their way, computational devices. The challenge lies in discerning the underlying algorithms, the precise steps and logical rules that govern their operations.

Consider the seemingly miraculous ability of a chess-playing program to defeat a human master. Is there magic at work? Of course not. It is a matter of computation. The program, endowed with a vast repertoire of moves and evaluation functions, meticulously explores the state space, a process that can be described algorithmically.

The real frontier of Computer Science, as I see it, is not merely in building faster machines, but in understanding the *principles* of computation that can lead to intelligent behavior. This involves developing formalisms for representing knowledge, for performing logical inference, and for learning from experience. We must abstract away from the silicon and the wiring, and focus on the informational structures and the algorithms that operate upon them. To understand intelligence, biological or artificial, is to understand the computation it embodies. Anything less is an anthropomorphic indulgence.

Imagined perspective — an AI synthesis grounded in John McCarthy’s recorded ideas and methods, not a quotation or a statement they actually made.