Allen Newell

The problem of intelligence is the problem of how to build an intelligent agent.

A system exhibits intelligence to the extent that it can achieve its goals in a wide range of environments.

Cognition is computation.

The appropriate level of analysis for understanding human cognition is the symbol level.

All behavior is goal-oriented.

The architecture of cognition is the fixed structure that underlies all cognitive behavior.

The task of cognitive science is to discover the architecture of cognition.

A theory of cognition must be a theory of an integrated system.

The physical symbol system hypothesis is a necessary and sufficient condition for intelligent action.

The knowledge level is an abstract level of analysis above the symbol level.

At the knowledge level, a system is described by what it knows and what it can do.

The problem of artificial intelligence is to build systems that can operate at the knowledge level.

The essence of intelligence is search.

Problem solving is a search through a space of possible solutions.

Heuristics are rules of thumb that guide search.

The General Problem Solver (GPS) was an attempt to build a general-purpose problem solver.

GPS was based on the idea of means-ends analysis.

Means-ends analysis involves reducing the difference between the current state and the goal state.

The power of a system comes from its knowledge, not just its processing power.

The computer is the primary tool for understanding cognition.