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THEORY-1216: Ill structured problems can be handled by an alternation between a solver working on a problem that is well structured at each moment and a recognition and retrieval system that keeps modifying the problem space from memory or the environment, a serial solver gains nothing by assembling the problem space at the outset, and nothing but the size of the knowledge base may separate ill from well structured problems, so that no qualitatively new mechanisms are needed

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Properties4
StatusProposed
Tagscognition, epistemology
SourceLIT-1634 — The structure of ill structured problems
ExtendsTHEORY-1084 — Simon proposes that ill structured problems can be handled by an alternation between a solver working on a problem that is well structured at each moment and a recognition and retrieval system that keeps modifying the problem space from memory or the environment, that a serial solver gains nothing by assembling the problem space at the outset, and that nothing but the size of the knowledge base may separate ill from well structured problems, so that no qualitatively new mechanisms are needed

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Source

Simon (1973), LIT-1634, §§3–5 (pp. 187–200); read in NOTE-1232. What the paper argues is THEORY-1084, which this entry extends.

Why it is Proposed

No system of this design is built or run in the paper. Whether the thesis holds needs such a system to perform on ill structured problems about as well as one given the full specification, or to fail on them at any memory size while a different mechanism succeeds.

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