From: minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Subject: Re: ASIMOV
Cc: minsky
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1992 00:32:31 GMT

In article <1992Apr10.173524.20597@unix.brighton.ac.uk> rjb12@unix.brighton.ac.uk (Browning;f110or89;[05306) writes:
>Isaac Asimov's death is a hard thing for me to grasp; it was he (often
>accompanied by Arthur Clarke) that held my hand during my first forays
>into science fiction. His books continue to enchant me, as they have done
>ever since my early school years.
>
>I am annoyed at the media here in Britain: I can't remember seeing anything
>on television about Mr. Asimov's death; it seems to have been obliterated
>by election coverage, and I think that's very wrong. Isaac Asimov was the
>man who gave birth to the robot concept and the Three Laws of Robotics;
>he was the man who changed the public's attitude of science fiction from 
>contemptuous to admiring.
>
>Something should be done to honour him.

>Rich Browning (rjb12@bton.unix)   *  The Three Laws of Robotics 
>Department of Computer Science    *   ... a design for humankind.      
>Brighton Polytechnic              *       
>****************************************************************************
>		Isaac Asimov: May you rest in peace.

Yes, well, a BBC team was here this very morning making interviews
about Asimov, and they seemed to think it was a very important story.
They also interviewed Joseph Engelberger, another industrial robotics
pioneer friend of Isaac.  I don't know what I said in this morning's
interview because it was live, but here's a note I sent to the NY
Times:

      "I first encountered Asimov's ideas some 50 years ago. I was just
beginning my teens and he was only in his early 20-- yet he seemed
centuries ahead.  I was entranced by his stories about space and time,
but the ideas about robots affected me most and after "Runaround"
appeared in the March 1942 issue of Astounding, I never stopped
thinking about how minds might work.  Surely we'd some day build
robots that think --but how would they think, and about what?  Surely
logic might work for some purposes, but not for others.  And how to
build robots with common sense, intuition, consciousness, and emotion?
How, for that matter, do brains do those things?  And in the same
period, Robert A. Heinlein's 1940 novel "Waldo" was already turning me
to think about the mechanical aspects of robots.

      "Having just exhausted the teachings of Jules Verne and
H.G.Wells, these stories (along with those of Arthur C. Clarke,
Frederik Pohl, and Ted Sturgeon) arrived just in time for me -- and
eventually I came to share the personal friendship of these great
teachers.  Why call them "teachers"?  Because they show us ways to
explore new ideas by exercising the vital "what if" capacity that so
often declines as we grow older and more
 sensible.  Another such writer, Larry Niven, once explained, "our job
is to keep on daydreaming for you."

      "Isaac always encouraged his readers to try to see the world as
comprehensible, to despise superstition and moral cowardice, and to
think and speak as clearly and simply as possible.  He was never
falsely modest, but was always honest, unpretentious, and humorous.
To me he was among the finest of modern philosophers.

Marvin Minsky
Professor of Computer Science and E.E.  
Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 

Xref: sparky rec.arts.sf.misc:1298 rec.arts.sf-lovers:1009