MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory reports Minsky, 88, died Sunday
Minsky viewed the brain as a machine whose functioning can be studied and replicated in a computer - which would teach us, in turn, to better understand the human brain and higher-level mental functions: How might we endow machines with common sense - the knowledge humans acquire every day through experience? How, for example, do we teach a sophisticated computer that to drag an object on a string, you need to pull, not push - a concept easily mastered by a two-year-old child?