In the days when Sussman was a novice Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.

"What are you doing?", asked Minsky.

"I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe."

"Why is the net wired randomly?" inquired Minsky.

"I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play."

At this, Minsky shut his eyes. Sussman asked his teacher, "Why do you close your eyes?"

"So that the room will be empty."

At that momment, Sussman was enlightened.