What is search control?
Search control is knowledge that controls search process in that it guides search through comparing proposed alternatives. In Soar, search control is encoded in production rules that create preferences for operators. Bob Marinier (rmarinie@eecs.umich.edu) wrote: Search control rules are rules that prefer the selection of one operator over another. Their purpose is to avoid useless operators and direct the search toward the desired state. Theoretically, you could encode rules that select the correct operator for each state. However, you would have had to already solve the problem yourself to come up with those rules. Our goal is to have the program solve the problem, using only knowledge available from the problem statement and possibly some general knowledge about problem solving. Therefore, search control will be restricted to general problem solving heuristics.
