Chronological ignorance: Experiments in nonmonotonic temporal reasoning
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: Chronological ignorance: Experiments in nonmonotonic temporal reasoning
zbMATH Open document ID: 0662.68093
DOI: 10.1016/0004-3702(88)90085-9
author: Yoav Shoham
published in: Artificial Intelligence
publication date: 1988-01-01T00:00:00Z
review text: The article is concerned with some of the central issues of the theoretical research in the artificial intelligence. It aims to show that mechanical reasoning about rich environments can be done in a manner that is both efficient and rigorous. The author uses formal tools he had introduced in his previous articles: An interval-based temporal logic (the propositional case) and an approach to nonmonotonic logic based on a concept of preferred models (a preference logic). Two nonmonotonic logics are introduced: a logic of chronological minimization and a logic of chronological ignorance (CI). The more general of them, the CI, is based on a monotonic logic of temporal knowledge TK, which is an augmentation of the temporal logic by modal operator \(\square\). The step from TK to CI is via a preference (partial order) relation; if a Kripke interpretation M2 is prefered to M1, it is called chronologically more ignorant. Chronologically maximally ignorant (cmi) models are defined. A entails B in CI iff B is true in all cmi models of A. The ``maximal ignorance of some past sentences'' offers a solution of the qualification problem and of the extended prediction problem. (``These problems subsume, and are better defined than, the infamous frame problem''.) Causal theories (in CI) are investigated. There are two types of axioms in causal theories, the boundary conditions and the causal rules. A generalization of causal theories, called inertial theories, is introduced. It yields a formalization of an intuitive concept of potential histories. The both classes of theories have in a sense unique cmi models. These models can be computed efficiently.
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 68T99
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 03B45
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 03B60
zbMATH DE Number: 4083023
zbMATH Keywords: non-monotonic reasoning
zbMATH Keywords: temporal reasoning
zbMATH Keywords: chronological ignorance
zbMATH Keywords: preferred models
zbMATH Keywords: frame problem
zbMATH Keywords: causal theories
zbMATH Keywords: inertial theories
reviewed by: Jan Šefránek
MaRDI profile type: Publication
full work available at URL: 0004-3702(88)90085-9
OpenAlex ID: W1964656133
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description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 4083023