Miracles in formal theories of action
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: Miracles in formal theories of action
zbMATH Open document ID: 0688.68088
DOI: 10.1016/0004-3702(89)90059-3
author: Arkady Rabinov
author: Vladimir Lifschitz
published in: Artificial Intelligence
publication date: 1989-01-01T00:00:00Z
review text: The paper provides a formalization of reasoning about actions. It is a research note reporting on a development of Lifschitz's approach based on situation calculus and circumscription. The problem is how to formalize a (more complex with respect to temporal projection) form of reasoning about actions. It consists, roughly speaking, in determining values in past situations. The problem could be solved in a straightforward way using an implicit assumption that there are no events happening concurrently with the actions that are being carried out. This assumption is relaxed - it is treated as a default principle. If this assumption is inconsistent with the given facts the possibility of some additional events contributing to the properties of the new situation is assumed. It could be said that a miracle happened in the previous situation. A formal solution of the problem is presented. The solution is checked on two examples.
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 68T15
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 03B60
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 68T99
zbMATH DE Number: 4128433
zbMATH Keywords: reasoning about actions
zbMATH Keywords: situation calculus
zbMATH Keywords: circumscription
reviewed by: Jan Šefránek
MaRDI profile type: Publication
full work available at URL: 0004-3702(89)90059-3
OpenAlex ID: W2016443760
cites work: Circumscription - a form of non-monotonic reasoning
cites work: Q5633670
description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 4128433