Re: Fw: TOE or TSD: that is the question! (was Genesis 1:1 - a standing miracle)

Good show!

I was thinking along the lines of the book :

Foundations of Intelligent Knowledge-Based Systems (Library and
Information Science Series)
by I.S. Torsun

He has chapters on each of the following non-standard logics:

  1. revisable beliefs

  2. reasoning under uncertainty ( includes your #6 )

  3. modal logic

  4. temporal logic

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
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Subject: ***SPAM*** Fw: TOE or TSD: that is the question! (was Genesis
1:1 - a standing miracle)

From: Roberts, Joe <mailto:Joe.Roberts@thecb.state.tx.us>

I am not interested in joining this discussion other than to comment on
the following:

    There are 4 kinds of logic in "expert systems" and perhaps some of
these should

    be considered in these debates.

I have done some AI and can say that there are a lot more than 4:

1. First-order predicate calculus

2. Higher-order logics, as devised to solve the "frame problem" of
robotics and maintain database consistency

3. Subsumption

4. Temporal logics (multiple) - reasoning about time, or in time, is
entirely nontrivial

5. Fuzzy logics

6. Dempster-Schaffer logic (used for combining evidence)

7. Plenty of informal or implicit logics (some inconsistent), such as
are found in augmented transition networks

8. Reasoning by default

9. Analogical forms of reasoning

10. Occupancy grids (used for combining evidence) in spatial reasoning

Ten should be a perfect number of them for now.

Otherwise, Joe, your point is well taken. Whenever we run into obstacles
that persistently hinder further insight into a problem, it is always
good to check whether the logic in which we are doing our
conceptualizing is adequate for capturing the structure of the domain we
are attempting to understand. A good case in point is the
free-will/determinism issue. Donald MacKay showed that self-referencing
logic, which we tend not to think in, is necessary to make headway
there.

Logic is also implicit in language and the logic of Greek or especially
Hebrew is not exactly that of English. This might cause some problems in
interpreting scripture and relating it to modern science, with its own
forms of logic. One instance that comes to mind are biblical
superlatives, such as all. In the plagues of Egypt, all the cattle of
the Egyptians die, only to get boils (or something like that) in the
next plague - a favorite whipping-boy of simple-minded atheists. The
statistical sense of all, meaning "a preponderance of", does not
correspond to our use, meaning "without exception". Such
linguistic-logical non-correspondences might be a factor in the
science-Bible issue you are discussing.

Dennis Feucht

 
Received on Mon Aug 2 13:36:49 2004