DIMACS TR: 98-28

A Formal Scenario and Metalanguage Support Means to Reason about It



Author: Boris Galitsky

ABSTRACT

We build the reasoning tool of metalanguage support (MS) with the embedded mechanism of the invention of predicates and metapredicates for the comprehension and synthesis tasks. This tool, based on metalanguage representation with weakened soundness, gains the inference flexibility to represent the formal scenarios (for example, a limited class of "logical" anecdotes, derived from NL). We introduce the concept of formal scenario as an alternative to the traditional axiomatic method (logical program) for the practical applications and develop specific MS means to perform the reasoning within a formal scenario. The anecdote scenario is an appealing object of study in the logical programming because it reflects the top level of human intellectual activity on one hand and is rather compact on the other.

We present such applications as scenario comprehension and generation, genetic algorithm of MS formula modifications, NL aspects of scenarios and modeling of the psychological disorder with corrupted pretending and believing concepts (autism). Such MS capabilities for scenario representation as reasoning about action, change and belief, temporal and spatial reasoning, are illustrated.

MS is based on the rules of metalanguage transfer (inconsistency shift, variability shift and assumption enforcement), which connect the object level with the metalevel and introduce a number of ways to construct the scenario explanation predicates.

Paper Available at: ftp://dimacs.rutgers.edu/pub/dimacs/TechnicalReports/TechReports/1998/98-28.ps.gz


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