Commonsense Reasoning
By- Erik T. Mueller, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center
To endow computers with common sense is one of the major long-term goals of Artificial Intelligence research. One approach to this problem is to formalize commonsense reasoning using mathematical logic. Commonsense Reasoning is a detailed, high-level reference on logic-based commonsense reasoning. It uses the event calculus, a highly powerful and usable tool for commonsense reasoning, which Erik T. Mueller demonstrates as the most effective tool for the broadest range of applications. He provides an up-to-date work promoting the use of the event calculus for commonsense reasoning, and bringing into one place information scattered across many books and papers. Mueller shares the knowledge gained in using the event calculus and extends the literature with detailed event calculus solutions to problems that span many areas of the commonsense world.
Audience
Graduate students or advanced undergraduates taking a course on commonsense reasoning or knowledge representation, or looking for tools to use for their thesis work.
Hardbound, 432 Pages
Published: January 2006
Imprint: Morgan Kaufmann
ISBN: 978-0-12-369388-4
Reviews
-
A comprehensive exposition of reasoning about actions and change using the circumscription-based Event Calculus. The book has an excellent up-to-date bibliography on actions and change. -Chitta Baral, Arizona State University Central to the idea of Artificial Intelligence is getting computers to understand simple facts about people and everyday lifewhat we call Common Sense. Amid the technical discussions about inference algorithms and knowledge representation, a larger question arises: What have we actually learned in the past 30 years about how to put Commonsense knowledge in computers? Look no further than Erik Mueller's Commonsense Reasoning for a deep and insightful survey of the state of the art in this topic. Some say that Commonsense defies logic; here Mueller shows that logic, at least, can put up a good fight. -Henry Lieberman, MIT Media Laboratory Erik Mueller has given the most thorough treatment of common sense knowledge and reasoning yet to appear. -John McCarthy, Stanford University The strength of this book is that it uses a uniform representation formalism, the event calculus, to solve a variety of commonsense reasoning problems. Researchers will find the book an inspiring tool which provides many ideas for applications of action formalisms. Thanks to both the exemplary presentation style and numerous examples, the book is also well-suited for teachers and students alike. -Michael Thielscher, Dresden University of Technology Developing systems that can perform actions and deal with change is a major challenge in intelligent system design, because it requires the construction of sophisticated models for knowledge representation and reasoning. This book provides important ideas and methods which can be used to model commonsense reasoning about events in complex and dynamic environments. The content is well thought out, and difficult topics are presented in highly accessible ways. The author tells a compelling story that highlights the utility of event calculus for applications that require commonsense models of action and change. -Mary-Anne Williams, University of Technology, Sydney, and Knowledge Representation and Reasoning Inc. People with better commonsense than others are better observers of context and have more patterns that are more readily accessible. Nevertheless, commonsense reasoning is an important area of study. Mueller's book will be valuable to those involved in this field.- Robert W. Ferguson, Software Quality Professional 12/06-2/07
Contents
- Chapter 1: Introduction1.1 What is Commonsense Reasoning?1.2 Key Issues of Commonsense Reasoning1.3 Brief History of Commonsense Reasoning1.4 The Event CalculusPart I: FoundationsChapter 2: The Event Calculus2.1 First-Order Logic2.2 Event Calculus Basics 2.3 Event Calculus Axiomatizations2.4 Reification2.5 Conditions2.6 Circumscription2.7 Domain Descriptions2.8 Reasoning Types Part II: Commonsense Phenomena Chapter 3: The Effects of Events3.1 Positive and Negative Effect Axioms3.2 Effect Axiom Idioms3.3 Preconditions3.4 State Constraints Chapter 4: The Triggering of Events4.1 Trigger Axioms4.2 Preventing Repeated Triggering4.3 Triggered Fluents Chapter 5: The Commonsense Law of Inertia5.1 Representation of the Commonsense Law of Inertia5.2 Representing Release from the Commonsense Law of Inertia5.3 Release AxiomsChapter 6: Indirect Effects of Events6.1 Effect Axioms6.2 Primitive and Derived Fluents6.3 Release Axioms and State Constraints6.4 Effect Constraints6.5 Causal Constraints6.6 Trigger AxiomsChapter 7: Continuous Change7.1 Trajectory Axioms7.2 AntiTrajectory Axioms7.3 Using AntiTrajectory Instead of ReleasesChapter 8: Concurrent Events8.1 Restricting Concurrency8.2 Cumulative and Canceling EffectsChapter 9: Nondeterministic Effects of Events9.1 Determining Fluents9.2 Disjunctive Event AxiomsPart III: Commonsense Domains Chapter 10: Space10.1 Relational Space10.2 Metric Space10.3 Object IdentityChapter 11: The Mental States of Agents11.1 Beliefs, Goals, and Plans11.2 Emotions Part IV: Default Reasoning Chapter 12: Default Reasoning12.1 Atemporal Default Reasoning12.2 Temporal Default Reasoning12.3 Default Reasoning Method12.4 Defaults and the Qualification Problem12.5 Default Events and PropertiesPart V: Programs and Applications Chapter 13: The Discrete Event Calculus Reasoner13.1 Discrete Event Calculus Reasoner Architecture13.2 Encoding SAT Problems13.3 Simple Examples13.4 Example: Telephone13.5 Discrete Event Calculus Reasoner LanguageChapter 14: Applications14.1 Business Systems14.2 Natural Language Understanding14.3 VisionPart VI: Logical and Nonlogical Methods Chapter 15: Logics for Commonsense Reasoning15.1 Situation Calculus15.2 Features and Fluents15.3 Action Languages15.4 Fluent Calculus15.5 Discussion and Summary Chapter 16: Nonlogical Methods for Commonsense Reasoning16.1 Qualitative Reasoning16.2 Analogical Processing16.3 Probabilistic Reasoning16.4 Society of MindPart VII: Conclusion Chapter 17: ConclusionPart VIII: Appendices Appendix A: Logical FoundationsAppendix B: Equivalence of EC and DECAppendix C: Events with DurationAppendix D: Answers to Selected Exercises
