Logical consequence

Abstract: This article can be viewed as an attempt to explore the consequences of two propositions. (1) Intentionality in human beings (and animals) is a product of causal features of the brain I assume this is an empirical fact about the actual causal relations between mental processes and brains It says simply that certain brain processes are sufficient for intentionality. (2) Instantiating a computer program is never by itself a sufficient condition of intentionality The main argument of this paper is directed at establishing this claim The form of the argument is to show how a human agent could instantiate the program and still not have the relevant intentionality. These two propositions have the following consequences (3) The explanation of how the brain produces intentionality cannot be that it does it by instantiating a computer program. This is a strict logical consequence of 1 and 2. (4) Any mechanism capable of producing intentionality must have causal powers equal to those of the brain. This is meant to be a trivial consequence of 1. (5) Any attempt literally to create intentionality artificially (strong AI) could not succeed just by designing programs but would have to duplicate the causal powers of the human brain. This follows from 2 and 4. "Could a machine think?" On the argument advanced here only a machine could think, and only very special kinds of machines, namely brains and machines with internal causal powers equivalent to those of brains And that is why strong AI has little to tell us about thinking, since it is not about machines but about programs, and no program by itself is sufficient for thinking.

Abstract: The temporal logic of actions (TLA) is a logic for specifying and reasoning about concurrent systems. Systems and their properties are represented in the same logic, so the assertion that a system meets its specification and the assertion that one system implements another are both expressed by logical implication. TLA is very simple; its syntax and complete formal semantics are summarized in about a page. Yet, TLA is not just a logician's toy; it is extremely powerful, both in principle and in practice. This report introduces TLA and describes how it is used to specify and verify concurrent algorithms. The use of TLA to specify and reason about open systems will be described elsewhere.

Abstract: Typographical Conventions 1 Introduction 1.1 Bibliographical and Historical Remarks Exercises 2 Declarative Knowledge 2.1 Conceptualization 2.2 Predicate Calculus 2.3 Semantics 2.4 Blocks World Example 2.5 Circuits Example 2.6 Algebraic Examples 2.7 List Examples 2.8 Natural-Language Examples 2.9 Specialized Languages 2.10 Bibliographical and Historical Remarks Exercises 3 Inference 3.1 Derivability 3.2 Inference Procedures 3.3 Logical Implication 3.4 Provability 3.5 Proving Provability 3.6 Bibliographical and Historical Remarks Exercises 4 Resolution 4.1 Clausal Form 4.2 Unification 4.3 Resolution Principle 4.4 Resolution 4.5 Unsatisfiability 4.6 True-or-False Questions 4.7 Fill-in-the-Blank Questions 4.8 Circuits Example 4.9 Mathematics Example 4.10 Soundness and Completeness 4.11 Resolution and Equality 4.12 Bibliographical and Historical Remarks Exercises 5 Resolution Strategies 5.1 Deletion Strategies 5.2 Unit Resolution 5.3 Input Resolution 5.4 Linear Resolution 5.5 Set of Support Resolution 5.6 Ordered Resolution 5.7 Directed Resolution 5.8 Sequential Constraint Satisfaction 5.9 Bibliographical and Historical Remarks Exercises 6 Nonmonotonic Reasoning 6.1 The Closed-World Assumption 6.2 Predicate Completion 6.3 Taxonomic Hierarchies and Default Reasoning 6.4 Circumscription 6.5 More General Forms of Circumscription 6.6 Default Theories 6.7 Bibliographical and Historical Remarks Exercises 7 Induction 7.1 Induction 7.2 Concept Formation 7.3 Experiment Generation 7.4 Bibliographical and Historical Remarks Exercises 8 Reasoning with Uncertain Beliefs 8.1 Probabilities of Sentences 8.2 Using Bayes' Rule in Uncertain Reasoning 8.3 Uncertain Reasoning in Expert Systems 8.4 Probabilistic Logic 8.5 Probabilistic Entailment 8.6 Computations Appropriate for Small Matrices 8.7 Dealing with Large Matrices 8.8 Probabilities Conditioned on Specific Information 8.9 Bibliographical and Historical Remarks Exercises 9 Knowledge and Belief 9.1 Preliminaries 9.2 Sentential Logics of Belief 9.3 Proof Methods 9.4 Nested Beliefs 9.5 Quantifying-In 9.6 Proof Methods for Quantified Beliefs 9.7 Knowing What Something Is 9.8 Possible-Worlds Logics 9.9 Properties of Knowledge 9.10 Properties of Belief 9.11 Group Knowledge 9.12 Equality, Quantification, and Knowledge 9.13 Bibliographical and Historical Remarks Exercises 10 Metaknowledge and Metareasoning 10.1 Metalanguage 10.2 Clausal Form 10.3 Resolution Principle 10.4 Inference Procedures 10.5 Derivability and Belief 10.6 Metalevel Reasoning 10.7 Bilevel Reasoning 10.8 Reflection 10.9 Bibliographical and Historical Remarks Exercises 11 State and Change 11.1 States 11.2 Actions 11.3 The Frame Problem 11.4 Action Ordering 11.5 Conditionality 11.6 Bibliographical and Historical Remarks Exercises 12 Planning 12.1 Initial State 12.2 Goals 12.3 Actions 12.4 Plans 12.5 Green's Method 12.6 Action Blocks 12.7 Conditional Plans 12.8 Planning Direction 12.9 Unachievability Pruning 12.10 State Alignment 12.11 Frame-Axiom Suppression 12.12 Goal Regression 12.13 State Differences 12.14 Bibliographical and Historical Remarks Exercises 13 Intelligent-Agent Architecture 13.1 Tropistic Agents 13.2 Hysteretic Agents 13.3 Knowledge-Level Agents 13.4 Stepped Knowledge-Level Agents 13.5 Fidelity 13.6 Deliberate Agents 13.7 Bibliographical and Historical Remarks Exercises Answers to Exercises A.1 Introduction A.2 Declarative Knowledge A.3 Inference A.4 Resolution A.5 Resolution Strategies A.6 Nonmonotonic Reasoning A.7 Induction A.8 Reasoning with Uncertain Beliefs A.9 Knowledge and Belief A.10 Metaknowledge and Metareasoning A.11 State and Change A.12 Planning A.13 Intelligent-Agent Architecture References Index

Abstract: The Description for this book, Entailment: The Logic of Relevance and Necessity Vol I, will be forthcoming