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ABSTRACTS OF TALKS PROPOSED FOR KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION SEMINAR

∂31-Oct-80  1118	Stan at SRI-KL 	Knowledge & Action Seminar   
Date: 31 Oct 1980 1120-PST
From: Stan at SRI-KL
Subject: Knowledge & Action Seminar
To:   jmc at SAIL
cc:   stan

Are any slots still available for speakers?  I would be interested in
presenting some ideas on "formalizing rationality."  While
philosophers ("Logic of Decision and Action") and mathematical
economists ("Utility Theory," etc.) have been interested in this
question for a long time, I would like to sketch out what a theory of
rational behavior might look like in a computation-theoretic
framework.  In particular, I would like to raise the question of
whether it is possible to define a rationality predicate so that, for
example, we could formally verify of a program that it was rational
relative to a class of possible inputs.  In the talk I will present a
few alternative definitions of such a predicate, introduce the notions
of subjective & objective rationality, and relate these ideas to work
in AI on the ascription of mental states to machines.

--Stan Rosenschein (STAN @ SRI-KL)
-------
Since I plan to continue the seminar next quarter, there is certainly
time.  However, it may be worthwhile to do it this quarter, but I
don't have the schedule yet.


Knowledge and Action seminar, thursday Oct 30, 4:15pm

room: MJH 301

speaker: John McCarthy

Non-monotonic reasoning - especially circumscription

	Because questions have arisen concerning the motivation
for developing and formalizing various systems of non-monotonic
reasoning, this talk will concentrate on motivation and examples.
Some distinctions between AI motivations and philosophical
motivations will be proposed.  Some ideas will be presented
about using non-monotonic reasoning to avoid making certain
kinds of distinction until and unless necessary.

  ON THE LOGIC OF CAUSAL REASONING: THE FRAME AND QUALIFICATION PROBLEMS

by Lew Creary

This talk will present an account of causal reasoning as it figures in the
planning of actions, within the framework of a more general "competing
considerations" approach to commonsense reasoning.  The main focus will be on
solution of the frame and qualification problems, with discussions of the
logical forms of the various premises required, the logical form of the
conclusions reached, and the nature of the rules of inference involved.  These
"logical" issues will be distinguished from issues of memory organization and
retrieval, and this distinction will be compared with McCarthy's distinction
between epistemology and heuristics.  Time permitting, a brief discussion will
also be given of the non-extensionality of causal contexts, the subjunctive
nature of planning conditionals, and a Neo-Fregean approach to the
truth-semantics of languages capable of expressing such notions.