COMMENT ⊗   VALID 00002 PAGES
C REC  PAGE   DESCRIPTION
C00001 00001
C00002 00002	ockham.abs[s85,jmc]	Formalizing Ockham's razor (non-monotonic)
C00004 ENDMK
C⊗;
ockham.abs[s85,jmc]	Formalizing Ockham's razor (non-monotonic)

Formalizing Ockham's Razor or Non-monotonic Reasoning in Artificial Intelligence

	People often draw conclusions from certain facts that are
withdrawn when more facts become available.  Such reasoning differs from
logical deduction in which the conclusions are always a monotonic
increasing function of the set of premisses.  Artificial intelligence
needs programmable, hence formalized, non-monotonic reasoning.  The method
to be described, called circumscription, amounts to a formal version of
Ockham's principle that entities shall not be multiplied beyond necessity.
The formal notions also help understand ordinary human reasoning and
argumentation.