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C00002 00002	prevent[s85,jmc]		Prevention and impossibility
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prevent[s85,jmc]		Prevention and impossibility

Maybe it's easy.  We have some axioms about the effects of the actions
of the dogs and the result that dogs sometimes knock over trash barrels.
The key to the problem is to devise a plausible form to the statement
that a dog jumping on a fastened object will leave it untouched.  Note
that a bear would pull out the hooks.

1986 Feb 10

We conjecture that the dogs are prevented from knocking over the cans,
because we can't think of a way for them to do it.  This is a circumscription,
but it doesn't look like it's the circumscription of an  ab  built
into the axioms.  Our conjecture is strong enough to justify an
experiment.  However, this still looks like we have to take mental
state into account.