Pei, Given your description, I agree B2 is the way to go. At Cycorp, the inductive (e.g. rule induction), abductive (e.g. hypothesis generation), and analogical reasoning engines I observed were all supported by deductive inference. I also a member of a Cycorp team that collaborated with Pedro Domingos' group at the university of Washington regarding probabilistic reasoning.
-Steve Stephen L. Reed Artificial Intelligence Researcher http://texai.org/blog http://texai.org 3008 Oak Crest Ave. Austin, Texas, USA 78704 512.791.7860 ----- Original Message ---- From: Pei Wang <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2008 10:28:50 AM Subject: [agi] reasoning & knowledge Steve, To me, the following two questions are independent of each other: *. What type of reasoning is needed for AI? The major answers are: (A): deduction only, (B) multiple types, including deduction, induction, abduction, analogy, etc. *. What type of knowledge should be reasoned upon? The major answers are: (1) declarative only, (2) declarative and procedural. All four combination of the two answers are possible. Cyc is mainly A1; you seem to suggest A2; in NARS it is B2. McDermott's paper has many good points, but his notion of "logic" and "semantics" are too limited --- to what the "Logicist AI" has been trying. As for Semantic Web and Ontology, I have no doubt that there are useful for some special applications. However, from an AGI point of view, their assumption about human knowledge is way to oversimplified. I don't think the so-called "common knowledge" can be forced into the rigid framework of "ontology", not to mention personal knowledge, which is even more fluid. Even so, we can use SW as a possible knowledge source, and use inference engine to reveal hidden conclusions in it, so SW is still relevant to AGI. Pei ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=95818715-a78a9b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
