Commonsense Reasoning, 2nd Edition

Commonsense Reasoning, 2nd Edition

by Erik T. Mueller
Released November 2014
Publisher(s): Morgan Kaufmann
ISBN: 9780128016473

Read it now on the O’Reilly learning platform with a 10-day free trial.

O’Reilly members get unlimited access to live online training experiences, plus books, videos, and digital content from O’Reilly and nearly 200 trusted publishing partners.

Start your free trial

Book description

To endow computers with common sense is one of the major long-term goals of artificial intelligence research. One approach to this problem is to formalize commonsense reasoning using mathematical logic. Commonsense Reasoning: An Event Calculus Based Approach is a detailed, high-level reference on logic-based commonsense reasoning. It uses the event calculus, a highly powerful and usable tool for commonsense reasoning, which Erik Mueller demonstrates as the most effective tool for the broadest range of applications. He provides an up-to-date work promoting the use of the event calculus for commonsense reasoning, and bringing into one place information scattered across many books and papers. Mueller shares the knowledge gained in using the event calculus and extends the literature with detailed event calculus solutions that span many areas of the commonsense world.

The Second Edition features new chapters on commonsense reasoning using unstructured information including the Watson system, commonsense reasoning using answer set programming, and techniques for acquisition of commonsense knowledge including crowdsourcing.

  • Understand techniques for automated commonsense reasoning
  • Incorporate commonsense reasoning into software solutions
  • Acquire a broad understanding of the field of commonsense reasoning
  • Gain comprehensive knowledge of the human capacity for commonsense reasoning

Table of contents

  1. Cover image
  2. Title page
  3. Table of Contents
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Praise for Commonsense Reasoning
  7. Foreword to the First Edition
  8. Preface
    1. Why commonsense reasoning?
    2. Approach
    3. Intended audience
    4. Roadmap
    5. Material covered
    6. Supplemental materials
    7. Text and figure acknowledgments
  9. About the Author
  10. Acknowledgments to the First Edition
  11. Acknowledgments to the Second Edition
  12. New to the Second Edition
  13. Chapter 1: Introduction
    1. Abstract
    2. 1.1 What is commonsense reasoning?
    3. 1.2 Key issues of commonsense reasoning
    4. 1.3 Brief history of commonsense reasoning
    5. 1.4 The event calculus
    6. Bibliographic notes
  14. Part I. Foundations
    1. Chapter 2: The Event Calculus
      1. Abstract
      2. 2.1 First-order logic
      3. 2.2 Event calculus basics
      4. 2.3 Event calculus axiomatizations
      5. 2.4 Reification
      6. 2.5 Conditions
      7. 2.6 Circumscription
      8. 2.7 Domain descriptions
      9. 2.8 Reasoning types
      10. Bibliographic notes
      11. Exercises
  15. Part II. Commonsense Phenomena
    1. Chapter 3: The Effects of Events
      1. Abstract
      2. 3.1 Positive and negative effect axioms
      3. 3.2 Effect axiom idioms
      4. 3.3 Preconditions
      5. 3.4 State constraints
      6. Bibliographic notes
      7. Exercises
    2. Chapter 4: The Triggering of Events
      1. Abstract
      2. 4.1 Trigger axioms
      3. 4.2 Preventing repeated triggering
      4. 4.3 Triggered fluents
      5. Bibliographic notes
      6. Exercises
    3. Chapter 5: The Commonsense Law of Inertia
      1. Abstract
      2. 5.1 Representation of the commonsense law of inertia
      3. 5.2 Representing release from the commonsense law of inertia
      4. 5.3 Release axioms
      5. Bibliographic notes
      6. Exercises
    4. Chapter 6: Indirect Effects of Events
      1. Abstract
      2. 6.1 Effect axioms
      3. 6.2 Primitive and derived fluents
      4. 6.3 Release axioms and state constraints
      5. 6.4 Effect constraints
      6. 6.5 Causal constraints
      7. 6.6 Trigger axioms
      8. Bibliographic notes
      9. Exercises
    5. Chapter 7: Continuous Change
      1. Abstract
      2. 7.1 Trajectory axioms
      3. 7.2 Antitrajectory axioms
      4. 7.3 Using antitrajectory instead of releases
      5. Bibliographic notes
      6. Exercises
    6. Chapter 8: Concurrent Events
      1. Abstract
      2. 8.1 Restricting concurrency
      3. 8.2 Cumulative and canceling effects
      4. Bibliographic notes
      5. Exercises
    7. Chapter 9: Nondeterministic Effects of Events
      1. Abstract
      2. 9.1 Determining fluents
      3. 9.2 Disjunctive event axioms
      4. Bibliographic notes
      5. Exercises
  16. Part III. Commonsense Domains
    1. Chapter 10: Space
      1. Abstract
      2. 10.1 Relational space
      3. 10.2 Metric space
      4. 10.3 Object identity
      5. Bibliographic notes
      6. Exercises
    2. Chapter 11: The Mental States of Agents
      1. Abstract
      2. 11.1 Beliefs, goals, and plans
      3. 11.2 Emotions
      4. 11.3 The epistemic functional event calculus
      5. Bibliographic notes
      6. Exercises
  17. Part IV. Default Reasoning
    1. Chapter 12: Default Reasoning
      1. Abstract
      2. 12.1 Atemporal default reasoning
      3. 12.2 Temporal default reasoning
      4. 12.3 Default reasoning method
      5. 12.4 Defaults and the qualification problem
      6. 12.5 Default events and properties
      7. Bibliographic notes
      8. Exercises
  18. Part V. Programs and Applications
    1. Chapter 13: The Discrete Event Calculus Reasoner
      1. Abstract
      2. 13.1 Discrete event calculus reasoner architecture
      3. 13.2 Encoding satisfiability problems
      4. 13.3 Simple examples
      5. 13.4 Example: Telephone
      6. 13.5 Discrete event calculus reasoner language
      7. Bibliographic notes
      8. Exercises
    2. Chapter 14: Applications
      1. Abstract
      2. 14.1 Business systems
      3. 14.2 Natural language understanding
      4. 14.3 Vision
      5. Bibliographic notes
      6. Exercises
    3. Chapter 15: Commonsense Reasoning Using Answer Set Programming
      1. Abstract
      2. 15.1 Answer set programming
      3. 15.2 Event calculus in answer set programming: theory
      4. 15.3 Event calculus in answer set programming: practice
      5. 15.4 F2LP
      6. 15.5
      7. Bibliographic notes
      8. Exercises
  19. Part VI. Logical and Nonlogical Methods
    1. Chapter 16: Logics for Commonsense Reasoning
      1. Abstract
      2. 16.1 The situation calculus
      3. 16.2 The features and fluents framework
      4. Discussion
      5. 16.3 Action languages
      6. Discussion
      7. 16.4 The fluent calculus
      8. 16.5 Discussion and summary
      9. Bibliographic notes
      10. Exercises
    2. Chapter 17: Nonlogical Methods for Commonsense Reasoning
      1. Abstract
      2. 17.1 Qualitative reasoning
      3. 17.2 Analogical processing
      4. 17.3 Probabilistic reasoning
      5. 17.4 Society of mind
      6. Bibliographic notes
      7. Exercises
    3. Chapter 18: Commonsense Reasoning Using Unstructured Information
      1. Abstract
      2. 18.1 Natural language as a programming language
      3. 18.2 Reasoning with restricted natural language
      4. 18.3 Reasoning directly with natural language
      5. 18.4 Watson
      6. 18.5 Comparison
      7. Bibliographic notes
      8. Exercises
  20. Part VII. Knowledge Acquisition
    1. Chapter 19: Acquisition of Commonsense Knowledge
      1. Abstract
      2. 19.1 Manual acquisition of commonsense knowledge
      3. 19.2 Crowdsourcing commonsense knowledge
      4. 19.3 Games for acquisition of commonsense knowledge
      5. 19.4 Mining commonsense knowledge
      6. 19.5 Event calculus reasoning over acquired commonsense knowledge
      7. 19.6 Comparison of acquisition methods
      8. 19.7 How big is human common sense?
      9. Bibliographic notes
      10. Exercises
  21. Part VIII. Conclusion
    1. Chapter 20: Conclusion
      1. Abstract
      2. 20.1 What was accomplished?
      3. 20.2 Where is this leading?
      4. 20.3 Closing remarks
      5. Bibliographic notes
  22. Part IX. Appendices
    1. Appendix A: Logical Foundations
      1. A.1 Relations
      2. A.2 Inductive Definitions
      3. A.3 First-Order Logic
      4. A.4 Many-Sorted First-Order Logic
      5. A.5 Second-Order Logic
      6. A.6 Datatypes
      7. A.7 Circumscription
      8. A.8 SM
      9. Bibliographic Notes
    2. Appendix B: Equivalence of EC and DEC
    3. Appendix C: Events with Duration
      1. Bibliographic Notes
    4. Appendix D: The Discrete Event Calculus with Branching Time
      1. D.1 LDEC
      2. D.2 BDEC
      3. D.3 Relationship of BDEC and LDEC
      4. D.4 Relationship of BDEC and the Situation Calculus
    5. Appendix E: The Event Calculus and Temporal Action Logics
      1. E.1 The event calculus and TAL
      2. E.2 Lack of equivalence between tala and ECA
      3. E.3 ECB axiomatization
      4. E.4 Lack of equivalence between TALA and ECB
      5. E.5 General action type specifications
      6. E.6 Restriction to single-step actions
      7. E.7 Equivalence of talas and DECA
      8. E.8 Translation from TAL 1.0 (ND) TO (FL)
    6. Appendix F: Answers to Selected Exercises
      1. Chapter 2
      2. Chapter 3
      3. Chapter 4
      4. Chapter 5
      5. Chapter 6
      6. Chapter 8
  23. Bibliography
  24. Author Index
  25. Subject Index

Product information

  • Title: Commonsense Reasoning, 2nd Edition
  • Author(s): Erik T. Mueller
  • Release date: November 2014
  • Publisher(s): Morgan Kaufmann
  • ISBN: 9780128016473