Practical Applications of Data Mining

16 Chapter 1 IntroduCtIon to data MInIng

1.3.7 Fuzzy Sets for Data Mining

Most of us have had some contact with conventional logic, in which a state-

ment is either true or false with nothing in between. Although this principle

of true or false has dominated Western logic for the last 2,000 years, the idea

that things are either true or false does not apply in most cases. For example,

is the statement “I am rich” completely true or false? The answer is probably

neither true nor false since the question we need to consider is how rich is

rich. A man with a million dollars may or may not be a rich man depending

on with whom he is compared. This idea of gradations of truth is familiar to

every one of us who faces decision making of any kind. ...