A Bunle of Assertions.pptVIP

A Bundle of Assertions Think of a microtheory (mt) as a set of assertions. Each microtheory bundles assertions based on a shared set of assumptions on which the truth of the assertions depends, or a shared topic (world geography, brain tumors, pro football), or a shared source: (CIA World Fact Book 1997, FM101-5, USA Today) Avoiding Inconsistencies The assertions within a microtheory must be mutually consistent no monotonic contradictions allowed within a single microtheory Assertions in different microtheories may be inconsistent Every Assertion is in a Microtheory Every assertion falls within at least one microtheory Currently, every microtheory is a reified (named) term, such as #$HumanActivitiesMt or #$OrganizationMt Mts are one way of indexing all the assertions in Cyc #$Predicate A sentence built from a predicate is either True or False. (#$mother #$ChelseaClinton #$HillaryClinton) is True (#$physicalParts #$TheWhiteHouse #$TheLincolnMemorial) is False Predicates are thus truth-functional relations. Argument Types Example 1 (#$arg1Isa #$mother #$Animal) (#$arg2Isa #$mother #$FemaleAnimal) Thus , (#$mother #$ChelseaClinton #$HillaryClinton) is a well-formed sentence because : (#$isa #$ChelseaClinton #$Animal) and (#$isa #$HillaryClinton #$FemaleAnimal) Second-Order Predicates Sometimes we want to make statements about predicates themselves. This requires “second-order” predicates, which can take predicates as arguments. Examples : #$arg1Isa, #$arity, #$isa Thus in (#$arity #$mother 2), #$arity takes the predicate #$mother as its first argument. Some second-order predicates are used to relate CycL predicates to one another within a predicate hierarchy . . . The Form and Content Of The Knowledge Base The main advantage of Cyc over other systems for representing knowledge is its use of a formal language in which inferential connections between concepts and statements are encoded in a machine accessible way. Th