This first - then the rest
Representations 2
Wednesday, March 28, 2012 4:51 PM

WB: The inference system is a collection of functions that we've assembled in a variety of ways to explore different test cases. At the low level, there's a believe function that takes a literal like (fu bar) or (goal BOB (fu bar)), an agent to treat as the root for determining where to place the nested literal, and an optional list of sources that can be used to identify where the belief came from (e.g., a particular conversation, some sensor, or whatever's helpful). There's also an infer function that takes the system's working memory structure and its knowledge base, which stores the rules. You can also tell it which agent model that will provide the focus of attention.

One believe--infer cycle results in a single act of inference. Either a rule is fired or an existing, instantiated rule is co-opted to account for the focus of attention.

Does that help?  More notes below.

The notes beow were more helpful - we can talk tomorrow morn.

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(action ?time (inform ?l1 ?s1 (that ?x))) <=
(action ?time (say ?s1 (that ?x)))
(belief ?l1 ?x)
(belief ?l1 (belief ?s1 ?x))

I suppose you can interpret "X <= Y" symbol to mean "X identifies a pattern comprising itself and Y."

RWW: You haven't actually written "X <= Y" you wrote

X <=
A
B
C

Can I assume you meant
X <= A
B
C
or is it some other grouping

WB: X <= A & B & C
    Should be more parentheses. I left them out, but shouldn't have.
    ((X) <= (A B C))
   
OK I understand the syntax
-------------------------------------
This I understand better
Is this (mod the exact words used) the kind of thing we will
use to define rules?  In any event I will update the dialog annotation 
to definr rules in this style. I like the use of (that ?x) as opposed to my *
I assume the following (which is likely still 'wrong')

1) (action ?time ?thing) is a triple meaning that ?thing appeared in my-belief
     at time ?time (is ?time just a number? - ie what's its data type)
  

The closer-to-real way at the moment is to write
(create-rules
 (:antecedent ((action ?time (say ?s1 (that ?x)))
               (belief ?l1 ?x)
               (belief ?l1 (belief ?s1 ?x)))
 :consequent ((action ?time (inform ?l1 ?s1 (that ?x)))))
 ...<more pattern defined the same way>...
)

The symbols 'create-rules, ':antecedent, and ':consequent will likely change in the future once we have a better idea of the language that we want to use. I could imagine 'create-pattern, ':head, and ':body, but it's pretty arbitrary at the moment.

I don't think createrule :antecedent and :consequent are particularly bad,  What's the problem.
What about create-rule :before :after (but I can live with whatever - let's just choose)

Example 1/
(Assume the content of the utterance is expressed as "(fu bar)").

I hear you say (fu bar) at time t1.

RWW: inform is the kind of speech act?  Where does it come from? I have spent some time this weekend thinking about this and I have a suggestion.  I have not yet written it up but we can discuss this tomorrow,

RWW: Inform is not a triple?  What kind of expression is this?  Do you imagine something like this in the informal description language? 
  
(action t1 (inform me you (that (fu bar))))
(action t1 (say you (that (fu bar))))
(belief me (fu bar))
(belief me (belief you (fu bar)))

RWW: I'm begining to understand how you manage this

Because there is an implied belief modality for the current agent (me),
the system interprets these as the following.
(belief me (action t1 (inform me you (that (fu bar)))))
(belief me (action t1 (say you (that (fu bar)))))
(belief me (belief me (fu bar)))
(belief me (belief me (belief you (fu bar))))

The modal representation (belief me (belief me X)) resolves to (belief me X)
and eventually just X in the system's model of itself.

RWW: this is clear

RWW: I still worry about the idea that
   (action ?time (say ?Y (that ?X)))
     justifies
   (belief me ?x)
     or even
   (belief me (belief ?Y ?X))


    It must rely on
      1) my 'trusting' Y (he's not a lier)
      2) my beleiving that he know about the 'subject matter' of ?X
      3) that it is still true
    and has the strange consequenses
      1) since the belief is not time stamped
          it means that for me its always was and will forever be true?
      4) talking to oneself
         not what I believe but what I say to myself is de facto true!!!!!
         
          (action ?t (say me (that ?X)))
             results in
          (belief me ?X)

WB: Mostly legitimate concerns. I was attempting to stay faithful to what you wrote, at least in this rule. Evaluations of trust and expertise are implicit at the moment, however I'm working on static and dynamic models of deception and ignorance to get a sense for how to handle these issues.

RWW: We need to seperate the reasonong about beliefs an xxxx

Your number (3) seems like a standard concern for any act of communication, even network protocols. All beliefs have internal timestamps that indicate when they were held. If ?X above were about time, as in "Bob was at the train station at 5pm" then the relation would have a temporal argument. If it's "Bob is at the train station," then I believe it from the point that I start believing it until I have evidence or inference otherwise. I agree that time is a hard problem. I think we can make some headway without solving temporal reasoning.

RWW: this subtifuge does not work.  I can simply ask p1 to ask p2 to inform me of something.  Also I might uverhea a 'disagreement between two creditable persons eg (say p1 (that (scientific-fact global-warming))) and (say p2 (that (not (scinntific-fact global-warming)) in which case my beliefs wuld be contradiary an I could happily believe anything.  (particuliarly if I have no eveidence one way or the other about the issue)  If I do have a belief about the issue do I 'downgrade' my opinion of one of trustworthyness of one (or both) of the sayers? ... ??? ...

As for (4), I mentioned that variables referring to time could appear in a set of constraints on the pattern/rule. That's true of any variable. We could, for instance, require that (not (eq ?s ?l)). If necessary, to manage soliloquy and/or internal dialog, we could have a separate rule built specifically for self-dialog.