Formalizing Counterfactual and Nondeterministic Actions in First-Order Logic
Charles Elkan · 2015
ABSTRACT: This short paper outlines some aspects of a method of axiomatizing actions and their effects in standard first-order logic. The method is closely related to other meth-ods using nonmonotonic logics, but the use of first-order logic permits remarkable simplicity. In particular, there is a sin-gle, explicit, fixed, and intuitively meaningful frame axiom. Moreover, complex types of inference are possible, including counterfactual reasoning and reasoning about nondeterminis-tic actions.