Reasoning With Uncertain Knowledge

TL;DR

This paper introduces a knowledge representation model where facts and their relationships are supported by other facts, enabling reasoning about both propositional content and the underlying support structures, including belief and reliability assessments.

Contribution

It presents a novel framework for representing and reasoning with uncertain knowledge using explicit support and meta-support structures.

Findings

Supports reasoning about belief and reliability of facts

Defines explicit support and meta-support structures

Enables computational modeling of uncertain knowledge

Abstract

A model of knowledge representation is described in which propositional facts and the relationships among them can be supported by other facts. The set of knowledge which can be supported is called the set of cognitive units, each having associated descriptions of their explicit and implicit support structures, summarizing belief and reliability of belief. This summary is precise enough to be useful in a computational model while remaining descriptive of the underlying symbolic support structure. When a fact supports another supportive relationship between facts we call this meta-support. This facilitates reasoning about both the propositional knowledge. and the support structures underlying it.