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THEORY-1239: No logistic system, one that separates propositions from general laws of inference, can carry commonsense knowledge, whose defaults later evidence displaces: attempts to repair its monotonicity will continue to fail

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Properties4
StatusProposed
Tagslogic, cognition
SourceLIT-410 — A Framework for Representing Knowledge
ExtendsTHEORY-462 — If commonsense knowledge includes defaults that later evidence displaces, a monotonic logic, in which an added axiom can never remove a theorem, cannot represent that displacement as it stands; Minsky's further claim, that no logistic system, one that separates propositions from general laws of inference, can carry commonsense knowledge even once repaired, is asserted, not shown

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Source

Minsky (1974), MIT AI Memo 306, LIT-410, §6, read in full in NOTE-337 from an OCR of the scan. THEORY-462 holds the definitional half and reports that this further claim is asserted.

Why it is Proposed

The memo gives five counts against “logistic” systems. Monotonicity is one of them: “each added axiom means more theorems, none can disappear”. That much holds of classical logic. That no repair can succeed is a forecast. Default logic and circumscription were built to make that repair, and the record has not read them. The memo’s one engaged target is McCarthy’s Airport problem.

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