Section 5 : Knowledge representation of actions, situations, and mental beliefs

Commentary

To introduce situation calculus and frame problems based on first-order logic representation.
To present calculus for action, time, event, processes, intervals, fluents, and so on.
To discuss mental objects, such as beliefs, and their representation.

Describe situation calculus and the treatment of frame problems.
Discuss the representation of time, events, processes, and intervals.
Explain how mental objects, such as believes, knows, and wants, are represented in the context of first-order logic.
Explain the following concepts or terms:
- Situation
- Fluent
- Projection task
- Planning task
- Representational frame problem
- Inferential frame problem
- Mental object
- Believes, knows, and wants
- Logical omniscience
- Referential transparency and opaqueness

Reading topics:

Actions, Situations, and Events; Mental Events and Mental Objects (see Sections 12.3 - 12.4 of AIMA3ed).

Cohen, P. R., and Levesque, H. J. (1990). Intention is choice with commitment. Artificial Intelligence, 42(2-3), 213-261.

Nair, R. and Tambe, M. (2005). Hybrid BDI-POMDP framework for multiagent teaming. Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, 23, 367-420.

How are actions described in situation calculus?
Why should frame problems be handled in first-order inference? And how?
What are the two ways to represent logic forms of mental objects?
What are the inference rules used by the logical agent when adopting logic representation of mental objects?

Explore other logical forms of mental objects such as Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI), and similar forms.
Complete Exercise 12.9 of AIMA3ed.