Re: Contexts and quantifiers in KIF

• Mail folder: Interlingua Mail
• Next message: Chris Menzel: "Re: Contexts and quantifiers in KIF"
• Previous message: sowa: "Re: Contexts and quantifiers in KIF"
• In-reply-to: sowa: "Re: Contexts and quantifiers in KIF"
• Reply: sowa: "Re: Contexts and quantifiers in KIF"

Date: Wed, 14 Apr 93 16:21:55 -0700
From: Jim Fulton <jfulton@atc.boeing.com>
Message-id: <9304142321.AA29363@atc.boeing.com>
To: jfulton@atc.boeing.com, sowa@turing.pacss.binghamton.edu
Subject: Re: Contexts and quantifiers in KIF
Cc: cg@cs.umn.edu, interlingua@ISI.EDU, srkb@ISI.EDU

John, 

I think our disagreement here is fundamental.  What is expressed by contrary-
to-fact but true modal statements (e.g., Bush could have been re-elected but 
wasn't) is not a data structure.  The statement is a data structure.  The 
truth represented by that data structure is a real fact about the world.  
We have criteria for exploring contrary-to-fact hypotheticals (for playing 
what-if games), for distinguishing truth from falsity, consistency from 
inconsistency, likely from unlikely.  Those criteria are based not on the 
syntax of a data structure but on what we learn from the real world and 
extrapolate beyond it.

Jim