Re: Questions - meta-questions about knowledge representation

Apologies, for the late reply to this thread

These are valid questions, bur can be answered in a variety of ways
At the same time, they are possibly a bit speculative - I mean, what
motivates this inquiry/
There is so much literature,  I suspect you would have to find your own
answers

Some very quick thoughts  (I have no spare neurons) apologies for the
brevity

The non symbolic KR well, KR is symbolic (in the sense that it is explicit)
but it can be used to represent, say, stochastic or probabilistic
reasoning? (Discuss)

Can we use KR say to represent the predictions as to how a network of
mycelium is going to develop
(I think so, maybe using a neural network visualisation approach that can
be tweaked to reflect different
conditions/assumptions/scenarios)

especially if we start looking at the neurosymbolic KR (as the explicit
representation of neurosymbolic AI)

But hay, let us know when the thinking evolves -
somehow this is related to D Raggets post today perhaps
DR wrote:
Further work is needed on declarative means to express strategies and
tactics for argumentation, along with associated work on machine learning.
It is probably going to be easier and more scalable to work on neural
networks that learn and reason like we do if the goal is to construct tools
to help with the kinds of applications envisaged by Lenat and others.



On Fri, Jul 5, 2024 at 9:33 AM <ontologos@protonmail.com> wrote:

> Here are some meta-questions (background questions about the why and
> foundations) and devil's advocate questions that are not often (?) asked,
> but helpful for non-specialists, students, and I assume even experts. Note,
> I know some answers the following, but I would like to see the answers of
> others. Also, some answers i'm aware of are superficial, so hopefully we
> can have more substantive ones here.
>
> Context:
>
>    - When I studied knowledge representation and reasoning (KRR) and
>    philosophy of AI, KRR was presented as one topic in AI. And symbolic and
>    non-symbolic approaches were mentioned.
>
>
> 1) Are there non-symbolic approaches to KRR?
> (Approaches that do not use symbolic logics?)
>
> If so, what are they, and what are the pro's and con's of both
> (non)symbolic KRR?
> (it may be helpful to define what you mean by symbolic and non-symbolic if
> different from the use of FOL and other logics)
>
> 2) Why use formal/symbol logics such as first-order predicate calculus (or
> others)?
> Do you have quantitative evidence for the benefits of them?
> Can you give examples of successful projects that publicize quantitaitve
> evidence for the benefits?
>
> 3) What are alternatives for KRR techniques for achieving the same goals
> KRR aims to?
>
> 4) Do you have quantitative evidence for the utility of KRR in general?
>
> 5) ...add your own meta-level questions...
>
> NOTE: I've seen answers to 2 & 4 are often found as qualitative
> descriptions, buzz-phrases, or hand-waving (like in many disciplines) but
> without clear and specific quantiattive evidence. So please focus on that.
> Quantiative evidence may involve: showing increases in efficiency of this
> or that computational process, (by the numbers), etc.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Roberto
> --
>
>