Re: Review of FLD

see within...

On Tue, 19 May 2009 08:44:43 -0400
Chris Welty <cawelty@gmail.com> wrote:

> Michael Kifer wrote:
> > Chris,
> > thanx for your thoughts. This is useful and maybe we can converge soon.
> > Pls see below.
> > 
> > On Mon, 18 May 2009 23:01:40 -0400
> > Chris Welty <cawelty@gmail.com> wrote:
> > 
> >>>> Common Logic allows variable symbols and constant symbols to overlap.  Do the 
> >>>> subsets need to be disjoint?  All these types of things can be distinguished
> >>>> by their syntactic context.
> >>> This is just an unnecessary complication, which buys you nothing.
> >>> In many respects, RIF is more general than Common Logic, and forcing one to
> >>> decide what is a variable and what isn't by the context is a huge nuisance.
> >>> In fact, you CANNOT determine what is a variable by the context alone.
> >>> Many rule languages omit quantifiers. How do you distinguish then?
> >> As you point out below, the choice should be up to a dialect.  Allowing variable 
> >> and constant symbols to overlap in FLD simply means that a dialect can make that 
> >> choice, not that every dialect must support it.  As it is, Common Logic cannot 
> >> be expressed as an FLD dialect, and thus it is not more general.
> > 
> > FLD is a framework for exchange languages. An exchange language is a common
> > medium to which other languages are mapped. Are you saying that Common Logic
> > cannot be mapped to FLD? I don't believe it until you prove it. Good
> > luck! :-).
> 
> Its not Fermat's last theorem, but here goes:
> Common logic allows variable names and constant names to overlap.  FLD does not 
> allow a dialect to do this.  Common Logic cannot be a dialect of FLD. QED.

Lousy job :-)
I said prove that CL can't be *mapped* to a suitable FLD dialect.  CL "can't be
a dialect" for much more obvious reasons than your pseudo-theorem "proves."
Simply: it has a different syntax, so it is not a dialect. But a suitable
dialect is one that allows a simple mapping of CL. In particular, variables of
CL are mapped to variables of FLD.

Anyway, I think I might have an explanation (see below).


> > Second, I said that FLD is more general than Common Logic "in many respects."
> > That claim holds true. In a well-defined sense, it is also strictly more
> > general, since Common logic is just a first-order logic, while FLD can define
> > non-1st-order dialects as well.
> 
> Not sure what the claim is here.  If you simply lift the restriction on 
> disjointness then your statement is strictly true (or at least, I have no reason 
> to suspect otherwise).  If you don't, it isn't.
> 
> >>> Besides, we have already agreed early on that variables are prefixed with a ?,
> >>> and this is how one identifies them.
> >> We agreed on that for our existing dialects.  I never agreed to that for all 
> >> logic languages.  I personally don't see why it is needed, unless you allow no 
> >> quantifiers, in which case you do.  Again, seems like its a choice in language 
> >> design, not something to require of all.
> > 
> > Not requiring variables to be disjoint from constants is an unnecessary
> > complication that brings NO benefits whatsoever. I can't even imagine what a
> > suitable XML framework would look like in that case.
> 
> Why do you need to care what dialect designers who choose to do this do?  The 
> XML syntax makes it totally obvious and unambiguous.  This is definitely NOT an 
> issue with the XML syntax.

So, you accept that in XML variables should be clearly marked? Then it is
easy:
The presentation syntax (minus the shortcuts) is an abstract syntax, so
variables must be clearly marked as such. Instead of writing something
like $Var(X) (in a run-of-the-mill abstract syntax) we write ?X, for brevity.
The symbol X can be also a constant. We just consider ? to be part of the
symbol, so ?X and X are different and variables end up to be disjoint from
constants. It is like saying that the set {$Const(...)} is disjoint from the set
{$Var(...)}.

Did I get to the source of the confusion? Then maybe a note explaining this
would suffice to clear this out?


-- 
    -- michael

Received on Tuesday, 19 May 2009 15:53:26 UTC