Delusions of Omniscience

May 1998

Proceedings of the Eleventh International Florida Artificial Intelligence Research Society Conference (FLAIRS 1998)

Volume

Proceedings of the Eleventh International Florida Artificial Intelligence Research Society Conference (FLAIRS 1998)

All Papers

Epistemic and doxastic modal logics (Hintikka [1962]), and the logics of theory change and belief revision (Alchourrón et. al. [1985], Gärdenfors [1988]) are used for the representation of belief. Both kinds of logic are omniscient in various ways. We address these delusions of omniscience in this paper. We begin by defining three kinds of omniscience - logical, deductive, and factual. We will then discuss some of the strategies which have been used to dispose of or deflate omniscience. Our main concern will be for the no worries strategies, and the other logics strategy. We then comment on the prospects for omniscience free logics.