Mental Events and Mental
Objects
IT8601 Mental Events and Mental Objects S. Prabhavathi AP/IT 1
Mental Events and Mental Objects
• For a single- agent domains, knowledge about one’s own
knowledge and reasoning processes is useful for
controlling inference.
• In a multiagent domains, it becomes important for an
agent to reason about the mental states of the other
agents.
• Example Bob and Alice scenario
• It requires a model of the mental objects in someone’s
head(knowledge base) and the processes that manipulate
these mental objects.
IT8601 Mental Events and Mental Objects 2
A formal theory of beliefs
• Relationships between agents and mental objects:
believes, knows, wants, intends ... are called
propositional attitudes
• Lois knows that Superman can fly:
– Knows (Lois , CanFly (Superman ))
• If Superman is Clark, then we must conclude that Lois
knows that Clark can fly:
– (Superman = Clark ) ∧ Knows (Lois , CanFly (Superman )) |=
Knows(Lois, CanFly(Clark))
• “Can Clark fly?” – No. Need descriptions
• If an agent knows that 2 + 2 = 4 and 4 < 5, then we want
an agent to know that 2 + 2 < 5. This property is called
referential transparency
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A formal theory of beliefs
• For propositional attitudes like believes and knows, we
would like to have referential opacity
Modal logic address this problem
• Modal logic includes special modal operators that take
sentences (rather than terms) as arguments.
• Example: “A knows P” is represented with the notation
KAP,
- where K is the modal operator for knowledge,
- agent A (written as the subscript) and a sentence
Opacity: blur, condition of lacking transparency
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Possible Worlds And Accessibility Relations
• In modal logic, consider both the possibility that
Superman’s secret identity is Clark and that it isn’t.
– Clark=Superman and Clark!=Superman
• Build a model, that consists of a collection of possible
worlds rather than just one true world and the worlds are
connected in a graph by accessibility relations
• “Bond knows that someone is a spy” is ambiguous.
∃x KBondSpy(x)
which in modal logic means that there is an x that, in all accessible
worlds, Bond knows to be a spy.
• Bond just knows that there is at least one spy:
KBond∃x Spy(x)
The modal logic interpretation is that in each accessible world
there is an x that is a spy, but it need not be the same x in
each
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Knowledge and belief
• Knowledge in terms if AI is something which is always true
• Belief on the other hand deals more with probability
• After extensive study, it is commonly said that knowledge is
justified true belief
• Example:
– Eating food necessary for living, so we eat.
– Gambling to gain money. Probability. Believe we will win
• Knows(a, p) –
agent a knows that proposition p is true
• Lois knows whether Clark can fly if she either knows that
Clark can fly or knows that he cannot
– Knowswhether(a, p) ! knows(a, p) v knows(a, ¬p)
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Knowledge, time and action
• Belief is also something which can change over time. For
example:
• Lois believes Superman flies today
T(Believes(Lois, flies(Superman)),Today)
• The same will not be true in 100 years when he died of old
age
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