von Neumann-Morgenstern and Savage Theorems for Causal Decision Making

Causal thinking and decision making under uncertainty are fundamental aspects of intelligent reasoning. Decision making under uncertainty has been well studied when information is considered at the associative (probabilistic) level. The classical Theorems of von Neumann-Morgenstern and Savage provide a formal criterion for rational choice using purely associative information. Causal inference often yields uncertainty about the exact causal structure, so we consider what kinds of decisions are possible in those conditions. In this work, we consider decision problems in which available actions and consequences are causally connected. After recalling a previous causal decision making result, which relies on a known causal model, we consider the case in which the causal mechanism that controls some environment is unknown to a rational decision maker. In this setting we state and prove a causal version of Savage's Theorem, which we then use to develop a notion of causal games with its respective causal Nash equilibrium. These results highlight the importance of causal models in decision making and the variety of potential applications.Comment: Submitted to Journal of Causal Inferenc

The situated common-sense knowledge in FunGramKB

It has been widely demonstrated that expectation-based schemata, along the lines of Lakoff's propositional Idealized Cognitive Models, play a crucial role in text comprehension. Discourse inferences are grounded on the shared generalized knowledge which is activated from the situational model underlying the text surface dimension. From a cognitive-plausible and linguistic-aware approach to knowledge representation, FunGramKB stands out for being a dynamic repository of lexical, constructional and conceptual knowledge which contributes to simulate human-level reasoning. The objective of this paper is to present a script model as a carrier of the situated common-sense knowledge required to help knowledge engineers construct more "intelligent" natural language processing systems.Periñán Pascual, JC. (2012). The situated common-sense knowledge in FunGramKB. Review of Cognitive Linguistics. 10(1):184-214. doi:10.1075/rcl.10.1.06perS18421410

Logic-Based Specification Languages for Intelligent Software Agents

The research field of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE) aims to find abstractions, languages, methodologies and toolkits for modeling, verifying, validating and prototyping complex applications conceptualized as Multiagent Systems (MASs). A very lively research sub-field studies how formal methods can be used for AOSE. This paper presents a detailed survey of six logic-based executable agent specification languages that have been chosen for their potential to be integrated in our ARPEGGIO project, an open framework for specifying and prototyping a MAS. The six languages are ConGoLog, Agent-0, the IMPACT agent programming language, DyLog, Concurrent METATEM and Ehhf. For each executable language, the logic foundations are described and an example of use is shown. A comparison of the six languages and a survey of similar approaches complete the paper, together with considerations of the advantages of using logic-based languages in MAS modeling and prototyping.Comment: 67 pages, 1 table, 1 figure. Accepted for publication by the Journal "Theory and Practice of Logic Programming", volume 4, Maurice Bruynooghe Editor-in-Chie

Losing Deixis: Referentialist Cosmologies in Postcolonial East-Africa and Beyond

The advantage of comparing ng’hambo and nyato in terms of their deictic versus referential discourse is methodological. To substantiate our hypothesis, we examine respective instances of oracular discourse (applying among others Silverstein’s semiotic approach). The language can moreover be analyzed grammatically, among others for its distal versus proximal and medial pro-forms. But more broadly, on a level eluding discursive analysis and which this paper will exploit fully, the totality of fieldwork experiences may help to contrast the purpose of the two practices. One purpose of divination, described since Victor Turner and later René Devisch, is world-making/ordering or the cosmo-nomic (cosmos, world; nomos, order) which includes the invisible world of spirits and unknown forces. Yet, paradoxically, another purpose equally well described (cf Zeitlyn, Abbink) is its contraction, a version of the cosmo-nomic that is reduced to the visible world only, the economic (oikos, house; nomos, order), with its easily sustained illusion of measurable debt and credit, and market efficiency (although less easily sustained since the 2008 bank crisis). Unlike ng’hambo, nyato can deny the part of the invisible world that must be reached through placation, hope, trial and subjunctivity, in one word sacrifice. Nyato’s world is one of efficiency and accountability, better: one where investment (for example, of magic) will yield return, in brief: gift without sacrifice – a type of divination perfectly adapted to economic activity, namely the sort of preoccupation with ‘the household’ that does not concern itself with impact on the larger world, social or natural. While ng’hambo - ‘cosmonomic’ divination par excellence - works by managing the states of the world, always seeking to ground itself in the cosmology and thus affecting the participants’ various modes and codes of the senses, nyato can be understood as ‘economic’ divination: diviners have freed themselves from the shackles of community and cosmology, and are willing to lose deixis to make more clients and develop a referentialist discourse that is nationally and globally accessible. That is why until today nyato survives together with ng’hambo

Quantum Theory: a Pragmatist Approach

While its applications have made quantum theory arguably the most successful theory in physics, its interpretation continues to be the subject of lively debate within the community of physicists and philosophers concerned with conceptual foundations. This situation poses a problem for a pragmatist for whom meaning derives from use. While disputes about how to use quantum theory have arisen from time to time, they have typically been quickly resolved, and consensus reached, within the relevant scientific sub-community. Yet rival accounts of the meaning of quantum theory continue to proliferate . In this article I offer a diagnosis of this situation and outline a pragmatist solution to the problem it poses, leaving further details for subsequent articles