Chapter 7: Reasoning

Monotonous Reasoning

In monotonic reasoning, once the conclusion is taken, then it will remain the same
even if we add some other information to existing information in our knowledge
base. In monotonic reasoning, adding knowledge does not decrease the set of
prepositions that can be derived.

To solve monotonic problems, we can derive the valid conclusion from the available
facts only, and it will not be affected by new facts.

Monotonic reasoning is not useful for the real-time systems, as in real time, facts get
changed, so we cannot use monotonic reasoning.

Monotonic reasoning is used in conventional reasoning systems, and a logic-based

system is monotonic.

Any theorem proving is an example of monotonic reasoning.

Example:

o Earth revolves around the Sun.

It is a true fact, and it cannot be changed even if we add another sentence in

knowledge base like, "The moon revolves around the earth" Or "Earth is not round,"
etc.

Advantages of Monotonic Reasoning:

o In monotonic reasoning, each old proof will always remain valid.

 o If we deduce some facts from available facts, then it will remain valid for
always.

Disadvantages of Monotonic Reasoning:

o We cannot represent the real world scenarios using Monotonic reasoning.

o Hypothesis knowledge cannot be expressed with monotonic reasoning, which
means facts should be true.
o Since we can only derive conclusions from the old proofs, so new knowledge
from the real world cannot be added.

Non-monotonic Reasoning

In Non-monotonic reasoning, some conclusions may be invalidated if we add some

more information to our knowledge base.

Logic will be said as non-monotonic if some conclusions can be invalidated by

adding more knowledge into our knowledge base.

Non-monotonic reasoning deals with incomplete and uncertain models.

"Human perceptions for various things in daily life, "is a general example of non-
monotonic reasoning.

Example: Let suppose the knowledge base contains the following knowledge:

o Birds can fly

o Penguins cannot fly
o Pitty is a bird
So from the above sentences, we can conclude that Pitty can fly.

However, if we add one another sentence into knowledge base "Pitty is a penguin",
which concludes "Pitty cannot fly", so it invalidates the above conclusion.

Advantages of Non-monotonic reasoning:

o For real-world systems such as Robot navigation, we can use non-monotonic

reasoning.
o In Non-monotonic reasoning, we can choose probabilistic facts or can make
assumptions.

Disadvantages of Non-monotonic Reasoning:

o In non-monotonic reasoning, the old facts may be invalidated by adding new

sentences.
o It cannot be used for theorem proving.

Statistical Reasoning

There are several techniques that can be used to augment knowledge representation
techniques with statistical measures that describe levels of evidence and belief. An
important goal for many problem solving systems is to collect evidence as the
systems goes along and to modify its behavior, we need a statistical theory of
evidence. Bayesian statistics is such a theory which stresses the conditional
probability as fundamental notion.
Probability & Bayes Theorem

- An important goal for many problems solving systems is to collect evidence as the
system goes along and to modify its behavior on the basis of evidence.

- To model this behavior we need a statistical theory of evidence.

- Bayesian statistics is such a theory. The fundamental notion of Bayesian statistics

is that of condition probability.

–Read the expression as the probability of Hypothesis H given that we have observed
evidence E.

- To compute this, we need to take into account the prior probability of H (the
probability that we would assign to H if we had no evidence) & the extent to which
E provides evidence of H. To do this we need to define a universe that contains an
exhaustive, mutually exclusive set of Hi, among which we are trying to discriminate

- P (Hi\E) =the probability that hypothesis Hi is true given evidence E,

P (E\Hi) (The probability that we will observe evidence E given that hypothesis Hi
is true.)

- P (Hi) = the prior probability that hypothesis Hi is true in the absence of any
specific evidence. These probabilities are called prior probabilities.

- Bayes theorem states then that P (Hi\E) =P (E\Hi)* P (Hi)/P (E)

Uncertainty in reasoning (SELF)

REFER TO: LINK

Case Based Reasoning

Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) is an Artificial Intelligence approach to learning and

problem solving based on past experience. CBR combines aspects from the
knowledge-based systems as well as from the machine learning field.

CBR has been used to create numerous applications in a wide range of domains
including

• Financial analysis

• Risk assessment

• Technical maintenance

• Process control

The underlying idea of CBR is simple:

Do not solve problems from scratch but remember how you (or someone else) solved
a similar problem and apply this knowledge to solve your current problem.