CS 305 – Introduction to

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

A First-Order Logic Tutorial

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Purpose
 This tutorial was created to help explain
first-order logic

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The Basics
 Constant symbols: B, X, Jane, Ralph
 A specific object in the world
 Predicate symbols: Parent(John, Jane),
Brother(Jack, Jill)
 Refers to a relation in a model
 Ex: John is Jane’s Parent
 Ex: Jack is Jill’s brother

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The Basics (continued)
 Function Symbols: FatherOf(John),
PetOf(Jill)
 An object is directly related to exactly one
other object
 Ex: The object John is directly related to the
object John by the relationship FatherOf. That
object may be called Ralph.
 Ex: The object Jill is directly related to another
object called Sparky by the relation PetOf.

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The Basics (continued)
 Terms: A, Jane, Ralph, FatherOf(John),
PetOf(Jill)
 Logical representation that refers to an particular
object
 Atomic Sentences: Parent(John, Jane),
Brother(Jack, Jill)
 Predicate symbol followed parenthesized list of
terms
 Complex Sentences:
 Constructed by using logical connectives
 Connectives include: ,,,,

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Examples of Sentences
 Understanding how to construct basic
sentences is key to using FOL
 Ex: YoungerThan(Joe, Jim)
 This sentence says “Joe is younger than Jim”
 Parent(Adam, Zoe)  Parent(Jane, Adam)
 This sentence says “Adam is Zoe’s parent and
Jane is Adam’s Parent”
 Ex: Cat(Morris)  Likes(Morris, catnip)
 This sentence says “If Morris is a cat then he likes
catnip”

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Create your own sentences
 Given the following English sentences,
create FOL sentences
 Fido is Jack’s pet.
 Jill owns a car.
 Tweety is a yellow bird and is Bob’s pet.
 Tom is a cat and Jerry is a bird.

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Create your own sentences
 English: Fido is Jack’s pet.
 FOL: Pet(Fido, Jack)
 English: Jill owns a car.
 FOL: Owns(Jill,car)
 English: Tweety loves bird seed and he is
Bob’s pet.
 FOL: Loves(Tweety,bird seed)  Pet(Tweety,Bob)
 English: Tom is a cat and Jerry is a bird.
 FOL: Cat(Tom)  Bird(Jerry)

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Representing Collections
 How can you represent of an entire
collection of objects using FOL?
 Refer to “All people…” or “There is a
person…”
 Ex: How can one state “All dogs like bones”
using FOL?
 Ex: How can one state “Someone likes liver”
using FOL?

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Quantifiers
 Universal Quantifier: 
 “For all….”
 Ex: “All dogs like bones”
 FOL: xDog(x)  Likes(x,bones)
 This reads “For any object x, if x is a dog then x likes
bones”
 Ex: “Anything with a beak and feathers is a bird”
 FOL: xHasBeak(x)  HasFeathers(x)  Bird(x)
 This reads “For any object x, if x has a beak and x has
feathers then x is a bird”

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Quantifiers
 Existential Quantifier: 
 “There exists….”
 Ex: “There is someone who likes liver”
 FOL: xLikes(x, liver)
 This reads “There is an object x that likes liver”
 Ex: “Mary owns a coat”
 xOwns(Mary,x)  Coat(x)

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Using Inference FOL (Proofs)
 Recognize which rules you can use.
 The primary rules you can use are the Inference
Rules on pages 211-212 (these rules apply to FOL
as well as propositional logic)
 In order to apply these rules, you must also have
rules to handle (get rid of) quantifiers.
 The rules to accomplish this are discussed on pages 272-
273

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Simple Proof
 Suppose we have the following
situation:
 Anything that barks is a dog. Fido barks.
 We wish to prove that Fido is a dog.
 This fact is obvious to us but how can a
computer prove this?
 See the next slide

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Simple Proof (continued)
 Step 1: State the facts you know in FOL
 We know anything that barks is a dog.
State this fact in FOL:
 a. xBarks(x)  Dog(x)
 This says “If x barks then x is a dog”. We are given
this fact.
 We know that Fido barks. State this fact in
FOL:
 B. Barks(Fido)

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Simple Proof (continued)
 Step 2: Remove all quantifiers
 Apply the Universal Instantiation inference
rule to remove the universal quantifier ()
in sentence a
 The result is:
 c. Barks(Fido)  Dog(Fido)

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Simple Proof (continued)
 So far we have the following sentences:
 A. xBarks(x)  Dog(x)
 B. Barks(Fido)
 C. Barks(Fido)  Dog(Fido)
 Step 3: See what inference rules can be
applied.
 Think about what we want to do: Eliminate the
implication in C, leaving the sentence “Dog(Fido)”
 How can we so this? Use Modens Ponens
 D. Dog(Fido)

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 Simple Proof (continued)
 Our entire proof looks like:

A. xBarks(x)  Dog(x) State a given fact

B. Barks(Fido) State a given fact

C. Barks(Fido)  Dog(Fido) Apply Universal Instantiation on C

D. Dog(Fido) Apply Modus Ponens to B and C

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