Propositional logic in Artificial intelligence

Propositional logic (PL) is the simplest form of logic where all the statements
are made by propositions. A proposition is a declarative statement which is
either true or false. It is a technique of knowledge representation in logical and
mathematical form.

Example:

1. a) It is Sunday.
2. b) The Sun rises from West (False proposition)
3. c) 3+3= 7(False proposition)
4. d) 5 is a prime number.
Following are some basic facts about propositional logic:
o Propositional logic is also called Boolean logic as it works on 0 and 1.
o In propositional logic, we use symbolic variables to represent the logic,
and we can use any symbol for a representing a proposition, such A, B, C, P, Q,
R, etc.
o Propositions can be either true or false, but it cannot be both.
o Propositional logic consists of an object, relations or function, and logical
connectives.
o These connectives are also called logical operators.
o The propositions and connectives are the basic elements of the
propositional logic.
o Connectives can be said as a logical operator which connects two
sentences.
o A proposition formula which is always true is called tautology, and it is
also called a valid sentence.
o A proposition formula which is always false is called Contradiction.

o A proposition formula which has both true and false values is called
contingency.
Here are some other types of propositions:
 Tautology: A proposition that is always true, regardless of the truth values of its
propositional variables
 Contradiction: A proposition that is always false
Propositional logic is a formal logical system that deals with propositions and is
used by computer scientists to express ideas about statements.
 o Contingency: A Contingency is a formula which has both some true and
some false values for every value of its propositional variables.

o Statements which are questions, commands, or opinions are not

propositions such as "Where is Rohini", "How are you", "What is
your name", are not propositions.

Syntax of propositional logic:

The syntax of propositional logic defines the allowable sentences

for the knowledge representation. There are two types of
Propositions:

1. Atomic Propositions
2. Compound propositions

o Atomic Proposition: Atomic propositions are the simple

propositions. It consists of a single proposition symbol. These
are the sentences which must be either true or false.
Example:

1. a) 2+2 is 4, it is an atomic proposition as it is a true fact.

2. b) "The Sun is cold" is also a proposition as it is a false fact.

o Compound proposition: Compound propositions are

constructed by combining simpler or atomic propositions,
using parenthesis and logical connectives.
Example:

1. a) "It is raining today, and street is wet."

2. b) "Ankit is a doctor, and his clinic is in Mumbai."

Logical Connectives:
Logical connectives are used to connect two simpler propositions
or representing a sentence logically. We can create compound
propositions with the help of logical connectives. There are
mainly five connectives, which are given as follows:

1. Negation: A sentence such as ¬ P is called negation of P. A

literal can be either Positive literal or negative literal.
 Conjunction: A sentence which has ∧ connective such
∧
2.
as, P Q is called a conjunction.
Example: Rohan is intelligent and hardworking. It can be written
as,
P= Rohan is intelligent,

3. Disjunction: A sentence which has ∨ connective, such as P

Q= Rohan is hardworking. → P∧ Q.

∨ Q. is called disjunction, where P and Q are the propositions.

Example: "Ritika is a doctor or Engineer",

as P ∨ Q.
Here P= Ritika is Doctor. Q= Ritika is Doctor, so we can write it

4. Implication: A sentence such as P → Q, is called an

implication. Implications are also known as if-then rules. It can
be represented as
If it is raining, then the street is wet.
Let P= It is raining, and Q= Street is wet, so it is
represented as P → Q
5. Biconditional: A sentence such as P⇔ Q is a
Biconditional sentence, example If I am breathing, then I am
alive

as P ⇔ Q.
P= I am breathing, Q= I am alive, it can be represented

Following is the summarized table for Propositional Logic

Connectives:

Truth Table:
In propositional logic, we need to know the truth values of propositions in all possible
scenarios. We can combine all the possible combination with logical connectives, and
the representation of these combinations in a tabular format is called Truth table.
Following are the truth table for all logical connectives:
Truth table with three propositions:
We can build a proposition composing three propositions P, Q, and R. This truth table is
made-up of 8n Tuples as we have taken three proposition symbols.
 Precedence of connectives:
Just like arithmetic operators, there is a precedence order for propositional connectors or
logical operators. This order should be followed while evaluating a propositional
problem. Following is the list of the precedence order for operators:

Precedence Operators

First Precedence Parenthesis

Second Precedence Negation

Third Precedence Conjunction(AND)

Fourth Precedence Disjunction(OR)

Fifth Precedence Implication

Six Precedence Biconditional

Note: For better understanding use parenthesis to make sure of the

∨ Q.
correct interpretations. Such as ¬R∨ Q, It can be interpreted as (¬R)

Logical equivalence:
Logical equivalence is one of the features of propositional logic. Two propositions are
said to be logically equivalent if and only if the columns in the truth table are identical to
each other.
Let's take two propositions A and B, so for logical equivalence, we can write it as A⇔B.
In below truth table we can see that column for ¬A∨ B and A→B, are identical hence A
is Equivalent to B

Properties of Operators:
o Commutativity:
P∧ Q= Q ∧ P, or
P ∨ Q = Q ∨ P.
o
o
o Associativity:
(P ∧ Q) ∧ R= P ∧ (Q ∧ R),
(P ∨ Q) ∨ R= P ∨ (Q ∨ R)
o
o
o Identity element:
P ∧ True = P,
P ∨ True= True.
o
o
o Distributive:
P∧ (Q ∨ R) = (P ∧ Q) ∨ (P ∧ R).
P ∨ (Q ∧ R) = (P ∨ Q) ∧ (P ∨ R).
o
o
o DE Morgan's Law:
¬ (P ∧ Q) = (¬P) ∨ (¬Q)
¬ (P ∨ Q) = (¬ P) ∧ (¬Q).
o
o
o Double-negation elimination:
o ¬ (¬P) = P.

Limitations of Propositional logic:

o We cannot represent relations like ALL, some, or none with

propositional logic. Example:

o All the girls are intelligent.

o Some apples are sweet.
o Propositional logic has limited expressive power.
o In propositional logic, we cannot describe statements in terms of
their properties or logical relationships.
Techniques of knowledge representation
There are mainly four ways of knowledge representation
which are given as follows:
1. Logical Representation
2. Semantic Network Representation
3. Frame Representation
4. Production Rules

1. Logical Representation
Logical representation is a language with some concrete rules which deals
with propositions and has no ambiguity in representation. Logical
representation means drawing a conclusion based on various conditions.
This representation lays down some important communication rules. It
consists of precisely defined syntax and semantics which supports the
sound inference. Each sentence can be translated into logics using syntax
and semantics.

Syntax:

o Syntaxes are the rules which decide how we can construct legal
sentences in the logic.
o It determines which symbol we can use in knowledge
representation.
 o How to write those symbols.

Semantics:
o Semantics are the rules by which we can interpret the sentence in the
logic.
o Semantic also involves assigning a meaning to each sentence.
Logical representation can be categorised into mainly two logics:

1. Propositional Logics
2. Predicate logics

Advantages of logical representation:

1. Logical representation enables us to do logical reasoning.
2. Logical representation is the basis for the programming languages.

Disadvantages of logical Representation:

1. Logical representations have some restrictions and are challenging to work
with.
2. Logical representation technique may not be very natural, and inference
may not be so efficient.

2. Semantic Network Representation

Semantic networks are alternative of predicate logic for knowledge
representation. In Semantic networks, we can represent our knowledge in
the form of graphical networks. This network consists of nodes
representing objects and arcs which describe the relationship between
those objects. Semantic networks can categorize the object in different
forms and can also link those objects. Semantic networks are easy to
understand and can be easily extended.

This representation consist of mainly two types of relations:

1. IS-A relation (Inheritance)

2. Kind-of-relation

Example: Following are some statements which we need to represent

in the form of nodes and arcs.

Statements:

1. Jerry is a cat.
 2. Jerry is a mammal
3. Jerry is owned by Priya.
4. Jerry is brown colored.
5. All Mammals are animal.

In the above diagram, we have represented the different type of knowledge

in the form of nodes and arcs. Each object is connected with another object
by some relation.

Drawbacks in Semantic representation:

1. Semantic networks take more computational time at runtime as we need to
traverse the complete network tree to answer some questions. It might be
possible in the worst case scenario that after traversing the entire tree, we
find that the solution does not exist in this network.
2. Semantic networks try to model human-like memory (Which has 1015
neurons and links) to store the information, but in practice, it is not possible
to build such a vast semantic network.
3. These types of representations are inadequate as they do not have any
equivalent quantifier, e.g., for all, for some, none, etc.
4. Semantic networks do not have any standard definition for the link names.
5. These networks are not intelligent and depend on the creator of the
system.

Advantages of Semantic network:

1. Semantic networks are a natural representation of knowledge.
2. Semantic networks convey meaning in a transparent manner.
3. These networks are simple and easily understandable.
 3. Frame Representation
A frame is a record like structure which consists of a collection of attributes
and its values to describe an entity in the world. Frames are the AI data
structure which divides knowledge into substructures by representing
stereotypes situations. It consists of a collection of slots and slot values.
These slots may be of any type and sizes. Slots have names and values
which are called facets.

Facets: The various aspects of a slot is known as Facets. Facets are

features of frames which enable us to put constraints on the frames.
Example: IF-NEEDED facts are called when data of any particular slot is
needed. A frame may consist of any number of slots, and a slot may
include any number of facets and facets may have any number of values. A
frame is also known as slot-filter knowledge representation in artificial
intelligence.

Frames are derived from semantic networks and later evolved into our
modern-day classes and objects. A single frame is not much useful.
Frames system consist of a collection of frames which are connected. In
the frame, knowledge about an object or event can be stored together in
the knowledge base. The frame is a type of technology which is widely
used in various applications including Natural language processing and
machine visions.

Example: 1

Let's take an example of a frame for a book

Slots Filters

Title Artificial Intelligence

Genre Computer Science

Author Peter Norvig

Edition Third Edition

Year 1996
Page 1152

Example 2:

Slots Filter

Name Peter

Profession Doctor

Age 25

Marital status Single

Weight 78

Let's suppose we are taking an entity, Peter. Peter is an engineer as a

profession, and his age is 25, he lives in city London, and the country is
England. So following is the frame representation for this:

Advantages of frame representation:

1. The frame knowledge representation makes the programming easier by
grouping the related data.
2. The frame representation is comparably flexible and used by many
applications in AI.
3. It is very easy to add slots for new attribute and relations.
4. It is easy to include default data and to search for missing values.
5. Frame representation is easy to understand and visualize.

Disadvantages of frame representation:

1. In frame system inference mechanism is not be easily processed.
2. Inference mechanism cannot be smoothly proceeded by frame
representation.
3. Frame representation has a much generalized approach.
4. Production Rules
Production rules system consist of (condition, action) pairs which mean,
"If condition then action". It has mainly three parts:

o The set of production rules

o Working Memory
o The recognize-act-cycle
In production rules agent checks for the condition and if the condition exists
then production rule fires and corresponding action is carried out. The
condition part of the rule determines which rule may be applied to a
problem. And the action part carries out the associated problem-solving
steps. This complete process is called a recognize-act cycle.

The working memory contains the description of the current state of

problems-solving and rule can write knowledge to the working memory.
This knowledge match and may fire other rules.

If there is a new situation (state) generates, then multiple production rules

will be fired together, this is called conflict set. In this situation, the agent
needs to select a rule from these sets, and it is called a conflict resolution.

Example:
o IF (at bus stop AND bus arrives) THEN action (get into the bus)
o IF (on the bus AND paid AND empty seat) THEN action (sit down).
o IF (on bus AND unpaid) THEN action (pay charges).
o IF (bus arrives at destination) THEN action (get down from the bus).

Advantages of Production rule:

1. The production rules are expressed in natural language.
2. The production rules are highly modular, so we can easily remove,
add or modify an individual rule.

Disadvantages of Production rule:

1. Production rule system does not exhibit any learning capabilities, as
it does not store the result of the problem for the future uses.
2. During the execution of the program, many rules may be active
hence rule-based production systems are inefficient.

Types of knowledge
Following are the various types of knowledge:
1. Declarative Knowledge:
o Declarative knowledge is to know about something.
o It includes concepts, facts, and objects.
o It is also called descriptive knowledge and expressed in
declarative sentences.
o It is simpler than procedural language.
2. Procedural Knowledge
o It is also known as imperative knowledge.
o Procedural knowledge is a type of knowledge which is responsible
for knowing how to do something.
o It can be directly applied to any task.
o It includes rules, strategies, procedures, agendas, etc.
o Procedural knowledge depends on the task on which it can be
applied.
3. Meta-knowledge:

o Knowledge about the other types of knowledge is called Meta-

knowledge.
4. Heuristic knowledge:
 o Heuristic knowledge is representing knowledge of some experts in
a filed or subject.
o Heuristic knowledge is rules of thumb based on previous
experiences, awareness of approaches, and which are good to
work but not guaranteed.
5. Structural knowledge:

o Structural knowledge is basic knowledge to problem-solving.

o It describes relationships between various concepts such as kind
of, part of, and grouping of something.
o It describes the relationship that exists between concepts or
objects.

The relation between knowledge and intelligence:

Knowledge of real-worlds plays a vital role in intelligence and same
for creating artificial intelligence. Knowledge plays an important role in
demonstrating intelligent behavior in AI agents. An agent is only able
to accurately act on some input when he has some knowledge or
experience about that input.

Let's suppose if you met some person who is speaking in a language

which you don't know, then how you will able to act on that. The same
thing applies to the intelligent behavior of the agents.

As we can see in below diagram, there is one decision maker which

act by sensing the environment and using knowledge. But if the
knowledge part will not present then, it cannot display intelligent
behavior.
AI knowledge cycle:
An Artificial intelligence system has the following components for
displaying intelligent behavior:

o Perception(understanding)
o Learning
o Knowledge Representation and Reasoning
o Planning
o Execution

The above diagram is showing how an AI system can interact with the real
world and what components help it to show intelligence. AI system has
Perception component by which it retrieves information from its
 environment. It can be visual, audio or another form of sensory input. The
learning component is responsible for learning from data captured by
Perception comportment. In the complete cycle, the main components are
knowledge representation and Reasoning. These two components are
involved in showing the intelligence in machine-like humans. These two
components are independent with each other but also coupled together.
The planning and execution depend on analysis of Knowledge
representation and reasoning.

Approaches to knowledge representation:

There are mainly four approaches to knowledge representation, which are givenbelow:

1. Simple relational knowledge:

o It is the simplest way of storing facts which uses the relational method,
and each fact about a set of the object is set out systematically in
columns.
o This approach of knowledge representation is famous in database
systems where the relationship between different entities is
represented.
o This approach has little opportunity for inference.
Example: The following is the simple relational knowledge
representation.

Player Weight Age

Player1 65 23

Player2 58 18

Player3 75 24

2. Inheritable knowledge:
o In the inheritable knowledge approach, all data must be stored into
a hierarchy of classes.
o All classes should be arranged in a generalized form or a
hierarchal manner.
o In this approach, we apply inheritance property.
 o Elements inherit values from other members of a class.
o This approach contains inheritable knowledge which shows a
relation between instance and class, and it is called instance
relation.
o Every individual frame can represent the collection of attributes
and its value.
o In this approach, objects and values are represented in Boxed
nodes.
o We use Arrows which point from objects to their values.
o Example:

3. Inferential knowledge:

o Inferential knowledge approach represents knowledge in the form

of formal logics.
o This approach can be used to derive more facts.
o It guaranteed correctness.
o Example: Let's suppose there are two statements:

o Marcus is a man
o All men are mortal
Then it can represent as;

∀x = man (x) ----------> mortal (x)s

man(Marcus)
4. Procedural knowledge:

o Procedural knowledge approach uses small programs and codes

which describes how to do specific things, and how to proceed.
o In this approach, one important rule is used which is If-Then rule.
o In this knowledge, we can use various coding languages such
as LISP language and Prolog language.
o We can easily represent heuristic or domain-specific knowledge
using this approach.
o But it is not necessary that we can represent all cases in this
approach.

Requirements for knowledge Representation system:

A good knowledge representation system must possess the following
properties.

1. 1. Representational Accuracy:
KR system should have the ability to represent all kind of required
knowledge.
2. 2. Inferential Adequacy:
KR system should have ability to manipulate the representational
structures to produce new knowledge corresponding to existing
structure.
3. 3. Inferential Efficiency:
The ability to direct the inferential knowledge mechanism into the
most productive directions by storing appropriate guides.
4. 4. Acquisitional efficiency- The ability to acquire the new
knowledge easily using automatic methods.