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Inference in First-Order Logic

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14 views9 pages

Inference in First-Order Logic

Uploaded by

hariharan.m2023aiml
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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INFERENCE IN

FIRST-ORDER LOGIC
PROPOSITIONAL VS.FIRST-ORDER INFERENCE
• We begin with some simple inference rules that can be applied to
sentences with quantifiers to obtain sentences without quantifiers.

• These rules lead naturally to the idea that first-order inference can be
done by converting the knowledge base to propositional logic and
using propositional inference.

Lets discuss about,


• Inference rules for quantifiers
• Reduction to propositional inference
Inference rules for quantifiers
• Let us begin with universal quantifiers.
• Suppose our knowledge base contains the standard folkloric axiom
stating that
“all greedy kings are evil”
∀x King(x) ∧ Greedy(x) ⇒ Evil(x)
• Then it seems quite permissible to infer any of the following sentences:
Inference rules for quantifiers
• The rule of Universal Instantiation (UI) says that we can infer any
sentence obtained by substituting a ground term (a term without
variables) for the variable.

• To write out the inference rule formally, we use the notion of


substitutions.
Inference rules for quantifiers
• In the rule for Existential Instantiation, the variable is replaced by a
single new constant symbol.

• The formal statement is as follows: for any sentence α,variable ν, and


constant symbol K that does not appear elsewhere in the knowledge
base, as long as C1 does not appear elsewhere in the knowledge base.
Inference rules for quantifiers
• Basically, the existential sentence says there is some object
satisfying a condition, and applying the existential instantiation rule
just gives a name to that object.

• Of course, that name must not already belong to another object.


Reduction to propositional inference
• Once we have rules for inferring non-quantified sentences from
quantified sentences, it becomes possible to reduce first-order
inference to propositional inference.

• The idea is that, just as an


1. Existentially quantified sentence can be replaced by one
instantiation,
2. A universally quantified sentence can be replaced by the set of
all possible instantiations.
Reduction to propositional inference

• For example, suppose our knowledge base contains just the sentences

and we discard the universally quantified sentence.


Reduction to propositional inference

• Now, the knowledge base is essentially propositional if we view the


ground atomic sentences—King(John), Greedy (John),and so on—
as proposition symbols.

• Therefore, we can apply any of the complete propositional algorithms


to obtain conclusions such as Evil(John).

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