Operators vs. Arguments: The Ins and Outs of Reification

Abstract

So-called 'reified temporal logics' were introduced by researchers in Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the early 1980s, and gave rise to a long-running series of debates concerning the proper way to represent states, events, causation, action, and other notions identified as crucial to the knowledge representation needs of AI. These debates never resulted in a definitive resolution of the issues under discussion, and indeed continue to produce aftershocks to the present day; none the less, we are now sufficiently far removed in time from their heyday for it to be a worthwhile exercise to stand back and review them as a connected piece of history.

Patterns in World Dynamics Indicating Agency

“…This language can be classified as a sorted reified temporal predicate logic language (see, e.g., Galton, 2003Galton, , 2006, in contrast to, for example, modal-logic-based temporal logics as the ones discussed in, e.g., (Fisher, 2005). The language is briefly introduced here.…”

Relating Cognitive Process Models to Behavioural Models of Agents

“…Both behavioural specifications and cognitive process models are specified using the reified temporal predicate language RTPL [7], a many-sorted temporal predicate logic language that allows specification and reasoning about the dynamics of a system. To express state properties ontologies are used.…”

The problem of coincidence in a theory of temporal multiple recurrence

“…We present a reified first-order logical theory [6] that makes temporal reasoning about regular multiple recurrence possible. It is reified because the eventualities we quantify and reason about may have a hidden propositional structure from which we abstract away.…”