A Model for Deliberation, Action, and Introspection
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Reset reproduction of MIT AI Lab TR-581 Dissertation submitted May 12, 1980 A Model for Deliberation, Action, and Introspection JON DOYLE c 1980, 1994 Jon Doyle. All rights reserved. Reset 1994; Version of July 22, 1994 c 1980, 1994 by Jon Doyle. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author. Jon Doyle Laboratory for Computer Science Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 United States of America Tel: 617-253-3512 Fax: 617-258-8682 Email: [email protected] Web: http://medg.lcs.mit.edu/people/doyle/doyle.html Note on the reprinting: This report reproduces a dissertation submitted on May 12, 1980 to the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- nology in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of doctor of philosophy. This reprinting was set in LaTeX from copies of the original files kindly provided by Martin Frost from Stanford University backup tapes and by Alan Bawden and Penelope Berman from MIT backup tapes, and the author thanks Frost, Bawden, and Berman greatly for their help in recovering these files. The conversion of the original R (a TJ6 descendant) to LaTeX was done manually with the aid of GNU Emacs keyboard macros. Several of the diagrams have been reworked to present the same information in a more pleasing form, but otherwise nothing has been changed in the text itself apart from formatting except correction of a couple typos, correction of the citation for the quote from Ezekiel, and the arrangement of the frontmatter material. 2 A Model for Deliberation, Action, and Introspection by Jon Doyle B.S., University of Houston (1974) S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1977) SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE at the MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY June 1980 Copyright Jon Doyle 1980 The author hereby grants to M.I.T. permission to reproduce and to distribute copies of this thesis document in whole or in part. Signature of the Author Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science May 12, 1980 Certified by Gerald Jay Sussman Thesis Supervisor Accepted by Chairman, Departmental Graduate Committee 3 4 A Model for Deliberation, Action, and Introspection by Jon Doyle Submitted to the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science on May 12, 1980 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Artificial Intelligence ABSTRACT This thesis investigates the problem of controlling or directing the reasoning and actions of a computer program. The basic approach explored is to view reasoning as a species of action, so that a program might apply its reasoning powers to the task of deciding what inferences to make as well as deciding what other actions to take. A design for the architecture of reasoning programs is proposed. This architecture involves self-consciousness, intentional actions, deliberate adaptations, and a form of decision-making based on dialectical argumentation. A program based on this ar- chitecture inspects itself, describes aspects of itself to itself, and uses this self-reference and these self-descriptions in making decisions and taking actions. The program’s mental life includes aware- ness of its own concepts, beliefs, desires, intentions, inferences, actions, and skills. All of these are represented by self-descriptions in a single sort of language, so that the program has access to all of these aspects of itself, and can reason about them in the same terms. Thesis Supervisor: Gerald Jay Sussman Title: Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering 5 6 Contents 1 INTRODUCTION 19 1.1 The Fundamental Argument . 20 1.1.1 The Parable . 21 1.1.2 The Propositions . 22 1.2 Outline of the Approach . 23 1.3 Outline of the Thesis . 27 1.4 Sketches of these Ideas in Practice . 28 1.4.1 Decision-making . 28 1.4.2 Recollection . 28 1.4.3 Self-improvement . 29 1.4.4 Planning . 29 1.4.5 Conversation . 30 1.5 Status of the Implementation . 30 1.6 Sketch of a Computational Argument for the Approach . 32 1.6.1 Why have the facts of the fundamental argument been overlooked? . 32 1.6.1.1 Initial Programming Complexity . 33 1.6.1.2 A Mathematician’s Outlook . 33 1.6.2 Consequences of the Inaccessibility of Control Information . 33 1.6.2.1 The Inexplicability of Actions and Attitudes . 34 1.6.2.1.1 The Chauvinism of Values . 35 1.6.2.1.2 The Lack of Intentionality . 36 1.6.2.1.3 Inextensibility . 37 1.6.2.1.4 Hubris . 37 1.6.2.1.5 Non-additivity . 37 1.6.2.2 Inexpressibility of Control Information . 38 1.6.3 Hence Reasoning Applied to Control . 38 1.7 Relation to Other Works . 39 1.7.1 Major Influences and History . 39 1.7.2 Related Works . 43 1.7.2.1 Representation Theory . 43 1.7.2.2 The Nature of Reasoning . 44 1.7.2.3 The Theory of Intentional Action . 45 1.7.2.4 The Fragmentation of Values . 45 1.7.2.5 Decision-making . 45 7 1.7.2.6 Control of Reasoning . 46 1.7.2.7 Adaptive Changes of Mind . 46 1.7.2.8 Affect and Intellect . 47 1.7.2.9 Consciousness . 47 1.7.2.10 The Absurd . 48 2 THE REPRESENTATION OF STRUCTURE 49 2.1 Desiderata of the Representational System . 50 2.2 A Key Application . 52 2.3 SDL, a Structured Description Language . 52 2.4 How to use SDL . 57 2.5 Relations with other Representational Systems . 62 2.6 Advanced Applications . 63 2.7 Theories about Theories . 64 2.7.1 The THEORY Theory . 64 2.7.2 Theories of Specific Theories . 65 2.7.3 The VC Theory . 65 2.7.4 The PERSON Theory . 66 2.7.5 The Global Theory ME . 66 2.8 Concepts and Attitudes . 67 3 FOUNDATIONS OF THE THEORY OF REASONING 69 3.1 The Nature of Reasoning . 70 3.2 RMS, the Reason Maintenance System . 74 3.3 RMS Data-structures . 76 3.4 States of Belief . 77 3.5 Justifications . 77 3.6 Support-list Justifications . 78 3.7 Terminology of Dependency Relationships . 79 3.8 Conditional-proof Justifications . 81 3.9 Circular Arguments . 82 3.10 The Reason Maintenance Process . 83 3.11 Defeasible Reasons and Dialectical Argumentation . 84 4 DELIBERATE ACTION 87 4.1 Plan Generation, Execution, and Interpretation . 88 4.2 Plans and the Library of Procedures . 89 4.3 The Ambiguous “Goal” . 91 4.4 Desires and Intentions . 92 4.5 Policies . 98 4.6 Relationships Between Desires and Intentions . 99 4.7 The Hierarchical Structure of Plans . 104 4.8 Plan Specifications . 105 4.9 The Current State of Mind . 107 4.10 The History of Actions . 108 8 4.11 The Frontier . 110 4.12 A Careful, Meta-Circular Interpreter . 110 5 DELIBERATION 119 5.1 The Variety of Decisions and Ways of Making Them . 120 5.2 Decision Intentions . 122 5.3 Deliberation Records . 122 5.4 Policy Execution . 124 5.5 Policy Applicability . 125 5.6 Policy Actions . 126 5.7 A Very General Deliberation Procedure . 127 5.7.1 The Deliberation Plans . 127 5.7.2 First-order Deliberation . 129 5.7.3 Second-order Deliberation . 130 5.7.3.1 Second-order Options . 131 5.7.3.2 Second-order Policies . 132 5.7.3.3 Second-order Decisions . 134 5.8 An Example Reworked . 135 6 DELIBERATE CHANGES OF MENTAL LIFE 137 6.1 Motivations for Change . 139 6.1.1 Belief . 139 6.1.2 Concepts . 140 6.1.3 Desires and Intentions . 141 6.1.4 Values . ..