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From: waugh@tasman.cc.utas.edu.au (Sam Waugh)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Fuzzy Logic
Keywords: Fuzzy Logic, Confusion, Incorrect article
Message-ID: <2237@diemen.utas.edu.au>
Date: 17 Apr 91 23:03:19 GMT
Sender: news@diemen.utas.edu.au
Lines: 40

I am an Honours student at the University of Tasmania currently writing
an essay on Fuzzy Logic and its applications to production systems.  The 
recent stream of postings on Fuzzy Logic has been most helpful, especially
the references, so thank you for posting.

One article that was refered to by Giovanni Moretti (G.Moretti@massey.ac.nz)
was "Designing with Fuzzy Logic" by Kevin Self (IEEE Spectrum, Nov 1990,
pp42-44,105).  This is a short, chatty, interesting article which explains
mainly about Fuzzy Control Systems.

One statement in this article was :
	
	Fuzzy logic is a misnomer.  Developed by Lotfi A. Zadeh of the 
	Univeristy of California at Berkley, it is firmly grounded in 
	mathematical theory.  Combining multivalued logic, probability
	theory, artificial intelligence (AI), and neural networks, it 
	is a digital control methodology that simulates human thinking
	by incorporating the imprecision inherent in all physical
	systems.

The problem I have with this statement is its accuracy.  My understanding
of Fuzzy Logic leads me to believe that probability theory is not combined
within Fuzzy Logic, though closely related.  Fuzzy Logic does not contain
any concept of randomness that probability does.  Further, AI and neural
networks are not requirements of Fuzzy Logic, and it is not only a method of
digital control.  This is probably being very pedantic, but I am finding that 
many articles have confused me.  Am I correct in assuming that Fuzzy Logic 
and Fuzzy Set Theory are independant of AI and NN?

I was wondering was how much of current research is really relevant
to any form of application ( after seeing an article on Fuzzy Sets and 
Aristotlian semigroups )?  What is the purpose of all this work?  How much
could be described as being a firm basis for use within production systems?


Thank you for any comments,

Sam Waugh
University of Tasmania
email: waugh@tasman.cc.utas.edu.au