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Subject: Seminar - Non-monotonicity in Probabilistic Logic (SU)
Message-ID: <8605270702.AA02273@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Tue, 13-May-86 18:11:00 EDT
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Posted: Tue May 13 18:11:00 1986
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	  NON-MONOTONICITY IN PROBABILISTIC LOGIC

		    Benjamin Grosof
      Computer Science Department, Stanford University

		  Thursday, May 15, 4pm
			 MJH 252

I will discuss how to formalize the notion of non-monotonicity in
probabilistic reasoning, using the framework of Probabilistic Logic
(cf. Nils Nilsson).  I will give some motivating examples of types of
non-monotonic probabilistic reasoning that seem to be found in
practice.  There seems to be a relationship to default inheritance,
i.e. prioritized defaults of the type used in classic example of
whether birds and ostriches fly.  Next, I introduce the idea of
maximizing conditional independence, which can be thought of as
maximizing irrelevance.  This can be described more simply in terms of
non-monotonic reasoning on Graphoids (cf. Judea Pearl).

I conjecture that an important type of non-monotonicity in probabilistic
reasoning may be concisely expressed in terms of conditional
independence and Graphoids.  Finally, I pose as an open question how
to formulate in the above terms the non-monotonic behavior of
maximizing entropy, a widely-used technique in probabilistic
reasoning.