3 - Representation of Complex Knowledge by Clauses

Abstract

This chapter discusses the way complex knowledge is represented in living creatures endowed with intelligence. The only way of doing inferences without too many risks is to relentlessly confine living creatures to inference on first-order clauses. In view of this, human beings are reduced to translating the other knowledge by control procedures. For the rule of the game is that if control is restricted too much, then the inference procedures become too complex. Conversely, if first-order inference is not used enough, then the procedures would become incomprehensible to other people, but also to their authors. The chapter explains that the problem of the balance between control and clauses has not been solved. It also presents some indications about the way this problem can be tackled.