Modular-ε: An elaboration tolerant approach to the ramification and qualification problems - Preliminary report

Abstract

We describe Modular-ε (ME), a specialized, model-theoretic logic for narrative reasoning about actions, able to represent non-deterministic domains involving concurrency, static laws (constraints) and indirect effects (ramifications). We give formal results which characterize ME's high degree of modularity and elaboration tolerance, and show how these properties help to separate out, and provide a principled solutions to, the endogenous and exogenous qualification problems. We also show how a notion of (micro) processes can be used to facilitate reasoning at the dual levels of temporal granularity necessary for narrative-based domains involving "instantaneous" series of indirect and knock-on effects.