Reification (knowledge representation)
Encyclopedia
Reification in knowledge representation
involves the representation of factual assertions, that are referred to by other assertions; which might then be manipulated in some way. e.g., to compare logical assertion
s from different witness
es in order to determine their credibility
.
The message "John is six feet tall" is an assertion involving truth, that commits the speaker to its factuality, whereas the reified statement, "Mary reports that John is six feet tall" defers such commitment to Mary. In this way, the statements can be incompatible without creating contradictions in reasoning. For example the statements "John is six feet tall" and "John is five feet tall" are mutually exclusive (thus, incompatible); but, the statements "Mary reports that John is six feet tall," and "Paul reports that John is five feet tall," are not incompatible, as they both are governed by a conclusive rationale, that either Mary or Paul (or both) is, in fact, incorrect.
Knowledge representation
Knowledge representation is an area of artificial intelligence research aimed at representing knowledge in symbols to facilitate inferencing from those knowledge elements, creating new elements of knowledge...
involves the representation of factual assertions, that are referred to by other assertions; which might then be manipulated in some way. e.g., to compare logical assertion
Logical assertion
A logical assertion is a statement that asserts that a certain premise is true, and is useful for statements in proof. It is equivalent to a sequent with an empty antecedent....
s from different witness
Witness
A witness is someone who has firsthand knowledge about an event, or in the criminal justice systems usually a crime, through his or her senses and can help certify important considerations about the crime or event. A witness who has seen the event first hand is known as an eyewitness...
es in order to determine their credibility
Credibility
Credibility refers to the objective and subjective components of the believability of a source or message.Traditionally, modern, credibility has two key components: trustworthiness and expertise, which both have objective and subjective components. Trustworthiness is based more on subjective...
.
The message "John is six feet tall" is an assertion involving truth, that commits the speaker to its factuality, whereas the reified statement, "Mary reports that John is six feet tall" defers such commitment to Mary. In this way, the statements can be incompatible without creating contradictions in reasoning. For example the statements "John is six feet tall" and "John is five feet tall" are mutually exclusive (thus, incompatible); but, the statements "Mary reports that John is six feet tall," and "Paul reports that John is five feet tall," are not incompatible, as they both are governed by a conclusive rationale, that either Mary or Paul (or both) is, in fact, incorrect.
See also
- Reification (linguistics)Reification (linguistics)Reification in natural language processing refers to where a natural language statement is transformed so actions and events in it become quantifiable variables...
- Reification (fallacy)Reification (fallacy)Reification is a fallacy of ambiguity, when an abstraction is treated as if it were a concrete, real event, or physical entity. In other words, it is the error of treating as a "real thing" something which is not a real thing, but merely an idea...
- Reification (computer science)Reification (computer science)Reification is the process by which an abstract idea about a computer program is turned into an explicit data model or other object created in a programming language. A computable/addressable object — a resource — is created in a system as a proxy for a non computable/addressable object...