The Role of Intensional and Extensional Representations in Simulation
Name
AI_WP_263.pdf
Description
Main article
Size
716.67 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
b39fd40f4ab5ab19e8eb00e594a42d34
Author(s)
Brotsky, Daniel
Date Issued
December 1984
Publisher
MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Series/Report no.
MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Working Papers, WP-263
Abstract
I review three systems which do simulation in different domains. I observe the following commonality in the representations underlying the simulations:
• The representations used for individuals tend to be domain-dependent. These representations are highly structured, concentrating in one place all the information concerning any particular individual. I call these representations intensional because two such representations are considered equal if their forms are identical.
• With important exceptions, the representations used for classes of individuals tend to be domain-independent. These representations are unstructured sets of predications involving the characteristics of class members. I call these representations extensional because two such representations are considered equal if the classes they specify are identical.
I draw out various ramifications of this dichotomy, and speculate as to its cause. In conclusion, I suggest research into the process of debugging extensional class representations and the development of intensional ones.
Description
This paper was prepared as the author's area examination.
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