BIB-VERSION:: CS-TR-v2.0
          ID:: STAN//CS-TR-88-1236
       ENTRY:: April 24, 1995
ORGANIZATION:: Stanford University, Department of Computer Science
       TITLE:: Time for Action: On the Relation between Time, Knowledge, and
               Action
        TYPE:: Technical Report
      AUTHOR:: Shoham, Yoav
        DATE:: December 1988
       PAGES:: 18
    ABSTRACT:: We consider the role played by the concept of action in AI.
               We first briefly summarize the advantages and limitations of
               past approaches to taking the concept as primitive, as
               embodied in the situation calculus and dynamic logic. We also
               briefly summarize the alternative, namely adopting a temporal
               framework, and point out its complementary advantages and
               limitations. We then propose a framework that retains the
               advantages of both viewpoints, and that ties the notion of
               action closely to that of knowledge. Specifically, we propose
               starting with the notion of time lines, and defining the
               notion of action as the ability to make certain choices among
               sets of time lines. Our definitions shed new light on the
               connection between time, action, knowledge and ignorance,
               choice-making, feasibility, and simultaneous reasoning about
               the same events at different levels of detail.
       NOTES:: [Adminitrivia V1/Prg/19950424]
         END:: STAN//CS-TR-88-1236