Talk:Frame problem

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Solved?

We need to mention that the technical problem is regarded as solved.---- Charles Stewart 10:43, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[comment posted on 15:13, 9 April 2006 moved at bottom]

In what sense do you mean it's solved? Are you refering to the use of default logics and so on? I wouldnt say that the frame problem is 'solved' per se, but there have been some good stabs at it. It's really a representational issue more than a problem. Deepak 13:39, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The problem arose as a formalism for AI agents in the situation calculus. Over the last 10 years several formalisms were proposed that handled the frame problems in ways that most AI researchers regard as adequate (I know the fluent calculus, but there are several such problems). It's still an active source of research papers, but the emphasis is on what is the best way to model default reasoning, not whether it can be done. There's a brief duscission in the Stanford Encyc. article, I will see if I can track down a better reference. ---- Charles Stewart 07:43, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

There's Reiter's Solving the Frame Problem as well. My point is, as such, it is better not to talk about the Frame Problem as being solved or unsolved, but as an issue to be dealt with. Non-monotic/Default logics and the fluent calculus are designed partly so that the frame problem becomes manageable. That doesnt make it 'solved' in a general sense. Deepak 13:17, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

---

The SEP article talks of distinguishing the technical from the philosophical problem. I'm happy for there to be discussion of this as an ongoing spur to thought, provided there is some recognition that various solutions have been proposed and thought to have addressed the original McCarthy/Hayes problem.

I know of two other approaches that have been proposed: Frank Brown's modelling of situational change in a second-order quantified modal logic and an approahc based on linbear logic (forget the name). A brief survey of types of solution proposed would be in order. ---- Charles Stewart 11:22, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Change

I have introduced a technical explanation of the problem as was initially specified in artificial intelligence. I have removed the following sentence (I would not object to reintroduction, if references are provided).

Suggested solutions to the frame problem include satisficing, heuristics, and rational ignorance.

Paolo Liberatore (Talk) 10:51, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Really solved?

[moved from above to keep the above thread whole]

Is the frame problem really "solved"? In my opinion, in most cases this problem is only "elluded" by using some naive assumptions that would make AI systems less useful in real world applications. For example, in many proposals (such as those provided by situation calculus), a bold assumption is an "inertia" world that common sense law of inertia can apply. This means all the relationships between logic formulae used in precondition and effects are enumerated by the action axioms. In other words, there are NO axioms among the condition formulae themselves. This is kind of unrealistic in real world. Just imagine now I have to define some actions using formulae defined by a domain model. For instance, I want to design the actions of an agent reasoning about an OWL knowledgebase. Then the "inertia" world approach would require us to list not just the direct effects, but ALL of their logic consequences! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.68.104.203 (talk • contribs) 15:13, 9 April 2006

As it was defined, the frame problem is about the non-effects of actions. The problem of formalizing the indirect effects of actions is the ramification problem. The name "frame problem" has been at some point used to indicate more generally the problem of "formalizing domains with actions in logic", but I think this use is obsolete now. Regarding inertia, this was the initial assmption in the original problem; there are however some logics where fluents can be specified not to be inertial. - Liberatore(T) 10:06, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Modular reasoning

The frame problem is also present in the world of modular reasoning in formal verification. Solution strategies here include modify-clauses, separation logic, ownership (dynamic or static) and dynamic frames. Could anybody add a section about it? If nobody does and nobody minds, I will write a paragraph about it within the next month. --Schoelle 13:55, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

General comment

For me it looks like a very specific scientific publication - too much details for an encyclopedia article. On the other hand, is it a part of computational philosophy or rather AI, or a research in mathematical logics ?

- For instance, is "the simplified example of the door and the light" a simple philosophical problem?

What about a critical viewpoint? - a visitor --87.20.192.228 23:16, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Quote?

It might be interesting to quote the following section from the original McCarthy and Hayes paper that (I think) given a good informal description of the frame problem:

[...] in proving that one person could get into conversation with another, we were obliged to add the hypothesis that if a person has a telephone he still has it after looking up a number in the telephone book. If we had a number of actions to be performed in sequence we would have quite a number of conditions to write down that certain actions do not change the values of certain fluents. In fact with n actions and m fluents we might have to write down m n such conditions.

What to you think? --Schoelle 18:17, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

The default logic solution

I don't understand how the Yale Shooting Problem indicated a problem for the default logic solution. Since fluents are assumed to remain in the state in which they are unless changed by an action, how does the YSP affect this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.240.138.29 (talk) 04:39, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Formula wrong?

Hi Folks,

I was wondering if the fourth formular in the Frame_problem#The_successor_state_axioms_solution section is right?

Shouldn't it be

$open\_door(t)$

and not

$open\_door(0)$?

Then the correct formulas are:

$\neg open(0)$

$\neg on(0)$

$open\_door(0)$

$\forall t.open(t+1)\equiv open\_door(t)\vee (open(t)\wedge \neg close\_door(t))$

intead of

$\neg open(0)$

$\neg on(0)$

$open\_door(0)$

$\forall t.open(t+1)\equiv open\_door(0)\vee (open(t)\wedge \neg close\_door(t))$

Bye Sebastian Loh--89.245.192.199 (talk) 10:23, 19 August 2009 (UTC).

Conjunction with true?

Hi, is it only me, who thinks it's strange in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_problem#The_predicate_completion_solution that one needs to do a conjunction with `true'? I.e. isn't ¬open(0)∧true the same as ¬open(0)? 84.108.237.238 (talk) 06:26, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you. There's also a similar thing with $\mathrm {true} \implies \mathrm {open} (1)$ that I also think is redundant (i.e. it should be just $\mathrm {open} (1)$). -- Solomon Ucko (talk) 01:34, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Hey, strikethrough doesn't work in the clarification reason. I don't know how to fix it, but it currently displays a giant line of text in the clarification needed annotation. --2601:196:4600:5190:495:5CFB:5787:F41A (talk) 15:29, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I have suggested that Frame problem (philosophy) should be merged into this article.

Rationale: Both articles are on the same subject. The frame problem is a long-standing problem in cognitive science, and you may just as well say "in philosophy (of mind, of cognition …)", "in artificial intelligence" etc. – it does not depend very much on the discipline. The problem is the same, even if it is suggested to have acquired a broader meaning in philosophy, a claim that is made in Frame problem, to wit, whereas the other article is a stub and has been for a long time. There is no problem at all in a merge, as the article Frame problem can easily cover any aspects that may be considered more of a "purely" philosophical nature – on the contrary, if there are subtleties in the history of the concept it should be convenient and profitable for any reader to have them covered in one article. As to the title, Frame problem should be preferred as it is more general and at the same time open to any terminological specification within the article. 㓟 (talk) 11:36, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with this proposal. It makes perfect sense, the philosophical problem article is just a stub anyway. Also, I double checked on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the way they describe the Frame Problem in philosophy is essentially the same as this article. They are the same topic, the other article should be merged into this one. RedDog (talk) 16:07, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

One other point, many of the most important sources usually describe this from the start as a "philosophical problem" e.g., the first reference cited in this article is a paper titled "Some Philosophical Problems in Artificial Intelligence". Again, I think that supports merging them, there is no significant distinction between The Frame Problem and The Frame Problem (Philosophy) RedDog (talk) 17:01, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

I just went ahead with the merge and then removed the tag about the merge that was on this article. RedDog (talk) 20:32, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Related Problems section seems to be entirely OR

Right now there are a list of links to "related problems" that are attributed to J. van Brakel but with no references at all. I couldn't find a page for this person and while I'm familiar with the frame problem, in fact I was just reading a journal article that discussed it, I've never heard this name or these specific issues. Many of the links are red lined. I plan to delete the entire section unless someone can provide a reference and justification that this stuff is notable enough in relation to the Frame Problem. RedDog (talk) 16:03, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Citation for statement in introduction about cartoon framing?

Currently the introduction says: "The name "frame problem" derives from a common technique used by animated cartoon makers called framing where the currently moving parts of the cartoon are superimposed on the "frame," which depicts the background of the scene, which does not change." It's been a while since I did any reading in this area so I may just not be remembering but I don't recall ever coming across this. I'm reading some of the source articles now, if I don't come across anything that supports this statement I will consider it OR and remove it. RedDog (talk) 16:59, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Reviewed three major source articles and so no reference to this at all so I deleted it. RedDog (talk) 17:30, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Text from article Frame Problem (Philosophy)

I'm planning to merge the article Frame problem (philosophy) with this article. That article is currently a stub. I think that everything of value said in that article is now reflected in the introduction which I've revised. I didn't put a comment to that effect in the edit history though because I didn't copy any of the text from the other article, I just rewrote the intro here in my own words and when I checked on the other article it seems to me everything it says is already in this article now. So to completely document things, I'm going to paste the entire text from the merged article here, just for completeness:

In philosophy, the frame problem is the problem of how an intelligent agent bounds the set of beliefs to change when an action is performed. This problem originates from artificial intelligence, where it is formulated as the problem of avoiding to specify all conditions that are not affected by actions, in the context of representing dynamical domains in a formal logic. In philosophy, the problem is about rationality in general, rather than being a technical problem related to formal logic in particular.

RedDog (talk) 14:08, 24 November 2013 (UTC)