Re: I now realize WHY my 'consistency check' was pointless: CLP.

Bart Demoen wrote: 
Duncan Patton wrote:

Again, it seems your english is wanting. Possession and authorship may be both possessively described as "My".


Oh Patton, you are so pathetic, and too eager to point at my wanting
english. So eager that you can't even wait until there is a really
good opportunity to make me look bad. 

  No so fast, mate.

  It isn't your language skills that are wanting -- far from it.

But by your own account, you were faced with two hypotheses: (A) the OR wrote the book whereof he spoke, which would lead any reasonable person wonder how that could be, in light of the OR's self-assigned status as a Prolog newbie, or (B) that the OR was simply referring to the book about Prolog that he was using to teach himself something about Prolog, which would tend to confirm the OR's self-assigned status as a Prolog newbie.

  Of these two hypotheses, which is least prejudicial?

That is, which of the two hypotheses requires me to assume more facts that are not in evidence as givens?

To believe (A), I have to assume that the OR is a habitual imposter or a not-so-bright con-artist or a rather confused troll or just a bit daft or something even more exotic.

To believe (B), I need only give the OR the benefit of the doubt for having committed no greater crime than writing an ambiguous sentence.

It seems clear to me that (B) is the least prejudicial of the two hypotheses.

Yet you chose (A): the OR is a Prolog newbie who claims to have written a book about Prolog (and Artificial Intelligence, no less). If that were true it could explain why you couldn't find an ISBN number for it -- who would publish such a book? -- but it is not, I think, the alternative that the science-minded prejudice-minimizer (a la E.T.Jaynes) should choose -- not, that is, if objectively demonstrable truth is your goal.

"Nature is an open book: who reads it with an open mind will not be led astray; whose mind is poisoned by prejudice /will/ be led into error."
(quoting from memory -- Francis Bacon, iirc -- my emphasis).

Follow the path of minimum prejudice and you maximize your chances of success: that is an amazing fact about the universe.

I now wonder if it is also a search strategy that can be (or has been) expressed/implemented/described/programmed in Prolog.

--
bill hogan
<logic4sure@xxxxxxxxx>
<www.geocities.com/logic4sure>
.