- S. Fahlman. 2011. Using Scone's Multiple-Context Mechanism to Emulate Human-Like Reasoning. Abstract: Scone is a knowledge-base system developed specifically to support human-like common-sense reasoning and the understanding of human language. One of the unusual features of Scone is its multiple-context system. Each context represents a distinct world-model, but a context can inherit most of the knowledge of another context, explicitly representing just the differences. We explore how this multiple-context mechanism can be used to emulate some aspects of human mental behavior that are difficult or impossible to emulate in other representational formalisms. These include reasoning about hypothetical or counter-factual situations; understanding how the world model changes over time due to specific actions or spontaneous changes; and reasoning about the knowledge and beliefs of other agents, and how their mental state may affect the actions of those agents.
