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When an approximate concept becomes precise

 

Suppose an approximate concept represented by a predicate p(x) has a sufficient condition suff(x) and a necessary condition nec(x). Thus we have

  equation326

In general the sufficient and the necessary conditions will not coincide, i.e. we will not have

  equation333

However, they made coincide with some restriction on x, i.e. we may have

  equation338

Another way an approximate concept may become definite is by a mapping from the space in which it is first formalized into more restricted space. We'll combine specialization with mapping in

 

where the function f maps a subset of the original domain into a specialized domain in which the concept p(x) becomes definite.



John McCarthy
Wed Feb 2 15:59:04 PST 2000