Ambiguous language and differences in beliefs

Joseph Y. Halpern, Willemien Kets

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Standard models of multi-agent modal logic do not capture the fact that information is often ambiguous, and may be interpreted in different ways by different agents. We propose a framework that can model this, and consider different semantics that capture different assumptions about the agents' beliefs regarding whether or not there is ambiguity. We consider the impact of ambiguity on a seminal result in economics: Aumann's result saying that agents with a common prior cannot agree to disagree. This result is known not to hold if agents do not have a common prior; we show that it also does not hold in the presence of ambiguity. We then consider the tradeoff between assuming a common interpretation (i.e., no ambiguity) and a common prior (i.e., shared initial beliefs).

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publication13th International Conference on the Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, KR 2012
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages329-338
Number of pages10
ISBN (Print)9781577355601
StatePublished - 2012
Event13th International Conference on the Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, KR 2012 - Rome, Italy
Duration: Jun 10 2012Jun 14 2012

Publication series

NameProceedings of the International Workshop on Temporal Representation and Reasoning

Other

Other13th International Conference on the Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, KR 2012
Country/TerritoryItaly
CityRome
Period6/10/126/14/12

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software

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