On Order of Magnitude Reasoning and Qualitative Probability

Author:

• Simon Parsons, Intelligent Systems Applications Group, Department of Electronic Engineering, Queen Mary and Westfield College, Mile End Road, London, E1 4NS, England, S.D.Parsons@qmw.ac.uk, http://www.elec.qmw.ac.uk/~sp/homepage.html

Abstract:

In recent years there has been a spate of papers describing systems for probabilistic reasoning which do not use numerical probabilities. In some cases these systems are unable to make any useful inferences because they deal with changes in probability at too high a level of abstraction. This paper discusses one of the problems this level of abstraction can cause, and shows how the use of a technique for order of magnitude reasoning can solve it.

Keywords:

uncertainty, probability, order of magnitude reasoning