1. The primary difference between natural and formal languages is that the latter is defined by precise grammars, while the former evolved over time (Brookshear, 2012) and, it must be said, are still evolving making it inevitable that problems of understanding would arise when attempting to translate the complexities of the former into the latter. Take, for example, the question “Do you know what time it is?” This question may have many different meanings in a variety of different situations. A person may ask a stranger or a friend this question if they genuinely wish to know the time and do not have either a watch or an electronic device (phone, tablet, etc.) available that will allow them to check the time for themselves. Alternately, this question may be asked, with slightly different inflection and a slightly louder tone of voice by a parent to a child as a means of either conveying the message that the child is late coming home, or that it is too late for the child (regardless of the child’s age) to engage in whatever activity it is that either they were asking about participating in or had just started to participate in. In these two situations, simply by changing inflection, tone, and volume, the simple question has two entirely different meanings, thanks to natural language.
2. Procedural knowledge consists of “knowing how to do something,” standing in contrast “with declarative knowledge, which is knowledge about something” (Barros, 2010). Examples of procedural knowledge would include a carpenter knowing how to build a bookshelf or a teacher knowing how to write a lesson plan. A student who reads about going to space, or an new administrator who thinks they know all there is to know about Linux (a pitiful mistake that will quickly lead to their downfall) may be said to have declarative knowledge, the knowledge of something, though not the ability to be able to SSH into a server or visit the ISS (International Space Station).
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3. The state graph is a graph that “consists of a collection of nodes representing the states in the system connected by arrows representing the productions that shift the system from one state to another;” the search tree, on the other hand is a part of the state graph itself, one “that has been investigated by the control system” (Brookshear, 2012). In this manner, the difference between the two is that one is the system as a whole while the other is a portion of the system itself.
4. The problem of traveling from one city to another could be framed as a production system, one with its own states and productions. A production system consists of a collection of rules (productions), “a working memory of facts, and an algorithm, known as forward chaining” (Reference.com, 2013). The collection of rules that would be utilized when traveling from one city to another would vary depending on the method of travel. Looking to road travel, these rules, or productions, would consist of such things as no cell phones while driving, buckling one’s seatbelt, and obeying traffic signs and speed limits. The “working memory of facts” would consist of a map of how to get to point B from point A, and the forward chaining algorithm would consist of the series of steps on the journey from one point to the next.
- Barros, L. 2010. Procedural knowledge vs. declarative knowledge. [online] Available at: http://www.luizotaviobarros.com
- Brookshear, J. G. 2012. Computer science. 8th ed. Boston: Pearson/Addison Wesley.
