We address the problem on how newly invented concepts are evaluated with respect to a background ontology of conceptual knowledge so as to decide which of them are to be accepted into a system of familiar concepts, and how this, in turn, may affect the previously accepted conceptualisation. As technique to tackle this problem we explore the applicability of Paul Thagard’s computational theory o...

The question is not new. It was fashionable in the first half of the twentieth century when a small group of American writers—William Fielding Ogburn, Abbott Payson Usher, and Waldemar Kaempffert, among others—produced theories of invention. But in more recent decades the idea of such theories has fallen out of fashion. One reason is that the early theories were far from satisfactory (“riven by...

The expressive power of the family of ILOG (:) languages is investigated. The languages are rule based, with value invention and stratiied negation. The chosen semantics for value invention is based on Skolem functor terms. We show that, in presence of value invention , the whole expressive power is achieved using programs made of two strata, and that ILOG 6 = (i.e., the class of programs with ...

The Wright brothers followed their invention of the first practical airplane (1903) with a second epochal invention, the angle of attack sensor and aircraft stabilizer (1908). Both inventions were patented and details of each are contained in the respective patents for these two aeronautical advances. This paper emphasizes how the angle of attack sensor actuated an "automatic stabilizer." This ...