Though forecasting methods are used in numerous fields, we have seen no work on providing a general theoretical framework to build forecast operators into temporal databases. In this paper, we first develop a formal definition of a forecast operator as a function that satisfies a suite of forecast axioms. Based on this definition, we propose three families of forecast operators called determini...

Computer games are usually studied on the basis of a sensory-motor model related to classical cinema, a model which is almost exclusively oriented towards the actuality and causality of action. This assumption of an actiondriven, Aristotelean dramaturgy does not only concern the possible world which is represented in the game, but also the playing of the game itself. We argue that such an appro...

___________________________________________ In “Why is There Anything at All?” Peter van Inwagen argues that even though it was never necessary that concrete beings existed, it was always maximally probable – just short of necessity – that they did (van Inwagen, 1996). I argue that van Inwagen’s argument fails, albeit for an interesting reason which has remained so far unnoticed in the literatu...

This paper motivates and explores an expressivist theory of vagueness, modeled on Allan Gibbard’s (2003) normative expressivism. It shows how Chris Kennedy’s (2007) semantics for gradable adjectives can be adjusted to fit into a theory on Gibbardian lines, where assertions constrain not just possible worlds but plans for action. Vagueness, on this account, is literally indecision about where to...

This paper presents the first compositional semantics for if then conditionals. The semantics of each element are first examined separately. The meaning of if is modeled according to a possible worlds semantics. The particle then is analyzed as an anaphoric word that places its focused element inside the context settled by a previous element. Their meanings are subsequently combined in order to...

In this article I examine the constraints that skeptical hypotheses must satisfy in order to be used to raise significant skeptical challenges. I argue that skeptical hypotheses do not have to be logically, metaphysically or epistemically possible. They only need to depict scenarios that are subjectively indistinguishable from the actual world and must provide some indication of how subjects ca...

This paper is the first attempt to deal with aspects of the semantics of adverbs within a modern type theoretical setting. A number of issues pertaining to the semantics of different classes of adverbs like verididality and intensionality will be discussed and further shown to be captured straightforwardly within a modern type theoretical setting. In particular, I look at the issue of veridical...

This paper is a study of a distinctively chemical notion of possibility. This is the notion of possibility that occurs in chemical discourses when chemists speak of the possibility or impossibility of achieving a given result through chemical means. This notion pertains to the possibility of processes, not of compounds, so it differs from the kind of chemical possibility mentioned in Wittgenste...

A fish tank is established in a cyberspace based on a real world in which autonomous fish agents, generated from images captured in an actual world, swim. The behavior of each fish is determined by an emotional model that reflects personality according to encountered events and user interactions.

The distribution semantics integrates logic programming and probability theory using a possible worlds approach. Its intuitiveness and simplicity has made it the most widely used semantics for probabilistic logic programming, with successful applications in many domains. When the program has function symbols, the semantics was defined for special cases: either the program has to be definite or ...