0005: Belief-Base Revision Semantics
Date: 2026-06-26
Status
Section titled “Status”Accepted.
Context
Section titled “Context”dent8’s contradiction/supersession/retraction/expiry semantics independently reinvent ideas from the formal belief-revision literature. Naming the right theory gives dent8 a defensible vocabulary and pre-empts the obvious reviewer objection (“this isn’t real AGM”). Classical AGM operates on logically-closed belief sets and demands global consistency — neither of which dent8 wants.
Decision
Section titled “Decision”Adopt belief-base revision (Hansson), not classical AGM, as dent8’s formal identity:
- dent8’s “memory” is a fold/projection over an immutable
FactEventbase, not a deductively-closed set. The base, and its history, are authoritative. - dent8 deliberately does not satisfy the Recovery postulate. Retract-then- reassert must not resurrect dependents; the re-assertion carries fresh provenance and evidence.
- The
contestedlifecycle plus preservedcontradicted_byedges is a paraconsistent design (inconsistency ≠ triviality): localize a contradiction, keep the store non-trivial, surface it — never silently mergeAand¬A. Authorityis an epistemic-entrenchment ordering, kept strictly separate fromConfidence(evidential strength). Entrenchment decides what is surrendered first.- dent8 makes no fact of logical closure or an entailment engine; it implements the operational spirit of revision operators over opaque triples.
Consequences
Section titled “Consequences”Positive:
- A precise, citable formal grounding (belief-revision.md).
- Justifies keeping
AuthorityLevelandConfidenceas separate fields. - The Recovery non-postulate is the correct, defensible answer to “not real AGM.”
Negative:
- The mapping of asserted/superseded/retracted onto expansion/revision/contraction is inspirational, not rigorous — must be stated as such to avoid overfacting.
- “Belief-base framing” is principled grounding, not a novel mechanism (bitemporal DBs already provide “history matters”); it must not be sold as a contribution.