Pointing to Places in a Deductive Geospatial Theory

摘要

Issues in the description of places are discussed in the context of a logical geospatial theory. This theory lies at the core of the system GeoLogica, which deduces answers to geographical questions based on knowledge provided by multiple agents. Many questions cannot be answered from information in a single geographical source; often the answer must be deduced from information provided by several sources. It may not be obvious which sources to consult. Because multiple sources seldom agree on conventions of nomenclature or notation, it becomes a problem to determine what place corresponds to a particular description. The same name may apply to many places, and the same place may have many names. In the system GeoLogica, the coordination between multiple information sources is carried out by an automated deduction system, or theorem prover, that operates in a formal geospatial theory. GeoLogica differs from a search engine in that, instead of merely finding a list of documents with vocabulary that matches the question, it attempts to understand the question and provide an answer.