mccarthy-proposed-circumscription-solution
IN premise — summaries/2026/08/24/wiki-Frame_problem-chunk-1.md
Created 2026-08-25T02:58:48+00:00
McCarthy proposed circumscription as a solution to the frame problem, a non-monotonic reasoning framework that minimizes the extension of abnormality predicates.
Summary
McCarthy introduced circumscription as a way to solve the frame problem: instead of explicitly listing everything that stays unchanged after each action, the system assumes the fewest possible exceptions, defaulting to the idea that nothing is abnormal unless proven otherwise. This keeps knowledge representation tractable by making invariance the default rather than something that must be reasserted for every fact after every event.