Qualitative Mathematical Reasoning
Author(s)
Sacks, ElishaAbstract
Qualitative analysis is the study of abstract causal reasoning. It explores the mechanisms whereby humans analyze complex systems abstractly, while ignoring unimportant and unknown low-level details. Previous research has focused on qualitative simulation techniques, analogous to numerical simulation, that use local information about a system to predict its short-term behavior. This thesis presents a new, calculus based, type of qualitative analysis, called qualitative mathematical reasoning. It derives functional descriptions of systems and uses them to predict global behavior.
Date issued
1984-11Series/Report no.
MIT-LCS-TR-329