2022-09-28: Jérémy Ledent (MSP)

Sat, 21 Oct 2023 21:24:08 +0100

Jérémy Ledent (MSP)

The Topology of Knowledge: Simplicial Models for Epistemic Logic

Abstract

Multi-agent Epistemic Logic is a modal logic of knowledge. It allows to reason about a finite set of agents who may know facts about the world, and about each other. In this talk, I will present a new semantics for epistemic logic, based on simplicial complexes. In this approach, the knowledge of the agents is modeled by a higher-dimensional space called a simplicial model; and the truth of an epistemic logic formula can be evaluated by inspecting the various possible paths in this space. I will illustrate these ideas using examples from the theory of distributed computing, where the agents correspond to individual processes who can exchange information in order to solve a task. Both topological invariants and logical invariants can be leveraged to prove that some distributed computing tasks are impossible to solve.

2022-09-28 11:00:00 UTC
LT1310 and Online