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Contrary to what everyone else is saying, I think you're completely correct. Using it for AI or "reasoning" is a hopeless dead end, even if people wish otherwis

Contrary to what everyone else is saying, I think you're completely correct. Using it for AI or "reasoning" is a hopeless dead end, even if people wish otherwise. However I've found that Prolog is an excellent language for expressing certain types of problems in a very concise way, like parsers, compilers, and assemblers (and many more). The whole concept of using a predicate in different modes is actually very useful in a pragmatic way for a lot of problems. When you add in the constraint solving extensions (CLP(Z) and CLP(B) and so on) it becomes even more powerful, since you can essentially mix vanilla Prolog code with solver tools.

YeGoblynQueenne 11mo ago
The reason why you can write parsers with Prolog is because you can cast the problem of determining whether a string belongs to a language or not as a proof, and, in Prolog, express it as a set of Definite Clauses, particularly with the syntactic sugar of Definite Clause Grammars that give you an executable grammar that acts as both acceptor and generator and is equivalent to a left-corner parser. Now, with that in mind, I'd like to understand how you and the OP reconcile the ability to carry out a formal proof with the inability to do reasoning. How is it not reasoning, if you're doing a proof? If a proof is not reasoning, then what is?
- jodrellblank 11mo ago
  Clearly people write parsers in C and C++ and Pascal and OCAML, etc. What does it mean to come in with "the reason you can write parsers with Prolog..."? I'm not claiming that reason is incorrect, I'm handwaving it away as irrelevant and academic. Like saying that Lisp map() is better than Python map() because Lisp map is based on formal Lambda Calculus and Python map is an inferior imitation for blub programmers. When a programmer maps a function over a list and gets a result, it's a distinction without a difference. When a programmer writes a getchar() peek() and goto state machine parser with no formalism, it works, what difference does the formalism behind the implementation practically make? Yes maybe the Prolog way means concise code is easier for a human to tell whether the code is a correct expression of the intent, but an LLM won't look at it like that. Whatever the formalism brings, it isn't enough that every parser task is done in Prolog in the last 50 years. Therefore it isn't any particular interest or benefit, except academic. > both acceptor and generator Also academically interesting but practically useless due to the combinatorial explosion of "all possible valid grammars" after the utterly basic "aaaaabbbbbbbbbbbb" examples. > "how you and the OP reconcile the ability to carry out a formal proof with the inability to do reasoning. How is it not reasoning, if you're doing a proof? If a proof is not reasoning, then what is?" If drawing a painting is art, is it art if a computer pulls up a picture of a painting and shows it on screen? No. If a human coded the proof into a computer, the human is reasoning, the computer isn't. If the computer comes up with the proof, the computer is reasoning. Otherwise you're in a situation where dominos falling over is "doing reasoning" because it can be expressed formally as a chain of connected events where the last one only falls if the whole chain is built properly, and that's absurdum.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 11mo ago
    With Prolog, the proof is carried out by the computer, not a human. A human writes up a theory and a theorem and the computer proves the theorem with respect to the theory. So I ask again, how is carrying out a proof not reasoning? >> I'm not claiming that reason is incorrect, I'm handwaving it away as irrelevant and academic. That's not a great way to have a discussion.
    - jodrellblank 11mo ago
      The word "reason" came into this thread with the original comment: 3. LLMs are bad at solving reasoning problems. 4. Prolog is good at solving reasoning problems. I agree with you. In Prolog "?- 1=1." is reasoning by definition. Then 4. becomes "LLMs should emit Prolog because Prolog is good at executing Prolog code". I think that's not a useful place to be, so I was trying to head off going there. But now I'll go with you - I agree it IS reasoning - can you please support your case that "executing Prolog code is reasoning" makes Prolog more useful for LLMs to emit than Python?
      - YeGoblynQueenne 11mo ago
        This is not my claim: >> "executing Prolog code is reasoning" makes Prolog more useful for LLMs to emit than Python? I said what I think about LLMs generating Prolog here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45914587 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45914587 But I was mainly asking why you say that Prolog's execution is "not reasoning". I don't understand what you mean that '"?- 1=1." is reasoning by definition' and how that ties-in with our discussion about Prolog reasoning or not.
        jodrellblank 11mo ago
        "?- 1=1." is Prolog code. Executing Prolog code is reasoning. Therefore that is reasoning. Q.E.D. This is the point you refused to move on from until I agreed. So I agreed. So we could get back to the interesting topic. A topic you had no interest in, only interest dragging onto a trangent and grinding it down to make ... what point, exactly? If "executing Prolog code" is reasoning, then what? I say it isn't useful to call it reasoning (in the context of this thread) because it's too broad to be a helpful definition, basically everything is reasoning, and almost nothing is not. When I tried to say in advance that this wouldn't be a useful direction and I didn't want to go here, you said it was " not a great way to have a discussion". And now having dragged me off onto this academic tangent, you dismiss it as "I wasn't interested in that other topic anyway". Annoying.

YeGoblynQueenne 11mo ago

The reason why you can write parsers with Prolog is because you can cast the problem of determining whether a string belongs to a language or not as a proof, and, in Prolog, express it as a set of Definite Clauses, particularly with the syntactic sugar of Definite Clause Grammars that give you an executable grammar that acts as both acceptor and generator and is equivalent to a left-corner parser. Now, with that in mind, I'd like to understand how you and the OP reconcile the ability to carry out a formal proof with the inability to do reasoning. How is it not reasoning, if you're doing a proof? If a proof is not reasoning, then what is?

jodrellblank 11mo ago
Clearly people write parsers in C and C++ and Pascal and OCAML, etc. What does it mean to come in with "the reason you can write parsers with Prolog..."? I'm not claiming that reason is incorrect, I'm handwaving it away as irrelevant and academic. Like saying that Lisp map() is better than Python map() because Lisp map is based on formal Lambda Calculus and Python map is an inferior imitation for blub programmers. When a programmer maps a function over a list and gets a result, it's a distinction without a difference. When a programmer writes a getchar() peek() and goto state machine parser with no formalism, it works, what difference does the formalism behind the implementation practically make? Yes maybe the Prolog way means concise code is easier for a human to tell whether the code is a correct expression of the intent, but an LLM won't look at it like that. Whatever the formalism brings, it isn't enough that every parser task is done in Prolog in the last 50 years. Therefore it isn't any particular interest or benefit, except academic. > both acceptor and generator Also academically interesting but practically useless due to the combinatorial explosion of "all possible valid grammars" after the utterly basic "aaaaabbbbbbbbbbbb" examples. > "how you and the OP reconcile the ability to carry out a formal proof with the inability to do reasoning. How is it not reasoning, if you're doing a proof? If a proof is not reasoning, then what is?" If drawing a painting is art, is it art if a computer pulls up a picture of a painting and shows it on screen? No. If a human coded the proof into a computer, the human is reasoning, the computer isn't. If the computer comes up with the proof, the computer is reasoning. Otherwise you're in a situation where dominos falling over is "doing reasoning" because it can be expressed formally as a chain of connected events where the last one only falls if the whole chain is built properly, and that's absurdum.
- YeGoblynQueenne 11mo ago
  With Prolog, the proof is carried out by the computer, not a human. A human writes up a theory and a theorem and the computer proves the theorem with respect to the theory. So I ask again, how is carrying out a proof not reasoning? >> I'm not claiming that reason is incorrect, I'm handwaving it away as irrelevant and academic. That's not a great way to have a discussion.
  - jodrellblank 11mo ago
    The word "reason" came into this thread with the original comment: 3. LLMs are bad at solving reasoning problems. 4. Prolog is good at solving reasoning problems. I agree with you. In Prolog "?- 1=1." is reasoning by definition. Then 4. becomes "LLMs should emit Prolog because Prolog is good at executing Prolog code". I think that's not a useful place to be, so I was trying to head off going there. But now I'll go with you - I agree it IS reasoning - can you please support your case that "executing Prolog code is reasoning" makes Prolog more useful for LLMs to emit than Python?
    - YeGoblynQueenne 11mo ago
      This is not my claim: >> "executing Prolog code is reasoning" makes Prolog more useful for LLMs to emit than Python? I said what I think about LLMs generating Prolog here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45914587 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45914587 But I was mainly asking why you say that Prolog's execution is "not reasoning". I don't understand what you mean that '"?- 1=1." is reasoning by definition' and how that ties-in with our discussion about Prolog reasoning or not.
      - jodrellblank 11mo ago
        "?- 1=1." is Prolog code. Executing Prolog code is reasoning. Therefore that is reasoning. Q.E.D. This is the point you refused to move on from until I agreed. So I agreed. So we could get back to the interesting topic. A topic you had no interest in, only interest dragging onto a trangent and grinding it down to make ... what point, exactly? If "executing Prolog code" is reasoning, then what? I say it isn't useful to call it reasoning (in the context of this thread) because it's too broad to be a helpful definition, basically everything is reasoning, and almost nothing is not. When I tried to say in advance that this wouldn't be a useful direction and I didn't want to go here, you said it was " not a great way to have a discussion". And now having dragged me off onto this academic tangent, you dismiss it as "I wasn't interested in that other topic anyway". Annoying.