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Research Area

• Soft Computing -Fuzzy Logic
• Cyberspace
• Large- Scale System Theory
• Data Fusion & Mining 
• Energy and Resource Systems 
• Control Theories 
• Optimization

BERKEKEY INITIATIVE IN SOFT COMPUTING (BISC)

Subject: Fuzzy Logic as the “Brainware” of the Internet

 Unlike classical logic, fuzzy logic is concerned, in the main, with modes of reasoning which are approximate rather than exact. In Internet, almost everything, especially in the realm of search, is approximate in nature. Putting these two facts together, an intriguing thought merges; in time, fuzzy logic may replace classical logic as what may be called the brainware of the Internet. Actually, to a far greater extent than many of us, including myself had realized, fuzzy logic is already in use in search engines. To get an idea, try the entry +fuzzy + search +engine ( + is conjunction) in excite.  But this may be just beginning of a steep ascent in the use of fuzzy logic in the Internet. In this connection, Eli Snachez brought to my attention the following qoate from Tim Bernres-Lee (Father of WWW); "... Toleration of inconsistency can only be done by fuzzy systems. We need a semantic web which will provide guarantees, and about which one can reason with logic. (A fuzzy system might be good for finding a proof ..."

In my view, among the many ways in which fuzzy logic may be employed, there are two that stand out in importance.

The first is search. Another, and less obvious, is deduction in an unstructured and imprecise environment. Existing search engines have zero deductive capability.  To convince yourself that this is the case, try the query “How many computer science graduates were produced by European universities in 1999?” To add a deductive capability to a search engine, the use of fuzzy logic is not an option - it is a necessity.

To promote the use of fuzzy Logic in the Internet, a Special Interest Group on Fuzzy Logic in the Internet, with Dr. Masoud Nikravesh as Chair, has been formed. Please contact Dr. Nikravesh (nikravesh@cs.berkeley.edu; URL: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu) if you are interested in joining this SIG or posting your views and comments to the BISC Group.
 

Warm regards to all,
Lotfi Zadeh
Dec 2000

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Lofti A. Zadeh
 Professor in the Graduate School and Director,
 Berkeley Initiative in Soft Computing (BISC)
 CS Division, Department of EECS
 University of California
 Berkeley, CA 94720-1776
 Tel/office: (510) 642-4959 Fax/office: (510) 642-1712
 Tel/home: (510) 526-2569 Fax/home: (510) 526-2433
 email: zadeh@cs.berkeley.edu
 http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/People/Faculty/Homepages/zadeh.html
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