Abstract

When we make a prediction we select, among the conceivable future descriptions of the world, those that appear to us to be most plausible. We capture this by means of two binary relations, ≺c and ≺p: if t1 and t2 are points in time, we interpret t1 ≺ct2 as sayingthat t2 is in the conceivable future of t1, while t1 ≺pt2 is interpreted to mean that t2 isin the predicted future of t1. Within a branching-time framework we propose the following notion of “consistency of prediction”. Suppose that at t1 some future moment t2 is predicted to occur, then every moment t on the unique path from t1 to t2 should also be predicted at t1 and the prediction of t2 should continue to hold at every such t. A sound and complete axiomatization is provided