Beliefs, points of view, and multiple environments

The paper describes a system for dealing with nestings of belief in terms of the mechanism of computational environment. A method is offered for computing the beliefs of A about B (and so on) in terms of the systems existing knowledge structures about A and B separately. A proposal for belief percolation is put forward: percolation being a side effect of the process of the computation of nested beliefs, but one which could explain the acquisition of unsupported beliefs. It is argued that the mechanism proposed is compatible with a general least effort hypothesis concerning human mental functioning. The authors are indebted to comments and criticisms from Dan Dennett, Bill Mann, Bob Balzer, Bob Abelson, Roger Schank, Mike Rosner, and Richard Young. The errors, of course, are all our own.