Abstract

In this paper we present TAL-C, a logic of action and change for multi-agent environments which has a first-order semantics and proof theory. It is demonstrated how TAL-C can represent (cases of) a number of phenomena related to action concurrency: action duration, interference between one action's effects and another action's execution, bounds on concurrency, and conflicting, synergistic and cumulative effects of concurrent actions. A central idea is that most of the dynamics of the world is encoded in dependency laws relating to specific features instead of encoded directly in action laws. Thus, treatment of different types of interaction can be customized for specific features.