The representation of plans in rational agent architectures

In a previous paper, the author presented a framework for rational agent architectures that use explicit representations of beliefs and intentions and a theory of belief and intention revision. He also motivated a specific logic of belief and intention with reference to standard puzzles from the literature. He considers the relationship between the BDI-architecture and classical planning systems such as NOAH and NONLIN. In particular, he shows that any nonlinear hierarchical plan without repeated actions can be represented using his formalism in such a way that any allowable execution sequence of the plan can be realized using a system implementing AGM theory revision. This result is surprising, because the AGM theory's use of total pre-orders on beliefs suggests that nonlinear plans cannot be represented: they can because the execution of such plans is sequential.