Characterizing Consensus in Networks of Agents

Summary

A Belief Flow Network (BFN) is a directed graph where nodes represent agents holding epistemic states—complex logical beliefs including conditional statements. Agents exchange information asynchronously, revising their beliefs via iterated belief change operators, potentially with different rational policies (some skeptical, some credulous). The research asks whether consensus is inevitable if influence can eventually reach every agent, and if so, what exact beliefs they can agree upon. Unlike averaging numerical opinions, logical belief revision must preserve prior beliefs while accommodating new inputs. This builds on decades of work in belief revision, iterated belief revision, and improvement operators.