Can Large Language Models Adequately Perform Symbolic Reasoning Over Time Series?

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Liu, Zewen, Ni, Juntong, Tang, Xianfeng, Lau, Max S. Y., He, Qi, Yin, Wenpeng, Jin, Wei
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Liu, Zewen
Ni, Juntong
Tang, Xianfeng
Lau, Max S. Y.
He, Qi
Yin, Wenpeng
Jin, Wei
author_facet Liu, Zewen
Ni, Juntong
Tang, Xianfeng
Lau, Max S. Y.
He, Qi
Yin, Wenpeng
Jin, Wei
contents Uncovering hidden symbolic laws from time series data, as an aspiration dating back to Kepler's discovery of planetary motion, remains a core challenge in scientific discovery and artificial intelligence. While Large Language Models show promise in structured reasoning tasks, their ability to infer interpretable, context-aligned symbolic structures from time series data is still underexplored. To systematically evaluate this capability, we introduce SymbolBench, a comprehensive benchmark designed to assess symbolic reasoning over real-world time series across three tasks: multivariate symbolic regression, Boolean network inference, and causal discovery. Unlike prior efforts limited to simple algebraic equations, SymbolBench spans a diverse set of symbolic forms with varying complexity. We further propose a unified framework that integrates LLMs with genetic programming to form a closed-loop symbolic reasoning system, where LLMs act both as predictors and evaluators. Our empirical results reveal key strengths and limitations of current models, highlighting the importance of combining domain knowledge, context alignment, and reasoning structure to improve LLMs in automated scientific discovery. https://github.com/nuuuh/SymbolBench.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_03963
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Can Large Language Models Adequately Perform Symbolic Reasoning Over Time Series?
Liu, Zewen
Ni, Juntong
Tang, Xianfeng
Lau, Max S. Y.
He, Qi
Yin, Wenpeng
Jin, Wei
Artificial Intelligence
Uncovering hidden symbolic laws from time series data, as an aspiration dating back to Kepler's discovery of planetary motion, remains a core challenge in scientific discovery and artificial intelligence. While Large Language Models show promise in structured reasoning tasks, their ability to infer interpretable, context-aligned symbolic structures from time series data is still underexplored. To systematically evaluate this capability, we introduce SymbolBench, a comprehensive benchmark designed to assess symbolic reasoning over real-world time series across three tasks: multivariate symbolic regression, Boolean network inference, and causal discovery. Unlike prior efforts limited to simple algebraic equations, SymbolBench spans a diverse set of symbolic forms with varying complexity. We further propose a unified framework that integrates LLMs with genetic programming to form a closed-loop symbolic reasoning system, where LLMs act both as predictors and evaluators. Our empirical results reveal key strengths and limitations of current models, highlighting the importance of combining domain knowledge, context alignment, and reasoning structure to improve LLMs in automated scientific discovery. https://github.com/nuuuh/SymbolBench.
title Can Large Language Models Adequately Perform Symbolic Reasoning Over Time Series?
topic Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.03963