Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic PsychologyThese imaginative thought experiments are the inventions of one of the world's eminent brain researchers. These imaginative thought experiments are the inventions of one of the world's eminent brain researchers. They are "vehicles," a series of hypothetical, self-operating machines that exhibit increasingly intricate if not always successful or civilized "behavior." Each of the vehicles in the series incorporates the essential features of all the earlier models and along the way they come to embody aggression, love, logic, manifestations of foresight, concept formation, creative thinking, personality, and free will. In a section of extensive biological notes, Braitenberg locates many elements of his fantasy in current brain research. |
Contents
Foreword by Michael A Arbib ix | 1 |
Vehicle | 15 |
Vehicle 7 | 29 |
Vehicle 9 | 43 |
Trains of Thought | 62 |
Egotism and Optimism | 80 |
Biological Notes on the Vehicles | 95 |
control of behavior | 102 |
McCullochPitts neurons and real neurons | 108 |
Memory | 114 |
Maps and their use | 120 |
An inborn category of acoustic form perception | 133 |
embodiments of ideas | 140 |
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Common terms and phrases
3-dimensional action potentials active elements afferents animal brains association axon become active behavior bilateral symmetry Braitenberg cell assemblies cerebral cortex complex complicated concept corresponding cortical course crossed Darwinian direction elementary environment Ergotrix wires excitation excitatory connections experience fiber bundles figure frequency green vehicle half brain happen idea images imagine incorporated internal lateral inhibition learning process mechanism mind motoneurons motor move movement detectors neighboring nerve cells nerve net neurons number of active observer ommatidia ommatidium optic output pattern perception philosophers photocells picture prediction predictor projection properties psychology pyramidal cells Reichardt representation represented retinula sensors sequences shape short-term memory side signals stimulus symmetrical synapses things threshold control threshold devices tion trajectories tricks turn type 6 vehicles uncrossed Valentino Braitenberg Vehicle 12 Vehicle 2b vehicle's brain vehicles of type velocity visual cortex visual field visual input
Popular passages
Page 147 - Uttley, AM 1956. Conditional probability machines and conditioned reflexes. In: Automata studies, edited by CE Shannon and J. McCarthy. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Page 147 - Automata studies. Edited by CE Shannon and J. McCarthy, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1956, viii + 285 pp. $4.00. This collection of essays is divided into three sections: "Finite Automata," "Turing Machines,
Page 151 - Frequency arrangement in anterior ectosylvian auditory cortex of dog,