The making of images may have a variety of purposes, and the intention of the maker is not always clear to those who look on them. There is a well defined difference between the magical and the scientific imitation of life. The former copies external appearances; the latter is concerned with performance and behavior. For the scientific imitation of life, Walter had incidentally constructed in principle the first working model of a reflex circuit similar to what they describe in the organization of sense organs, nerves and muscles. This was the beginning of self-regulating devices so common today. In following this model, we would have to imagine what a ‘monster’ it would be to create a working model of the brain. Nobody is going to make an artificial brain along these lines (cost effectiveness, space constraints). An entirely different approach seemed necessary to make it a practical problem, if we were to learn about life by imitation as well as observation of living things. We need to understand that the brain does not derive its functionality from the number of neurons, as so much as the richness of their interconnection.

If the performance of a model is to be demonstrably a fair imitation of cerebral activity, the conditions of stimulation and behavior must equally be comparable with those of the brain. There must be some measure of some of the following attributes: Exploration, goal-seeking, memory, learning and form recognition. To understand these measures, we need to evaluate the current computer model. Computers are essentially machines that do sums but do not lose count. The first attempt to make a machine that would imitate a living creature in performance, as distinguished from appearance, seems to have been suggested by a familiar test of animal intelligence in finding the way out of a maze. This demonstrates the first of several principles exemplified in the mechanisms of most living creatures.

The observations of living creatures include the following:

  1. Parsimony. There are very few redundant organs in present day animals and many parts of the body were originally something quite different. The variations of behavior patterns exhibited even with such economy of structure are complex and unpredictable.
  2. Speculation: A typical animal propensity is to explore the environment rather than to wait passively for something to happen.
  3. Positive Tropism. Sensory susceptibility to the attractions of the environment. When a signal is received from any direction, the machine is in a position to respond without too much maneuvering.
  4. Negative Tropism: Certain perceptible variables, such as very bright lights, material obstacles, and steep gradients repel the object.
  5. Discernment: Distinction between effective and ineffective behavior.
  6. Optima: A tendency to seek conditions with moderate and most favorable properties, rather than maximum.
  7. Self-recognition: The machines are fitted with a small flash-lamp bulb in the head which is turned off automatically whenever the photo-cell receives an adequate light signal.
  8. Mutual Recognition: Two creatures of the same type, attracted by one another’s light, both extinguish the source of attraction by themselves in the act of seeking it in other’s.
  9. Internal stability: One of the advantages of making a moderate light a positive stimulus is that this can be used as a sign or symbol for the energy which the creatures require for their sustenance – energy.

The important feature of the effect is the establishment of a feedback loop in which the environment is a component. This again illustrates an important general principle in the study of animal behavior – that any psychological or ecological situation in which such a reflexive mechanism exists, may result in behavior which will seem, at least, to suggest self-consciousness or social consciousness. In modeling such behavior we can begin to see how as the sports and un-adaptable mutations fade away, the successful imitations already form more than one sub-species. It is these sub-species of systems as they evolve that create the environment.

Reference:

  1. W. Grey Walter, The Living Brain, 1953 -see chapter 5 – Totems, Toys, and Tools