AN ITERATED NET MODEL OF THE VERTEBRATE COMMAND AND CONTROL SYSTEM.
Abstract
An eigenstate approach to the problem of stable biosynthetic mode points in cells is considered. This problem is cybernetically dual to the reticular formation one of passing from stable mode point to stable mode point under input provocation. The report also discusses a theory of the reticular formation. Throughout the life of the vertebrates, the core of the central nervous system, sometimes called the reticular formation, has retained the power to commit the whole animal to one mode of behavior rather than another. Its anatomy, or wiring diagram, is fairly well known, but to date no theory of its circuit action has been proposed that could possibly account for its known performance. Its basic structure is that of a string of similar modules, wide but shallow in computation everywhere, and connected not merely from module to adjacent module, but by long jumpers between distant modules. Analysis of its circuit actions heretofore proposed in terms of finite automata or coupled nonlinear oscillators has failed. Nonlinear, probabilistic hybrid computers are proposed as proper modules, and a behavioral simulation of an anastomatically-coupled linear array of 12 such computers is described. The model contains about 2200 wires, yet still behaves as an integral unit, rolling over from stable mode to stable mode according to abductive logical principles, and as directed by its succession of input 60-tuples. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 1966
- Accession Number
- AD0636322
Entities
People
- W. L. Kilmer
Organizations
- Michigan State University