The need for consciousness

An important tendency of life on earth is that it resides in individuals separated from each other. Therefore, in the hierarchy of nature, consciousness is found at the level of organisms where highly centralized nervous systems with a brain exist. It is not possible, however, to imagine consciousness without an existing memory. Awareness of

A hierarchy of memory

A crucial step in the development of the human race was the possibility of using a language. It liberated the individual from the compulsion to merely learn from his own experience. We became a new and advanced kind of information processor. Use of natural language presupposes an extensive memory, something which in itself has

Brain models

The human brain uses about 20 per cent of the body’s energy but is just two per cent of its weight. In proportion to the body mass, the brain is three times as large as that of our nearest relatives. It has more than ten thousand million neurons, interconnected by means of a thousand

A model perspective of Brain and Mind

In the past many models of the mind have been constructed in an attempt to explain the phenomena of emotion, learning, perception and behaviour. None of them can however disregard the basic connection between the development of the hand and the brain. Freeing the hands by two-footedness made the brain able to grow. Without

Self-Organization and Evolution in system perspective

An important quality of what we call dead matter is that it organizes itself. It transforms  itself  into  states  of  higher order  and  escapes chaos under its own power if the flow of energy is strong enough. The universe has demonstrated its predisposition to create structures in all scales and kinds from snowflakes to

Evolution as self-organization

The most fundamental evolutionary mechanism is natural selection working together with genetic variation, a kind of decentralized biological trial-and-error method. By definition, selection is the very opposite of randomness. It implies that some qualities are preferred (those enhancing survival) while others are avoided. It reduces the number of possibilities and therefore variation is held

Basic principles of self-organization

Self-organization may be defined as a spontaneous process of development of an organized structure in open systems far from equilibrium. A slightly different definition is: “The evolution of a system from random initial conditions into an organized form in the absence of external pressures”. It may be taken as the opposite of construction. Systems

Some rules of the game for self-organization

Many systems have specific purposes which only can be fulfilled by a high degree of complexity characterized of many parts which interact in a well-regulated fashion. A good example is how a mind could emerge from a collection of mindless parts in the human brain. What we need to understand is not the behaviour

The city as self-organization

The largest known human artifact during history is the city which belongs to the most complex space-time structures existing in the world. Being with us for 6000 years, it represents the rise of civilization and have survived all socio-cultural changes. In the city, new surprises are always waiting around the corner and possibilities exist

Climate and weather in self-organization

Without a doubt, the most common topic of conversation among inhabitants of the world is the weather. In a broader sense, this is quite reasonable. Collapses of many ancient societies can be attributed to rapid shifts in climate. The blame on social, economic and political forces must often be considered secondary causes. Sudden dramatic

The economy as self-organization

If an economical system manages to diversify and increase its complexity above a certain critical level, it undergoes an explosive increase in growth and creativity. This is called economic take off and is a kind of spontaneous self-organization. In market economies, this self-organization creates equilibrium between supply, demand, and prices. Diminishing returns ensure that

Artificial Intelligence and Life in system perspective

Progressive scientific optimists in Western societies are often heard to promote two main projects: that of nuclear fusion and of artificial intelligence. While billions of dollars have been invested in both of these areas and very little has happened, proponents are still claiming that a breakthrough is very near. To understand why the difficulties

The Turing test

Let us now return to the behaviouristic attitude and comment on the Turing test. This test was introduced in 1950 by the computer scientist Alan Turing (1912-1954). Its purpose was to find out if a computer really could have the capability to think. The idea was as simple as it was brilliant. A person

Parallel processing and neural networks

Today a significant part of the development of artificial intelligence is carried out within the area of neural nets and parallel processing. Researchers and medical neuroscientists within this area are often referred to as connectionists. They hold that mental functions such as cognition and learning depend upon the way in which neurons interconnect and

Expert systems

One of the beneficiaries of the spin-off effects of the AI area are expert systems, programs for problem solving in some scientific or technical domain. An expert system can be defined as a computer based system comprising the total sum of knowledge and rules of thumb which represent the highest level of expertise in

Some other applications of Artificial Intelligence

The potential application of both neural networks and parallel processing is most obvious in the areas of natural language understanding and speech recognition. To break the language barrier to knowledge, computer translation of scientific correspondence, papers and books would be a tremendous achievement. With the exponential proliferation of publications of all kinds, something which

Artificial life

Artificial life, AL, is a fairly new science and a first attempt to define the area involves parallels with artificial intelligence. As AI relates to intelligence, so artificial life will relate to life itself. Like the AI researchers, investigators in artificial life are attempting to create this phenomenon in a medium other than the

Computer viruses as Artificial life

Hitherto the only appreciable influence of AL on our own physical reality has been the consequences of computer viruses. Computer viruses reproduce and propagate by copying themselves into another computer or to some kind of electronic memory. They manage the metabolism of its host and implement their own functions just as real viruses do

A gloomy future of Artificial life

In a previous chapter (see p. 22) the existing pessimism at the turn of the foregoing century was mentioned. In the presence of our own turn of the century we must establish the fact that the world and society still are considered to have a very gloomy future by many scientists. The main threat

Organizational Theory and Management Cybernetics in system perspective

Organizations are a product of the surrounding society whose needs they serve. They have to survive and keep to its identity in this environment which must be thoroughly known if success should be possible. A characteristic of this social milieu includes the following: All changes in society take place with increasing speed. Science and technology