Information and regulation in robots, perception and consciousness: Ashby's embodied minds

Abstract

This article considers W. Ross Ashby's ideas on the nature of embodied minds, as articulated in the last five years of his career. In particular, it attempts to connect his ideas to later work by others in robotics, perception and consciousness. While it is difficult to measure his direct influence on this work, the conceptual links are deep. Moreover, Ashby provides a comprehensive view of the embodied mind, which connects these areas. It concludes that the contemporary fields of situated robotics, ecological perception, and the neural mechanisms of consciousness might all benefit from a reconsideration of Ashby's later writings.

Keywords:

• representation
• embodiment
• cognition
• information theory
• requisite variety

Notes

^1. Gibson was apparently unaware that the original source of Bishop Berkeley's puzzle was William Molyneux.