Re: Brain protocol

[Paul W. Box]

Kevin Crowston wrote:
> 
> >        Then, let's think of it. I would, for starters, propose a
> >single function,
> >-(float*) feel: (float*);
> >
> >        This would be the basic function, to feed an information
> >vector to the brain, and return an "action" vector.
> >
> >        Comments, ideas, criticism anyone?
> 
> It would help to know what you expect the "brain" of an agent to do.  What
> I want is for my agents to listen for other agents to tell them things and
> then to act on what they're told.  So, I'd almost go for something like
> 
> -(void) heard: (char *) ;

This may be a simple semantic difference.  In many languages (Swahili,
for example), the words for 'hear', 'feel', 'smell', and 'sense' are
identical, and to change the form to 'listen' or 'touch' merely depends
on whether you are using the active or passive form of the verb.

For an agent, this would be a useful abstraction.  Provide some general
protocol for 'sensing' (recieving messages or obtaining states) of
fellow agents, and let the modeller decide whether the agent (or agent's
brain) is seeing, smelling, or touching the other agent.  How the brain
processes that information would be largely specific to the model one is
developing, but the act of sensing would be general.

I suspect that's a reflection of how biological brains work anyway...

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/*  Paul Box                      |        Cogito ergo                */
/*  Dept. of Geography            |      Oculum Dioscoreum            */
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