<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><head><meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"><meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 15 (filtered medium)"><style><!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:#0563C1;
text-decoration:underline;}
p.quotation, li.quotation, div.quotation
{mso-style-name:quotation;
mso-style-link:"quotation Char";
margin-top:0in;
margin-right:0in;
margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;
font-weight:bold;
font-style:italic;}
span.quotationChar
{mso-style-name:"quotation Char";
mso-style-link:quotation;
font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;
font-weight:bold;
font-style:italic;}
span.EmailStyle20
{mso-style-type:personal-compose;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
color:windowtext;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
--></style><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>Here’s the example I was trying to lay out for the zFriam Leftovers when my house got flooded. It concerns simple robots, “didabots”, that if unleashed in a room full of randomly placed Styrofoam cubes, will tidy up the room by herding the cubes into clusters. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="http://www.verena-hafner.de/teaching/didabots.pdf">http://www.verena-hafner.de/teaching/didabots.pdf</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Here is what Louise Barrett’s BEYOND THE BRAIN says about the example:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=quotation>It should be clear that this “clustering” is not the “goal” of the individual didabots … . Clustering is an emergent property (=consequence?) … this complex behavior is produced, not only by a very simple mechanism, but also by a mechanism that bears absolutely no relation to the behavioral outcome produced when that mechanism operates in the real world…. . Poking around inside a didabot to identify the nature of this mechanism won’t tell us anything about didabot [herding] behavior because it makes sense only after we have taken into account the interaction of the internal mechanisms with the physical structure of the didabot and the structure of the environment. (p49)<o:p></o:p></p><p class=quotation><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>It seems to me that understanding the distinction between goal and function, we have to look at the same behavior, simultaneously from two different points of view. The first is what outcome the behavor is directed toward (avoiding obstacles on the side) and the outcome robot (organism) has been designed to produce (the herding of the blocks) within its <br>ecological” context. The seagull is a robot whose goal is to remove shiny things from the nest; natural selection has designed that seagull so that it avoids predation by vision-using predators. That this behavior constitutes a design is demonstrated by widening the lens still further and showing that shell removal is characteritic of surface nesting gulls but NOT of the closely related kitiwake gulls which nest on cliffs that ground searching predators cannot reach. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>This is an old story that has no doubt been altered by time, but the logic of attribution of goal, selection mechanism, and design remains the same. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>It is these sorts of examples that lead me to think that the decoupling between goal and function or design is an essential feature of control systems generally. Designers, human and natural, are all the same. As soon as the machine produces the outcome we desire, we stop designing. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Nick <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Nick <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> <b>Nicholas Thompson<o:p></o:p></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><b>Emeritus Professor of</b> Ethology and Psychology<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Clark University<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="mailto:ThompNickSon2@gmail.com">ThompNickSon2@gmail.com</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/">https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>