MT - Rupert's Intro

Posted by Rupert

Hello,

I did a degree in Artificial Intelligence and then a PhD in Robotics Vision. On the PhD I was trying to explore new ways of understanding behaviour as I’d been very unimpressed with what was being proposed on the AI degree. Basically the computer metaphor and the Computational Approach seemed unrealistic and unnecessarily complicated. It was on my PhD that I came across PCT (around 1997), which seemed to provide an answer for the core functionality of the nervous system resulting in dynamic behaviour. I was amazed that there was a pretty comprehensive and well-defined theory which explained behaviour contrary to conventional wisdom, and that was unknown or ignored in conventional Cognitive Science.

My interest is to apply PCT to artificial systems to build robots that do interesting and useful things. I think the potential of the PCT application to robotics is huge and is likely to be far more successful than traditional methodologies.

I wrote about the approach in a paper in the Artificial Life journal in 2017, which can be downloaded here.

I look forward to many interesting discussions!

Regards,
Rupert Young
www.perceptualrobots.com