Valentino Braitenberg: Quotes about the trip

“It is actually impossible in theory to determine exactly what the hidden mechanism is without opening the box, since there are always many different mechanisms with identical behavior. Quite apart from this, analysis is more difficult than invention in the sense in which, generally, induction takes more time to perform than deduction: in induction one has to search for the way, whereas in deduction one follows a straightforward path.”

Valentino Braitenberg

Source: Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology (1984), p. 20 as cited in: Yll Haxhimusa (2006) The Structurally Optimal Dual Graph Pyramid and Its Application in Image Partitioning. p. 149

Way , Behavior , Search , Sense

“We must be careful, however, not to let the process of acquiring new ideas interfere with the detailed knowledge that our vehicle has assiduously collected and carefully stored in many associative connections during its lifetime. We know that this may happen in humans who are overly dedicated to the development of ideas. They tend to connect many individual cases into general categories ad then use the categories as if they were things, losing the potential for categorizing in other ways by remembering each instance.”

Valentino Braitenberg

Source: Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology (1984), p. 52 as cited in: Vehicles – Valentino Braitenberg, 1984 http://problemboard.com/bio/?p=5 at problemboard.com, 2013

Way , Idea , Knowledge

“Not it is different with type 14 vehicles. They move through their world with consistent determination, always clearly after something that very often we cannot guess at the outset - something that may not even be there when the vehicle reaches the place it wants to get to. But it seems to be a good strategy, this running after a dream. Most of the time the chain of optimistic predicitions that seems to guide the vehicles's behaviour proves to be correct, and Vehicle 14 achieves goals that Vehicle 13 and its predecessors "couldn't not even dream of." The point is that while the vehicle goes through its optimistic predicitions, the succession of internal states implies movements and actions of the vehicle itself. While dreaming and sleepwalking, the vehicle transforms the world (and its own position in the world) in such a way that ultimately the state of the world is a more favorable one.”

Valentino Braitenberg

As cited in: [ http://transit-port.net/Citations/index.html Citations] at transit-port.net, 2013
Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology (1984)

World , Dreams , Way , Time

“A structure made up of fine threads, so many and so fine that even the strongest magnification of the microscope was hardly sufficient to allow all of them to be seen clearly. Some of the threads ran together in bundles and in layers in specific directions; others lay seemingly randomly distributed every which way through the tissue. Embedded in this felted mass of fibers, it was possible to discern spherical structures, the nuclei of the nerve cells…”

Valentino Braitenberg

Braitenberg (1948), quoted in: Elke Maier (2012) " Spying on God http://www.mpg.de/6348834/S005_Flashback_086-087.pdf" in Max Planck Research, March 2012
Description of Braitenberg's first experience observing brain tissue under a microscope as medical student in Rome.

Way