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Computer simulation of a self-preserving and learning organism

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Abstract

The objective of the present work is to describe a technique general enough to be applied to the simulation of a fairly wide range of biological phenomena rather than the explicatory-predictive treatment of a specific problem. A model of an organism is built and studied by computer simulation. The organism has a major goal, survival, and various subgoals, such as optimization of its state of health, maximization of pleasure, minimization of pain, exploration and control of its environment, etc. It perceives a set of stimuli and emits a set of responses the quality of which improves with experience. Various learning processes are incorporated in the “cognitive mechanism” of the organism. The description of the model is followed by an outline of the computer program and, finally, the results of a trial run are discussed.

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Literature

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, USA

    Nicholas V. Findler & Wiley R. McKinzie

Authors
  1. Nicholas V. Findler
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  2. Wiley R. McKinzie
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Additional information

The programming part of the present work was done by W. R. McKinzie, while the writingup of the paper was a joint effort between the two authors. In its original form, this work was a term project of W. R. McKinzie for a course on Numerical Techniques of Simulation given by N. V. Findler.

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Findler, N.V., McKinzie, W.R. Computer simulation of a self-preserving and learning organism. Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics 31, 247–253 (1969). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02477004

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02477004

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