Über die logische Struktur eines Nervensystems

Summary

This paper describes an attempt to apply the concepts of modern logic toward encompassing one sort of nervous system function, sensory perception, within a general theoretical framework. Starting from the biological role of a sense organ to receive factual situations of the environment, one may treat the individual receptor as an elementary proposition, and a nerve network as a molecular proposition. Taking the known neurophysiology of the system into consideration, one recognizes that the logical functions contained in these propositional forms are those of a many-valued logic. The neuronal principles of lateral and linear inhibition provided ground for two basic propositional functions from which a variety of further functions can be constructed. The elements of construction are due to the anatomical principles of nerve cell connections: linear, lateral, and recurrent.