Title: Design for a brain; the origin of adaptive behavior
Identifier: designforbrainor00ashb (find matches)
Year: 1960 (1960s)
Authors: Ashby, William Ross
Subjects: Calculators; Central nervous system -- Mathematical models; Behavior; Brain -- physiology
Publisher: New York, Wiley
Contributing Library: MBLWHOI Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MBLWHOI Library

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17/4 ANCILLARY REGULATIONS For the co-ordination to occur, there must be some channel from the source of the left arm's variations to the right arm's movements (/. to C, S. 11/11; the pairing proves as much by S. 4/13 above). Our question now is: must this channel lie within the brain ? Not only it need not, it usually does not; as the following argument will show. Consider the situation at the moment when the ball is in mid-air: is the right arm's developing movement now guided by messages from the left arm's centre* or from the position of the ball in the air ? The operational test (of S. 4/12 and 12/3) is decisive: let the left arm's movements remain unaltered but assume now that the position of the ball be altered, by a sharp gust say; is the right arm's movement altered? The normal player, if the ball should be affected by a gust, will at once modify his right-arm movements accordingly. These modifications, by the basic operational test, show that the right arm is immediately
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ORGANISM Figure 17/4/1. * We must avoid the tangles caused by the fact that the right arm is controlled by the left motor cortex, and vice versa. 221

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