Tom Quick

Evolving Embodied Genetic Regulatory Network-Driven Control Systems.

We demonstrate the evolution of simple embodied Genetic Regulatory Networks (GRNs) as real-time control systems for robotic and software-based embodied Artificial Organisms, and present results from two experimental test-beds: homeostatic temperature regulation in an abstract software environment, and phototactic robot behaviour maximising exposure to light. The GRN controllers are continually coupled to the organisms’ environments throughout their lifetimes, and constitute the primary basis for the organisms’ behaviour from moment to moment. The environment in which the organisms are embodied is shown to play a significant role in the dynamics of the GRNs, and the behaviour of the organisms.

The essence of embodiment: A framework for understanding and exploiting structural coupling between system and environment

A framework for understanding and exploiting embodiment is presented which is not dependent on any specific ontological context. This framework is founded on a new definition of embodiment, based on the relational dynamics that exist between biological organisms and their environments, and inspired by the structural dynamics of the bacterium Escherichia coli. The definition draws on the idea of mutual perturbation between a system (biological organism, robot, or software agent) and its environment, enabling structural coupling between the two. The framework provides a vocabulary and concepts that can be used to discuss and analyze embodiment in any kind of environment, not just the material world. Rather than blurring boundaries between disciplines and domains, this permits the characterization of distinctions and common features between them, in a manner meaningful to all parties. Other benefits include the potential quantification of embodiment, and access to practical and theoretical ideas associated w...

Book review: What is Posthumanism?

What is Posthumanism? The title seems to herald the emergence of a new intellectual movement. Granting, for a moment, that there is indeed such a trend, a range of questions regarding it might be raised: ‘What are the concerns of this movement?’; ‘Whom does it concern?’; ‘How are these concerns to be addressed?’; ‘What is its relation to other modes of thought?’; ‘How and why did it arise?’; and so on. The answers to such questions, if Wolfe is to be believed, render this reader less than optimistic about its future prospects. As its name suggests, the book deals with the coming-to-pre-eminence of ways of being and becoming that no longer define themselves in relation to a fixed concept of humanity. Wolfe seeks to characterize posthumanism in terms of a set of questions that, broadly, relate to the mechanicity and/or animality of subjectivity. In an increasingly familiar move, the book abandons the modernist project of defining human being, in favour of a questioning of the biological and technical conditions that characterize our current intellectual and spiritual situation. The first half of the text embarks on this project in relation to the concerns of two totemic 20th-century thinkers: Jacques Derrida and Niklas Luhmann. Over five chapters, we are shown how the conventionally opposed concerns of postmodern literary theory and biologically inspired systems analysis in fact hold a great deal in common. In simple terms, the outcome of this thinking-together is that we must develop a more thorough awareness that the act of making statements about the world cannot be understood as subordinate to our beliefs regarding it. That is, we must abandon all residual notions of definitional authorship, ‘Cartesian’ separations of body and self, that media be considered in terms of the capacity to ‘represent’ an author’s intentions, and so on. It might be asked how such concerns differ from those already made familiar by postmodern critics. The answer seems to lie not so much in Wolfe’s intellectual positioning

The lived experience of motor recovery of elbow flexion following Oberlin nerve transfer: A qualitative analysis

Introduction Nerve injuries to the upper trunk, lateral cord and musculocutaneous nerve can result in the loss of active biceps contraction. Oberlin nerve transfer surgery is often performed to re-animate the biceps muscle. Outcome studies following this surgery almost exclusively focus on muscle strength. To date, no research has focused on the lived experience of motor recovery following Oberlin nerve transfer. Methods A focus group discussion (n = 6) allowed participants to give their accounts of successful restoration of active elbow flexion. Qualitative analysis of the transcript identified ‘significant statements’ which were used to generate themes and capture participants’ lived experience. Results Four main themes were identified as being important components of the lived experience: ‘pain’, ‘patience and positive thought’, ‘functionality and daily lifestyle’ and ‘the biceps muscle’ itself. Each theme was identified to have several subthemes and constituent parts. Conclusions The lived experience of motor recovery is complex, multifaceted and individual to the patient. This study has identified areas where clinicians may be able to better tailor their care to the individual and suggested adjuncts to therapy have been included.

From phrenology to the laboratory Physiological psychology and the institution of science in Britain (c.1830–80)

The claim that mind is an epiphenomenon of the nervous system became academically respectable during the 19th century. The same period saw the establishment of an ideal of science as institutionalized endeavour conducted in laboratories. This article identifies three ways in which the ‘physiological psychology’ movement in Britain contributed to the latter process: first, via an appeal to the authority of difficult-to-access sites in the analysis of nerves; second, through the constitution of a discourse internal to it that privileged epistemology over ontology; and third, in its articulation of a set of rhetorical tools that identified laboratories as economically productive institutions. Acknowledging the integral place of physiological psychology in the institution of science, it is claimed, has the potential to alter our understanding of the significance of current neurological science for historical scholarship.

Richard Owen: Biology without Darwin

contemporary of Galileo in England, which demonstrate that Harriot had the instrument but could not see the craters before reading Galileo’s booklet. Hence he could not have invented the telescope. The next issue is Galileo and Venice. Here a chronicle is given of Galileo’s wheeling and dealing with the Republic of Venice after the invention of the telescope. In the next section, mention is made of a few Italian precursors who had tinkered with the instrument before Galileo invented his telescope. The next section introduces the reader to the laws of optics. Then three sections follow illustrating the optical workings of Galileo’s telescope from a slightly more technical point of view. The next section shows the problems that many people at the time had with Galileo’s telescopes. Obviously the eyes need to be trained to see with a telescope and this became a sore issue because natural philosophers at that time were not accustomed to work with instruments in general, let alone with telescopes. The next three sections deal with Galileo’s ability to draw. Shea and Bascelli’s moral seems to be: You can draw what you see and you can see what you draw. The latter seems to have the case with the huge crater that Galileo introduced (for fun?) in the engravings of the 1610 booklet, and which (alas!) has never been identified by astronomers since. Next comes the moon. That the moon should be like another earth was put forward by the Greek writer Plutarch in the first century AD. Galileo confirmed this, according to Shea and Bascelli. The next topic is the satellites of Jupiter (many sections). Galileo saw four moons around Jupiter. He then set out to calculate the periods. He basically succeeded if compared to data published in 1910. Saturn and Venus, the next question, were more tricky. Galileo got it right with the phases, which he discovered, but not with the ring which he could not resolve. But the ring was of course beyond the power of his telescope, and also appeared in an unfavorable position in the 1610s. Finally, the concluding two sections of the Introduction try to offer some views about the larger implications of the book. For, Galileo’s quest for precise tables of the satellites of Jupiter was motivated by the possibility of applying the data to the problem of longitude at sea. To sum up, space prevents my going further into the fascinating minutiae of the beginning of telescopic astronomy, and Galileo’s fundamental contribution to it, but I wish to encourage the reader to do so under the safe escort of Shea and Bascelli.