Abstract :
Introspection leads us to believe that universals and meaning are extracted from sensory information before responsive action commences: as if we act first as passive observers whose subsequent reactions follow a process of recognition and decision. We are inclined to base our designs of cognitive systems upon such subjective insights. However, if we take into account the necessity for a prior, ontogenetic growth of a repertoire of perception, it appears more probable that we are engaged in unceasing interaction with our environment and that a response itself, driven by homeostatic mechanisms, contains the meaningful information about the object of the response. The components of the world are thereby described not in terms of their intrinsic spatio-temporal parameters but by their relation to the observer. A rudimentary visual system employing a Probability State Variable (PSV) Controller as a, homeostat is described, and the prototype peripheral hardware suggested. The addition of an associative memory would allow the buildup of a cognitive model of the world, but the reactive searching by the system described --- as if it were an autonomous "perceptuo-postural" mechanism --- must begin the process of discovering the properties of reality.
