SensorsRoleAndFunctions

Role and functions of sensors

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What is the Sensor

No single agreed answer.

Certain:

• it has inputs from the world external to brain - e.g. gets rainbow colors via eye
• it has outputs connected to brain internals, providing the only inputs for its activity, including cases when sense generated mind activity which, in turn, generated another mind activity
• it generally has receptors and nerve system to transfer information and control receptors, in other words nerve system adopts (models) received sensor data, which can be named a sort of processing
• if examine saccades in vision (3 times per second) , we can state that sensors capture data from time to time, with quite different low-level images, and sleep in between capture actions (previous image neural activations are cleared); capture sequence can be quite different but reflects high-level world picture - thus decreasing a number of possible objects

Uncertain:

• senses of own body - e.g. pain - can we say it is performed by sensors?
• functions - what is the nature of processing inside sensor? Frog from one research has unconditonal reflexes inborn in the eye
• we know that after eye surface there is eye nerve, connected to mind internals. Where the eye sensor boundaries? Does eye include eye nerve or it is part of mind?
• do we treat sensor as part of mind, or it is external to the mind?
• possible major mind functions, related to sensors are - capture, recognition, generalization, association, feedback (e.g. consider eye contact) - but what are own functions of sensors?
• consider child reading book by letters and adult human reading text by words or even by sentenses; adult can read word by both letters and words, while child can only by letters. How it occurs?

Finally for the project purposes

• sensor captures set of properties of external (to aHuman) world (external properties)
• sensor captures properties from certain area of external world (capture area)
• capture area can be changed up to some limits (current/maximum capture area)
• sensor can capture only subset of its properties (capture resolution)
• the more capture area, the less sensor resolution
• sensor has control state managed by mind
• control state defines current capture area and capture resolution
• control state is exposed to external world (external properties of aHuman)
• sensor works as active part, not by request, generating inbound stream of data
• sensor does not perform recognition, generalization and association
• sensor uses certain physical media to implement capture and feedback
• sensor can be either polling, when capture occurs as a regular event, or event-driven, when capture occurs by changes of external world properties

Sensor Model