Will I love Vehicles?

Strictly speaking, there is very little math in this short book, but it nevertheless details precise models that yield loads of insight.

Using simple machines with sensors and motors, Braitenberg shows us how easy it is to generate behaviors that look purposeful and even emotional, and how hard it would be to guess how those behaviors were generated if we didn’t already know. This is a book I come back to again and again, not only for its valuable lessons, but also for its beautiful prose.

The models in this may be fictions, but, as Braitenberg advises, fiction is a… show more.

The author’s opening line calls this slim volume “fictional science”, a genre all of its own. It remains a unique and compelling book, a set of simply stated ideas that show how apparently complex behaviour can emerge from the simplest of brains. On another reading, it is a parts list for what functions brains must have evolved. However I read it, it’s been instrumental in shaping how I think about the brain.