CONNECTIVE SYSTEM
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 623 ▶ |
| Object type | General information, Methodology or model |
A system made of an important number of simple interconnected units (“neurons”).
Each unit receives an excitatory or inhibitory activity (or both) which, when reaching some threshold, produces a change of state. (after J. HORGAN, 1993, p.370).
We should be careful in the use of our vocabulary. Multiple electronic interconnections are most probably not exactly equivalent to biological neurons, if only for the inexistence of biochemical processes of transmission of flows in the case of so-called electronic “neurons”.
Another important aspect is the highly parallelism in such a system: numerous local activities occur simultaneously in different zones of the system without producing instantaneously global interactions in the net. Any excitation or inhibition get transmitted with some delay, even if very short.
The global behavior of such a system is deterministic in a general sense, but it perfectly admits simultaneous and more or less aleatory behavior, locally, within the limits of the determinism of the whole.
Besides, such a type of net can show a considerable endogenous activity, but must necessarily receive stimuli from its environment. Moreover its activity probably make sense only if it results in some action on this same environment.