  Artificial intelligence research to a great degree focuses on the brain and
behaviors that the brain generates. But the brain, an extremely complex
structure resulting from millions of years of evolution, can be viewed as a
solution to problems posed by an environment existing in space and time. The
environment generates signals that produce sensory events within an organism.
Building an internal spatial and temporal model of the environment allows an
organism to navigate and manipulate the environment. Higher intelligence might
be the ability to process information coming from a larger extent of
space-time. In keeping with nature's penchant for extending rather than
replacing, the purpose of the mammalian neocortex might then be to record
events from distant reaches of space and time and render them, as though yet
near and present, to the older, deeper brain whose instinctual roles have
changed little over eons. Here this notion is embodied in a model called
morphognosis (morpho = shape and gnosis = knowledge). Its basic structure is a
pyramid of event recordings called a morphognostic. At the apex of the pyramid
are the most recent and nearby events. Receding from the apex are less recent
and possibly more distant events. A morphognostic can thus be viewed as a
structure of progressively larger chunks of space-time knowledge. A set of
morphognostics forms long-term memories that are learned by exposure to the
environment. A cellular automaton is used as the platform to investigate the
morphognosis model, using a simulated organism that learns to forage in its
world for food, build a nest, and play the game of Pong.
