Showing papers by "Warren S. McCulloch published in 1948"

The statistical organization of nervous activity.

Abstract: HIS IS NOT a review of neuiophysiology but a synopsis of soele theories which may lead to an under staniding of the mental aspects of nervous activity, namely ideas and purposes. The highway to ideas lies through statistical conceptions from their logical foundation in Boolean algebra through modern methods of constructing invariants by averaging over groups of transformations. Purposive behavior depends upon how output affects input which, in turn, depends upon a nervous system whose organization can be treated statistically. This is instanced in one reflex. Known details of other mechanisms are in current publications. The theory is extremely atomistic. The ultimate units of nervous activity are impulses which, being all-or-none signals, submit to the Boolean algebra of propositions and hence to statistical treatment. A field-theory does n6t now exist and may never cope with the inherent complexities. It has been shown to be unnecessary.