Mind, Body, World- Foundations of Cognitive Science, 2013a

traced in Simon’s (1969) parable of the ant, the photographs recorded Tortoise behaviour
that was “remarkably unpredictable” (Grey Walter, 1950b, p. 44).
Grey Walter observed the behaviours of his robots in a number of different
environments. For example, in one study the robot was placed in a room where a
light was hidden from view by an obstacle. The Tortoise began to explore the room,
bumped into the obstacle, and engaged in its avoidance behaviour. This in turn permitted
the robot to detect the light, which it approached. However, it didn’t collide
with the light. Instead the robot circled it cautiously, veering away when it came
too close. “Thus the machine can avoid the fate of the moth in the candle” (Grey
Walter, 1963, p. 128).
When the environment became more complicated, so too did the behaviours
produced by the Tortoise. If the robot was confronted with two stimulus lights
instead of one, it would first be attracted to one, which it circled, only to move
away and circle the other, demonstrating an ability to choose: it solved the problem
“of Buridan’s ass, which starved to death, as some animals acting trophically
in fact do, because two exactly equal piles of hay were precisely the same distance
away” (Grey Walter, 1963, p. 128). If a mirror was placed in its environment, the
mirror served as an obstacle, but it reflected the light mounted on the robot, which
was an attractant. The resulting dynamics produced the so-called “mirror dance”
in which the robot,
lingers before a mirror, flickering, twittering and jigging like a clumsy Narcissus.
The behaviour of a creature thus engaged with its own reflection is quite specific,
and on a purely empirical basis, if it were observed in an animal, might be accepted
as evidence of some degree of self-awareness. (Grey Walter, 1963, pp. 128–129)
In less controlled or open-ended environments, the behaviour that was produced
was lifelike in its complexity. The Tortoises produced “the exploratory, speculative
behaviour that is so characteristic of most animals” (Grey Walter, 1950b, p. 43).
Examples of such behaviour were recounted by cyberneticist Pierre de Latil (1956):
Elsie moved to and fro just like a real animal. A kind of head at the end of a long
neck towered over the shell, like a lighthouse on a promontory and, like a lighthouse;
it veered round and round continuously. (de Latil, 1956, p. 209)
The Daily Mail reported that,
the toys possess the senses of sight, hunger, touch, and memory. They can walk
about the room avoiding obstacles, stroll round the garden, climb stairs, and feed
themselves by automatically recharging six-volt accumulators from the light in the
room. And they can dance a jig, go to sleep when tired, and give an electric shock if
disturbed when they are not playful. (Holland, 2003a, p. 2090)
Grey Walter released the Tortoises to mingle with the audience at a 1955 meeting of
238 Chapter 5