; died 9. September 2011 in Tübingen

Tübingen

Tübingen is a traditional university town in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, on a ridge between the Neckar and Ammer rivers.-Geography:...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

)
is an Italian neuroscientist

Neuroscience

Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...

 and cyberneticist

Cybernetics

Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...

. He was former director at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen

Tübingen

Tübingen is a traditional university town in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, on a ridge between the Neckar and Ammer rivers.-Geography:...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

.

He is most famous for the book Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology, in which he describes how hypothetical analog

Analog robot

Analog Robot is a type of robot which uses analog circuitry to go toward a simple goal such as finding more light or responding to sound. The first real analog robot was invented in the 1940s by W. Grey Walter. The name of these robots were ELSIE and ELMER . The original circuitry was developed...

 vehicles

Braitenberg Vehicles

A Braitenberg vehicle is a concept conceived in a thought experiment by the Italian-Austrian cyberneticist Valentino Braitenberg to illustrate in an evolutive way the abilities of simple agents. The vehicles represent the simplest form of behavior based artificial intelligence or embodied...

 (a combination of sensors, actuators and their interconnections), though simple in design, can exhibit behaviors akin to aggression

Aggression

In psychology, as well as other social and behavioral sciences, aggression refers to behavior between members of the same species that is intended to cause humiliation, pain, or harm. Ferguson and Beaver defined aggressive behavior as "Behavior which is intended to increase the social dominance of...

, love

Love

Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...

, foresight

Foresight

Foresight or forethought may refer to:* Foresight , ability to predict or plan for the future* Foresight , management planning principle* Foresight , European planning mechanism for public policy...

 and optimism

Optimism

The Oxford English Dictionary defines optimism as having "hopefulness and confidence about the future or successful outcome of something; a tendency to take a favourable or hopeful view." The word is originally derived from the Latin optimum, meaning "best." Being optimistic, in the typical sense...

.

External links

• Valentino Braitenberg's homepage at the Max Planck
  Max Planck
  Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck, ForMemRS, was a German physicist who actualized the quantum physics, initiating a revolution in natural science and philosophy. He is regarded as the founder of the quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.-Life and career:Planck came...
  
   Institute for Biological Cybernetics
• A software Braitenberg vehicle simulator