William Grey Walter
Encyclopedia
W. Grey Walter was a neurophysiologist and robotician.
, Missouri
, in 1910. His ancestry was German/British on his father's side, and American/British on his mother's side. He was brought to England in 1915, and educated at Westminster School
and afterwards in King's College
, Cambridge
, in 1931. He failed to obtain a research fellowship in Cambridge and so turned to doing basic and applied neurophysiological research in hospitals, in London, from 1935 to 1939 and then at the Burden Neurological Institute in Bristol
, from 1939 to 1970. He also carried out research work in the United States
, in the Soviet Union
and in various other places in Europe
. He married twice, and had two sons from his first marriage and one from the second. According to his eldest son, Nicolas Walter
, "he was politically on the left, a communist fellow-traveller before the Second World War and an anarchist sympathiser after it." Throughout his life he was a pioneer in the field of cybernetics
. In 1970 he suffered brain injury in a motor scooter accident. He died seven years later on May 6, 1977 without fully recovering.
. He visited the lab of Hans Berger
, who invented the electroencephalograph, or EEG
machine, for measuring electrical activity in the brain. Walter produced his own versions of Berger's machine with improved capabilities, which allowed it to detect a variety of brain wave
types ranging from the high speed alpha waves
to the slow delta wave
s observed during sleep
.
In the 1930s Walter made a number of discoveries using his EEG
machines at Burden Neurological Institute in Bristol
. He was the first to determine by triangulation
the surface location of the strongest alpha waves
within the occipital lobe
(alpha waves originate from the thalamus deep within the brain
). Walter demonstrated the use of delta wave
s to locate brain tumours or lesions responsible for epilepsy
. He developed the first brain topography machine based on EEG
, using on an array of spiral-scan CRT
s connected to high-gain amplifier
s.
During the Second World War he worked on scanning radar
technology and guided missile
s, which may have influenced his subsequent alpha wave
scanning hypothesis of brain activity.
In the 1960s Walter also went on to discover the contingent negative variation
(CNV) effect (or readiness potential) whereby a negative spike of electrical activity appears in the brain
half a second prior to a person being consciously aware of movements that he is about to make. Intriguingly, this effect brings into question the very notion of consciousness
or free will
, and should be considered as part of a person's overall reaction time to events.
Walter's experiments with stroboscopic light, described in The Living Brain, inspired the development of a Dream Machine by the artist Brion Gysin
and technician Ian Sommerville
.
s. He wanted to prove that rich connections between a small number of brain cells could give rise to very complex behavior
s - essentially that the secret of how the brain worked lay in how it was wired up. His first robot
s, which he used to call Machina speculatrix and named Elmer and Elsie, were constructed between 1948 and 1949 and were often described as tortoises due to their shape and slow rate of movement - and because they 'taught us' about the secrets of organisation and life. The three-wheeled tortoise robots were capable of phototaxis
, by which they could find their way to a recharging station when they ran low on battery power.
In one experiment he placed a light on the "nose" of a tortoise and watched as the robot observed itself in a mirror. "It began flickering," he wrote. "Twittering, and jigging like a clumsy Narcissus." Walter argued that if it were seen in an animal it "might be accepted as evidence of some degree of self-awareness."
Robots built afterward, (given the pretend scientific name Machina docilis) had a simple single celled "brain," in which they could be taught simple behaviors similar to Ivan Pavlov
's dogs, some of these included, being hit meant food, whistle means food, and whistle means being hit, when he added another, this could become whistle means being hit, whistle means food, this would make the animals become "afraid" whenever food was presented.
Later versions of Machina spectulatrix were exhibited at the Festival of Britain
in 1951.
Walter stressed the importance of using purely analogue electronics to simulate brain processes at a time when his contemporaries such as Alan Turing
and John Von Neumann
were all turning towards a view of mental processes in terms of digital
computation
. His work inspired subsequent generations of robotics researchers such as Rodney Brooks
, Hans Moravec
and Mark Tilden
. Modern incarnations of Walter's turtles may be found in the form of BEAM robotics
.
An original tortoise as seen at the Festival of Britain is on display in London UK in the Science Museum's Making the Modern World gallery. Recently, one was also replicated by Dr. Owen Holland
, of the University of the West of England
in 1995 - using some of the original parts. A specimen of a second generation turtle is also in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution
.
Overview
Walter was born in Kansas CityKansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
, Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
, in 1910. His ancestry was German/British on his father's side, and American/British on his mother's side. He was brought to England in 1915, and educated at Westminster School
Westminster School
The Royal College of St. Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain's leading independent schools, with the highest Oxford and Cambridge acceptance rate of any secondary school or college in Britain...
and afterwards in King's College
King's College, Cambridge
King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....
, Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
, in 1931. He failed to obtain a research fellowship in Cambridge and so turned to doing basic and applied neurophysiological research in hospitals, in London, from 1935 to 1939 and then at the Burden Neurological Institute in Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
, from 1939 to 1970. He also carried out research work in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and in various other places in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. He married twice, and had two sons from his first marriage and one from the second. According to his eldest son, Nicolas Walter
Nicolas Walter
Nicolas Hardy Walter was a British anarchist and atheist writer, speaker and activist.-Career overview:Walter was born in London; his father was the neurophysiologist and pioneer of cybernetics, William Grey Walter...
, "he was politically on the left, a communist fellow-traveller before the Second World War and an anarchist sympathiser after it." Throughout his life he was a pioneer in the field of cybernetics
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...
. In 1970 he suffered brain injury in a motor scooter accident. He died seven years later on May 6, 1977 without fully recovering.
Brain waves
As a young man Walter was greatly influenced by the work of the famous Russian physiologist Ivan PavlovIvan Pavlov
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was a famous Russian physiologist. Although he made significant contributions to psychology, he was not in fact a psychologist himself but was a mathematician and actually had strong distaste for the field....
. He visited the lab of Hans Berger
Hans Berger
Hans Berger was born in Neuses near Coburg, Bavaria, Germany. He is best known as the first to record human electroencephalograms in 1924, for which he invented the electroencephalogram , and the discoverer of the alpha wave rhythm known as "Berger's wave".- Biography :After attending...
, who invented the electroencephalograph, or EEG
Electroencephalography
Electroencephalography is the recording of electrical activity along the scalp. EEG measures voltage fluctuations resulting from ionic current flows within the neurons of the brain...
machine, for measuring electrical activity in the brain. Walter produced his own versions of Berger's machine with improved capabilities, which allowed it to detect a variety of brain wave
Brain wave
* Brain Wave, a science fiction novel by Poul Anderson* a neural oscillation* a layman term for the electric fields measured by Electroencephalography...
types ranging from the high speed alpha waves
Alpha Waves
Alpha Waves is an early 3D game that combines labyrinthine exploration with platform gameplay. By most definitions of the genre it could be considered to be the first 3D platform game, released in 1990, 6 years before the genre's seminal classic Super Mario 64...
to the slow delta wave
Delta wave
A delta wave is a high amplitude brain wave with a frequency of oscillation between 0–4 hertz. Delta waves, like other brain waves, are recorded with an electroencephalogram and are usually associated with the deepest stages of sleep , also known as slow-wave sleep , and aid in characterizing the...
s observed during sleep
Sleep
Sleep is a naturally recurring state characterized by reduced or absent consciousness, relatively suspended sensory activity, and inactivity of nearly all voluntary muscles. It is distinguished from quiet wakefulness by a decreased ability to react to stimuli, and is more easily reversible than...
.
In the 1930s Walter made a number of discoveries using his EEG
Electroencephalography
Electroencephalography is the recording of electrical activity along the scalp. EEG measures voltage fluctuations resulting from ionic current flows within the neurons of the brain...
machines at Burden Neurological Institute in Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
. He was the first to determine by triangulation
Triangulation
In trigonometry and geometry, triangulation is the process of determining the location of a point by measuring angles to it from known points at either end of a fixed baseline, rather than measuring distances to the point directly...
the surface location of the strongest alpha waves
Alpha Waves
Alpha Waves is an early 3D game that combines labyrinthine exploration with platform gameplay. By most definitions of the genre it could be considered to be the first 3D platform game, released in 1990, 6 years before the genre's seminal classic Super Mario 64...
within the occipital lobe
Occipital lobe
The occipital lobe is the visual processing center of the mammalian brain containing most of the anatomical region of the visual cortex. The primary visual cortex is Brodmann area 17, commonly called V1...
(alpha waves originate from the thalamus deep within the brain
Brain
The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...
). Walter demonstrated the use of delta wave
Delta wave
A delta wave is a high amplitude brain wave with a frequency of oscillation between 0–4 hertz. Delta waves, like other brain waves, are recorded with an electroencephalogram and are usually associated with the deepest stages of sleep , also known as slow-wave sleep , and aid in characterizing the...
s to locate brain tumours or lesions responsible for epilepsy
Epilepsy
Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by seizures. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain.About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, and nearly two out of every three new cases...
. He developed the first brain topography machine based on EEG
Electroencephalography
Electroencephalography is the recording of electrical activity along the scalp. EEG measures voltage fluctuations resulting from ionic current flows within the neurons of the brain...
, using on an array of spiral-scan CRT
Cathode ray tube
The cathode ray tube is a vacuum tube containing an electron gun and a fluorescent screen used to view images. It has a means to accelerate and deflect the electron beam onto the fluorescent screen to create the images. The image may represent electrical waveforms , pictures , radar targets and...
s connected to high-gain amplifier
Amplifier
Generally, an amplifier or simply amp, is a device for increasing the power of a signal.In popular use, the term usually describes an electronic amplifier, in which the input "signal" is usually a voltage or a current. In audio applications, amplifiers drive the loudspeakers used in PA systems to...
s.
During the Second World War he worked on scanning radar
Radar
Radar is an object-detection system which uses radio waves to determine the range, altitude, direction, or speed of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The radar dish or antenna transmits pulses of radio...
technology and guided missile
Guided Missile
Guided Missile is a London based independent record label set up by Paul Kearney in 1994.Guided Missile has always focused on 'the underground', preferring to put out a steady flow of releases and developing the numerous GM events around London and beyond....
s, which may have influenced his subsequent alpha wave
Alpha Waves
Alpha Waves is an early 3D game that combines labyrinthine exploration with platform gameplay. By most definitions of the genre it could be considered to be the first 3D platform game, released in 1990, 6 years before the genre's seminal classic Super Mario 64...
scanning hypothesis of brain activity.
In the 1960s Walter also went on to discover the contingent negative variation
Contingent negative variation
The contingent negative variation was one of the first event-related potential components to be described. The CNV component was first described by Dr. W. Grey Walter and colleagues in an article published in Nature in 1964...
(CNV) effect (or readiness potential) whereby a negative spike of electrical activity appears in the brain
Brain
The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...
half a second prior to a person being consciously aware of movements that he is about to make. Intriguingly, this effect brings into question the very notion of consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
or free will
Free will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
, and should be considered as part of a person's overall reaction time to events.
Walter's experiments with stroboscopic light, described in The Living Brain, inspired the development of a Dream Machine by the artist Brion Gysin
Brion Gysin
Brion Gysin was a painter, writer, sound poet, and performance artist born in Taplow, Buckinghamshire.He is best known for his discovery of the cut-up technique, used by his friend, the novelist William S. Burroughs...
and technician Ian Sommerville
Ian Sommerville (technician)
Ian Sommerville was an electronics technician and computer programmer. He is primarily known through his association with William S. Burroughs's circle of Beat Generation figures, and lived at Paris's so-called "Beat Hotel" by 1960, when they were regulars there, becoming Burroughs's lover and...
.
Robots
Grey Walter's most famous work was his construction of some of the first electronic autonomous robotAutonomous robot
Autonomous robots are robots that can perform desired tasks in unstructured environments without continuous human guidance. Many kinds of robots have some degree of autonomy. Different robots can be autonomous in different ways...
s. He wanted to prove that rich connections between a small number of brain cells could give rise to very complex behavior
Behavior
Behavior or behaviour refers to the actions and mannerisms made by organisms, systems, or artificial entities in conjunction with its environment, which includes the other systems or organisms around as well as the physical environment...
s - essentially that the secret of how the brain worked lay in how it was wired up. His first robot
Robot
A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...
s, which he used to call Machina speculatrix and named Elmer and Elsie, were constructed between 1948 and 1949 and were often described as tortoises due to their shape and slow rate of movement - and because they 'taught us' about the secrets of organisation and life. The three-wheeled tortoise robots were capable of phototaxis
Phototaxis
Phototaxis is a kind of taxis, or locomotory movement, that occurs when a whole organism moves in response to the stimulus of light. This is advantageous for phototrophic organisms as they can orient themselves most efficiently to receive light for photosynthesis...
, by which they could find their way to a recharging station when they ran low on battery power.
In one experiment he placed a light on the "nose" of a tortoise and watched as the robot observed itself in a mirror. "It began flickering," he wrote. "Twittering, and jigging like a clumsy Narcissus." Walter argued that if it were seen in an animal it "might be accepted as evidence of some degree of self-awareness."
Robots built afterward, (given the pretend scientific name Machina docilis) had a simple single celled "brain," in which they could be taught simple behaviors similar to Ivan Pavlov
Ivan Pavlov
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was a famous Russian physiologist. Although he made significant contributions to psychology, he was not in fact a psychologist himself but was a mathematician and actually had strong distaste for the field....
's dogs, some of these included, being hit meant food, whistle means food, and whistle means being hit, when he added another, this could become whistle means being hit, whistle means food, this would make the animals become "afraid" whenever food was presented.
Later versions of Machina spectulatrix were exhibited at the Festival of Britain
Festival of Britain
The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition in Britain in the summer of 1951. It was organised by the government to give Britons a feeling of recovery in the aftermath of war and to promote good quality design in the rebuilding of British towns and cities. The Festival's centrepiece was in...
in 1951.
Walter stressed the importance of using purely analogue electronics to simulate brain processes at a time when his contemporaries such as Alan Turing
Alan Turing
Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS , was an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist. He was highly influential in the development of computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of "algorithm" and "computation" with the Turing machine, which played a...
and John Von Neumann
John von Neumann
John von Neumann was a Hungarian-American mathematician and polymath who made major contributions to a vast number of fields, including set theory, functional analysis, quantum mechanics, ergodic theory, geometry, fluid dynamics, economics and game theory, computer science, numerical analysis,...
were all turning towards a view of mental processes in terms of digital
Digital
A digital system is a data technology that uses discrete values. By contrast, non-digital systems use a continuous range of values to represent information...
computation
Computation
Computation is defined as any type of calculation. Also defined as use of computer technology in Information processing.Computation is a process following a well-defined model understood and expressed in an algorithm, protocol, network topology, etc...
. His work inspired subsequent generations of robotics researchers such as Rodney Brooks
Rodney Brooks
Rodney Allen Brooks is the former Panasonic professor of robotics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since 1986 he has authored a series of highly influential papers which have inaugurated a fundamental shift in artificial intelligence research...
, Hans Moravec
Hans Moravec
Hans Moravec is an adjunct faculty member at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University. He is known for his work on robotics, artificial intelligence, and writings on the impact of technology. Moravec also is a futurist with many of his publications and predictions focusing on...
and Mark Tilden
Mark Tilden
Mark W. Tilden is perhaps best known for his invention of BEAM robotics and the WowWee Robosapien humanoid robot. He is a robotics physicist who produces complex robotic movements from simple analog logic circuits, often with discrete electronic components, and usually without a...
. Modern incarnations of Walter's turtles may be found in the form of BEAM robotics
BEAM robotics
The word "beam" in BEAM robotics is an acronym for Biology, Electronics, Aesthetics, and Mechanics. This is a term that refers to a style of robotics...
.
An original tortoise as seen at the Festival of Britain is on display in London UK in the Science Museum's Making the Modern World gallery. Recently, one was also replicated by Dr. Owen Holland
Owen Holland
Owen Holland is currently a professor of cognitive robotics in the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science at the University of Sussex. He was until recently a professor of computer science at the University of Essex, England...
, of the University of the West of England
University of the West of England
The University of the West of England is a university based in the English city of Bristol. Its main campus is at Frenchay, about five miles north of the city centre...
in 1995 - using some of the original parts. A specimen of a second generation turtle is also in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
.
Books and articles
- An Electromechanical Animal, Dialectica (1950) Vol. 4: 42—49
- An imitation of life, Scientific American (1950) 182(5): 42—45
- A machine that learns, Scientific American (1951) 185(2): 60—63
- The Living Brain, New York (1953)
- The Living Brain, Duckworth, London, 1953
- The Living Brain, [1953], Penguin, London, 1961
- Contingent negative variation: An electrical sign of sensorimotor association and expectancy in the human brain, Nature (1964) 203: 380-384
- Grey Walter: The Pioneer of Real Artificial Life, Holland, Owen E. *Proceedings of the 5th International Workshop on Artificial Life, Christopher Langton Editor, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1997, ISBN# 0-262-62111-8, p34-44.
- Walter's world, New Scientist, 25/7/98.
- The Tortoise and the Love Machine': Grey Walter and the Politics of Electro-encephalography', Hayward, Rhodri, Science in Context (2001) 14.4, pp. 615-42
- "The Curve of the Snowflake," Norton, 1956. Also published in the UK as "Further Outlook", London: Duckworth, 1956. Science Fiction novel concerning paradoxes and the Koch snowflakeKoch snowflakeThe Koch snowflake is a mathematical curve and one of the earliest fractal curves to have been described...
. - Chapel of Extreme Experience: A Short History of Stroboscopic Light and the Dream Machine, New York: Soft Skull Press (2003)
External links
- "My Miracle": Walter's own account of his motor scooter accident and its aftermath.
- Machina speculatrix: W. Grey Walter's history and how to reproduce Elsie using Lego.
- The Grey Walter Picture Archive On-Line. University of West England.
- The Grey Walter On-Line Archive. University of West England.
- Brief review of Grey Walter's science-fiction novel, "The Curve of the Snowflake."
- Elmer the Tortoise. The personal story of how Owen Holland reconstructed Grey Walters robot.
- William Grey Walter's Machina Speculatrix a.k.a Turtle on the Beam Robotics Wiki