Vehicle 12
Trains of Thought
Thought starts to look sequential when activation no longer vanishes immediately. If one state persists long enough to bias the next, a train can emerge without an inner narrator.
8 min read
The chapter moves into chaining and persistence. This plate keeps that idea attached to a body that literally travels from one attractor to another.
DemonstrationA train of thought can start as a train of motion. The body hands itself from one attractor to the next, making continuity feel cognitive.
A single act is easy to describe mechanically. A train of thought seems harder because it appears to require continuity. Braitenberg’s move is to let activation persist and chain.
Once a state lingers long enough to influence what comes next, the system starts producing ordered sequences rather than isolated reactions. That ordering is already enough to look thought-like.
Key idea
Trains of thought need persistence more than they need symbolism. A chain of retained activation can already look like an unfolding inner sequence.
Persistence is the bridge
The crucial property is not just transition but overlap. If one state remains partly alive while another rises, the sequence acquires memory. That memory is enough to make the chain directional and coherent.
State
sense
State
hold
State
compare
State
shift
State
echo
Trains of thought can be modeled as persistent activation moving across a chain, not as a fully symbolic inner narration.
Sequence can feel internal very quickly
The observer does the rest. Once the chain becomes orderly, we start describing it in mental vocabulary: one thought leading to another, one state preparing the next. The underlying mechanism can still be a small state process with persistence.
State
sense
State
hold
State
compare
State
shift
State
echo
Trains of thought can be modeled as persistent activation moving across a chain, not as a fully symbolic inner narration.