A Matter of Feeling

Context-sensitive Matter.
By Klaus-Peter Zauner

Context-sensitive Matter The quest for life-like artifacts has so far yielded only clumsy results compared to what nature proofs to be feasible. This is readily apparent if one compares the performance of robots with organisms. The discrepancy holds across the scale from meters down to micro-meters and across performance categories from power efficiency to pattern recognition in ambiguous situations. We are at a stage comparable to observing birds from a hot-air balloon: nature demonstrates a radically different solution. Understanding its underlying concept is opens the…