Nikolay Amosov - Founder of Biocybernetical Information Technologies | |
Dr.Alexander Kasatkin, Dr.Lora Kasatkina
International Research and Training Center of Information Technologies
and Systems of National Academia of Sciences of the Ukraine |
The "Bible " of the Biocybernetics Department |
The Master
Until the last days of his life, Nikolai Mikhailovitch continued to take active interest in the work of the Department and in its fate.
Scientific seminars, which he participated in, were held, as a rule, in an informal setting - at the house of Nikolai Mikhailovitch or one of the Department's members. Current issues were discussed, as well as Nikolai Mikhailovitch's books "in progress" or recently published ones, plans for the future were made.
The last time that Nikolai Mikhailovitch visited the Department was in the spring of 2001. By that time the Institute of Cybernetics had divided into a number of autonomous institutes, which comprised the Center for Cybernetics, and the Department became part of the International Research and Training Center for Information Technologies and Systems.
In his time (mid-1970s) the academician V.M.Glushkov conditionally divided all cyberneticists into "dry" ones and "wet" ones - by the extent to which they utilized rigorous mathematical methods. N.M.Amosov had always been a "wet" cyberneticist. The romantic idea of creating "real" artificial intelligence, which meant so much in Nikolai Mikhailovitch's life, not only has been not forgotten by the scientific society, but has started to revive actively. In discussions of perspectives for computer technology development, side by side with the words "the computer of the 21st century" people increasingly mention "comprehension" (for active collaboration with a human the computer must comprehend the goals and tasks of the human, must be able to handle conceptual information and so on). And this means that "wet" cybernetic theories and hypotheses on the mental activity of the brain are once again in demand. On the current level of computer technology development, they may present a new opportunity for understanding the brain's activity as well as for creating its artificial counterpart.
