I am not really suggesting that we should construct cybernetic cigarette boxes, merely that the situation described contains all the elements which would have to be taken into account in a design of a practical cognitive system. These can be described as: The actual physical system (the box), whose construction is such that conditions hazardous to it can be identified; A disordered and changing environment containing such hazards; A motor ability capable of removing the system from the vicinity of danger; Means of perceiving these aspects of the environment, capable of signalling the danger in advance, A brain or a mechanism for deciding what to do on the basis of the perceived information.

The Relevance of Manipulation to the Process of Perception, 1977