Neural agents - a frame of mind

Several recent theories have been advanced to model complex heuristic behavior. From Minsky's Society of Mind to neural networks, these theories all share a common architecture consisting of many highly connected elements that together exhibit sophisticated macro behavior. This paper describes NeuralAgents, a framework developed in Smalltalk-80 that combines the high level interaction and collaboration of rule-based agents with the topological connectivity of neural nets. The Client-Facilitator-Consultant model for agencies will be presented, along with the object oriented design and implementation of the NeuralAgents system. PetWorld, an animated environment for the simulation of animal behavior is presented as an example application.