[marcus_holmes]

Good question.

I don't know enough about neuroscience to really answer your question in depth.

My opinion, uninformed as it is, is basically around the intuitive reasoning that something cannot be "highly autonomous" if it has to be kicked every second ;) Autonomous is defined as not needing to be controlled externally. And coupling that part with something as simple as cron job doesn't solve that in any meaningful way or make it "autonomous".

A batch file coupled with a cron job that triggers it once a day is not an "autonomous system" to my mind. It's a scheduled system, and there's a significant difference between those things.

[dragonwriter]

It seems to me that you are trying to define "autonomy" as a structural property rather than a behavioral one, and then adopting arbitrary rules as to what structures do not count as autonomous whether or not they produce the same behavior as structures which do.

I guess that's fine, autonomy has lots of definitions (some in overlapping domains) and I guess one more doesn't hurt, but I'm pretty sure the intended use in the discussion here is the standard mechanical one where it is a behavioral trait defined by the capacity of a system to decide on action without the involvement of another system or operator, and therefore it is something that could be achieved by a system composed of a processing and action component called repeatedly by a looping component.

[marcus_holmes]

yeah, if we're just arguing semantics then I'm happy to let it go ;)

[dllthomas]

I think I'd say that the batch file is not itself autonomous but the system as a whole is autonomous (if limited) but I'm not prepared to argue that's the correct definition.