Sometimes a complex problem becomes more tractable when viewed from a different angle. This use of control states allows a control system to be represented as a number of functionally independent sub-systems operating asynchronously and at different rates. Conventional control systems have a fixed degree of complexity and their behaviour can be completely described by system of partial differential equations. The intelligent control systems that we wish to describe do not have a fixed architecture and are capable of development during the lifetime of the agent. Within intelligent systems, many of the control states exhibit changes that are more like changing structures than like changing values of numeric variables beliefs become rigid attitudes , and learnt behaviours become homed skills .
Dimensional attributes are quantitative attributes such as duration, and intensity.
Structural attributes are predicates, relations, and propositions. Values of dimensional attributes can be expressed in terms of the structural attributes i.e. the duration of an emotion can be expressed in terms of the propensity of a motivator to distract and hold attention and the consequent emergence of a perturbant state. Emergence of mental states such as moods, emotions and personality. Concern Processing in Autonomous Agents . Working draft of PhD Thesis, School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham.