Ön hafıza
Turkish for preliminary memory. In Cahit Arf's 1959 model of the brain, the first stage where a question or observation enters before a control centre retrieves relevant material from memory.
Ön hafıza is Turkish for preliminary memory. It is one part of the simplified model of the brain that Cahit Arf sketched in his 1959 lecture on whether machines can think.
In his account, a question or observation first enters preliminary memory. A control centre then retrieves relevant material from a larger memory store. Some of that retrieved material may effectively instruct the system to ask another person or consult a book, which Arf treats as yardımcı hafıza, auxiliary memory outside the brain.
A modern reading
Arf's sketch reads like a description of a modern AI system: an input buffer, a controller, stored knowledge and external tools. It reminds us to ask what a system receives, what it stores, what it can retrieve and how it transforms information, instead of relying on category names. The pieces resemble context, retrieval (RAG) and tool use in today's agentic AI.
Read more in Cahit Arf's 1959 question about thinking machines.
Related terms
Control centre
In Cahit Arf's 1959 model of thinking, the component that takes the question from preliminary memory and retrieves and applies material from memory, including deciding to consult outside sources.
Yardımcı hafıza
Turkish for auxiliary memory. In Cahit Arf's 1959 model, memory outside the brain, such as another person or a book, that the control centre can be instructed to consult.
Cahit Arf
Turkish mathematician (1910–1997) who published a 1959 lecture asking whether machines can think. He is known for the Arf invariant and Hasse–Arf theorem, and his adaptation threshold remains useful.