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.
Yardımcı hafıza means auxiliary memory. In the simplified model of the brain that Cahit Arf described in 1959, the control centre retrieves relevant material from memory, and some of that material may instruct the system to ask another person or consult a book. Arf treats such sources as auxiliary memory outside the brain.
The idea matters because it makes knowledge a property of a larger system, not only of the "brain". A thinking system can include notes, books and other people, as long as it knows when to reach for them. After ön hafıza receives the question, deciding to look elsewhere is itself part of intelligence.
A modern reading
The parallel with current AI is direct. Retrieval (RAG), external memory stores and tools play the role of auxiliary memory for a language model. The design questions follow Arf's: what is stored where, how is it retrieved, and what instructs the system to consult it?
Read more in Cahit Arf's 1959 question about thinking machines.
Related terms
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.
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.
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.