Decision Making by Inanimate Objects?
There are certain materials (some metal oxides, I think) which adapt to external stimulus quite like sentient beings.
Does anyone know of such materials?
Sorry, but what they are doing is not 'stimulus-response' -Its physics. You mistake the label (stimulus) and the stimulus-response idea, for equalities. They are analogies.
A bi-metallic strip "responds" to temperature change by curling. Its "stimulus" is temperature. Its "response" is to curl. The basic mechanism is not sentience, its differential thermal expansion.