Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Dry Runs in the Wetware

Karl Popper had this idea that life proceeds by trial and error. This includes one-celled organisms and plants. They "try" things and some of them are errors. Some of the errors are fatal.

But if you have a nervous system, you get to do dry-run trials - in the brain itself.

So you get to see ahead
Which choices will leave you dead.

But why call it trial and error?
I think it might be fairer
To call it trial and success.
It can seem slow
With lots of No-No,
But sometimes the answer is Yes.

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