#WR_Ashby in his “Design for a Brain” writes about the importance of the #preservation of #adaptations. Following his ideas I’ve made this little experiment using a LibreOffice Calc spreadsheet that shows three different scenarios:
When re-tossing all of the 10 coins every time like in the first case there is no preservation of “1s” whatsoever. Every new toss starts from scratch.
In the second case, each coin is tossed separately until it shows “1” when the tosser moves on tossing the next coin until all 10 show “1” which usually happens around the 10th tossing.
In case #3 only the remaining “0s” of the previous toss are re-thrown until all coins show a “1” which is by far the most efficient way of preservation, needing less than half of the time and ending in about 4 tosses.
A few “gems” from #WR_Ashby on the “accumulation of adaptations”:
“A compound event that is impossible if the components have to occur simultaneously may be readily achievable if they can occur in sequence or independently…
Thus, for the accumulation of adaptations to be possible, the system must not be fully joined.
The idea so often implicit in physiological writings, that all will be well if only sufficient cross-connexions are available, is, in this context, quite wrong.”
I recommend reading the whole book ($20 on Amazon) but if not, here is a good overview of some interesting parts:
