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4. The Boredom Principle

Introduction

This notebook explores some mechanisms that seem to be uniquely human. We will see that homo sapiens sapiens has the necessary information processing hardware to make the necessary computations. We will examine four mechanisms or principles, Boredom, Homing, Rush, and Emptiness. We will see that they are linked in a tight web of responses based upon pain and pleasure. We will come to understand that these principles conferred an evolutionary advantage because they inspired experimentation, which, in turn, led to some successful innovations which facilitated survival. After examining a neural network in action, we look at some successful strategies. The last section examines the connection between Flow Density, a concept developed in the notebook Data Stream Momentum, and the Edge of Chaos. We close by making some fanciful speculations about why these evolutionary changes occurred. (Below is the table of contents. Click on headings to view the text.)

1. Laying Foundations