Dave writes: <Now imagine that a/some sensors seem to receive the same input over and over again and, due to "fatigue" they either shut down and fail to relay the input to the web, or they lock into constantly sending the same input value to the web without regard to whatever was actually sensed. System fault.>
It is not a system fault if the signal is irrelevant to survival. It could be good to dispose of the need to keep the sensor running, and reallocate the axons for combining other, more relevant signals. < Similarly, a particular pathway (set of pathways) are utilized more often when receiving a particular pattern of inputs and those pathways channelize, essentially become fixed. System fault because the ability of the system to adapt is impaired. This would be particularly evident if the pattern of inputs begins to subtly change, but change enough that the pattern of outputs should be modified and they are not. > Dedicated pathways, like for detecting visual orientation of an object, or for discriminating hot and cold, or narrow frequency ranges of sound, are surely valuable for detecting risks to survival. (You should see my dog go nuts when the doorbell rings or a yapping coyote is nearby.) Only in a lower risk environments would synesthesia be a good thing -- like if you are a recording artist like Lorde. If one high-value pathway must have high fidelity for survival reasons, there are surely plenty of other pathways that could be allocated to deliver other more nuanced information. Marcus
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