You can’t possibly get a good technology going without an enormous number of failures. It’s a universal rule. If you look at bicycles, there were thousands of weird models built and tried before they found the one that really worked. You could never design a bicycle theoretically. Even now, after we’ve been building them for 100 years, it’s very difficult to understand just why a bicycle works – it’s even difficult to formulate it as a mathematical problem. But just by trial and error, we found out how to do it, and the error was essential.
The error was essential in the sense that it was an inevitable outcome of an essential process. Similarly you might say, “exhaling carbon dioxide is not essential for survival; what you really need is to turn food into energy.” But if I was prevented from exhaling CO2, I would quickly run into problems.
The error was essential in the sense that it was an inevitable outcome of an essential process. Similarly you might say, “exhaling carbon dioxide is not essential for survival; what you really need is to turn food into energy.” But if I was prevented from exhaling CO2, I would quickly run into problems.
Bad analogy. If I don’t get rid of waste products I will die. If I don’t make a mistake I will… succeed more quickly and be unrealistically lucky. That’s entirely different.
To say the error is essential is a mistake. The error is inevitable, not essential.
-- Freeman Dyson
No, the trial was.
The error was epiphenomenal.
The error was essential in the sense that it was an inevitable outcome of an essential process. Similarly you might say, “exhaling carbon dioxide is not essential for survival; what you really need is to turn food into energy.” But if I was prevented from exhaling CO2, I would quickly run into problems.
Bad analogy. If I don’t get rid of waste products I will die. If I don’t make a mistake I will… succeed more quickly and be unrealistically lucky. That’s entirely different.
To say the error is essential is a mistake. The error is inevitable, not essential.
In terms of control systems, trial is the forward path and error is the feedback, so let’s agree that both are needed for success...
Yup, agreed.
Source: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.02/dyson_pr.html