A trick will only work for a while, until everyone else is doing it. To advance from the ordinary requires a new game, or a new territory. But the process of going outside the conventional method, game, or territory, is indistinguishable from error.
Even the most brilliant act of genius, in the final analysis is an act of trial and error. ‘To be an error, and to be cast out, is part of God’s design’, wrote the visionary poet William Blake.
Error, whether random or deliberate, must become an integral part of any process of creation (and adaptation). Evolution can be thought of as systematic error management.
(Kevin Kelly, Out of Control, 1995, p. 470, adapted)
