causal

Nervous systems self-organize with built-in chance variability

In both worms and mammals, the nervous system self-organizes to work but leaves a certain amount to chance—mouse muscle innervation shows the same rule-based range of axon sizes across animals, but the specific location each axon goes to is variable—because anything that mattered for survival would have been highly constrained, so variability marks what doesn't matter.

causalpending

Speaker

Jeff Lichtman

Evidence Quote

there's a certain amount left to, I would say, chance or to things that ultimately don't matter for survival, otherwise they would've been highly constrained, which gives rise to variability.

Source

298 | Jeff Lichtman on the Wiring Diagram of the BrainSean Carroll's Mindscape
Created: 6/13/2026, 12:30:16 AM

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