ABSTRACT
What a brain does when it functions should be intimately related to how a brain is constructed. An engineer builds a system with the best compromise between specifications and costs with what he has available, and the devices and techniques he has determine in large part the nature of the systems he builds. Although we can view the brain in many ways, often it is profitable to view it as an engineering solution to a set of evolutionary problems, given the material at hand at the time. Thus, the brain need not necessarily be a general purpose device; it need not be “logical” ; and it may not be as fast as it might be; but whatever approach is taken is liable to be optimal in terms of its use of biological components to solve the problems with which it is faced.
