Have you ever considered how rules form? Nelpers recognised that people have three methods of extracting rules from the chaos of everyday events. They generalise, they delete, they distort. Say "leaves are green" and that is a generalisation. It deletes information about leaves in Autumn and it distorts reality. Some leaves are more yellow or red than green even at the best of times. "The map is not the territory" is a common mantra nelpers use to ward off all manner of evils. <grin>

So how do rules form?

Those scientist fellows who get to play with all the best toys came up with a neural network that simulates the olfactory sense of a mouse.
"Yeah right," you may be thinking.
What have mice to do with men?
    And artificial mice at that.

The short story is that the sense of smell is only a few connections from the brain. Smell is simpler than other senses. It's easier to understand rule making for smell than for other senses. Mice have rather poor vision so they find their way around mazes by smell. Like dogs they have better discrimination than humans when it comes to smell.

 When a mouse smells ABC it doesn't think "alphabet."
It thinks ABC.

Well at least something happens such as neurones corresponding to A, B and C fire. Let's just say it thinks ABC.

When this mouse gets to smell ABD it thinks ABD.

When it now gets to smell ABE it's brain thinks ABE and … ABF

Whoops. Where did ABF come from? It was never wired in. It just happens. That's right,

"On the third variation a generalisation occurs."

The mouse now knows there are AB-thingies in the world.

Let's test this on humans.
Now I assume you are human since you are reading this so let me know what you think.

Answer each of these questions.

You realise you driving the wrong way down a one way street and you see a car coming towards you.
Do you pull over to avoid a head on collision?

You are driving down a one way street and a car comes towards you.
You think you might be going the wrong way.
Do you pull over to avoid a head on collision?

You are driving down a one way street.
You know you are going the right way.
A car comes towards you.
Do you pull over to avoid a head on collision?

Did you feel a rule coming on?

Like "Who is in the right is immaterial to the decision."

BTW. I love the last one. The bottom line, as I see it, is that if the other driver hasn't noticed the one way street signs then the chances are increased that they aren't going to see you and take evasive action. Perhaps they are drunk I don't know and I don't need to know. Even if you are deluded into believing that you are going the right way or the wrong way on the one way street then pulling over is the winning strategy.

Well yeah. Humans and their real life situations aren't as simple as that. One day a woman sat down with me and sort of felt she had to share an event in her life she had been too scared to relate before. Here is her story.

She had been driving down a deserted road near dusk when she heard a sound like distant thunder coming towards her. Then she made out a flying wedge of motorbikes coming towards her. In a fit of bravado a motor cycle gang were roaring down both sides of the road making passing impossible. Their leader was riding down the dotted line in the centre of the road. Pictures of being forced off the road and raped came to her mind. Well she did the only thing she could do given her map of possible futures. She planted her foot and aimed for the leading bike.
Bikes swerved. Bikes collided. Bikes cannoned off other bikes. Went into ditches, Mounted hedges. She kept her foot down till she reached a small town where she hid in an off street motel for two days fearing to come outside.

I have forgotten her name now but I'll never forget her story.
For every rule there is an untold story.

Rules you see have exceptions. At least as a rule they do.

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