Good point Somehow I've always been attracted to taking the road less taken. Maybe there is a group level reason for that, it would be nice if it turns out my actions are not entirely egoistic. I don't make much of a distinction between processes inside humans and processes between humans. For me, pjeby's akrasia theory about conflicting motor programs can be explained in a similar way as you are doing now for scientific progress that uses differences between scientific theories as a way to generate enough diversity for an optimization process to work with. In that light I am a bit skeptical about the negative attitude about akrasia I often find here (even the term itself seems a bit hostile). In fact, observing different motor programs or scientific theories battling it out amongst themselves can be a way to gain knowledge, it should not be something to be fought. Even if the desired outcome is one of coherent action, it matters a lot which action, and we need to keep that pool of optional actions alive as much as we need to effectively handle a current situation. Maybe it would be possible to find a balance between exploration and solidification (does anyone know a better term?) with a mathematical or theoretical basis. It could be akin to the heuristics used in programming genetic algorithms.