we see by learning to see. The brain evolved the mechanisms for finding patterns, finding relationships in information, 00:04:38 and associating those relationships with a behavioral meaning, a significance, by interacting with the world. We're very aware of this in the form of more cognitive attributes, like language. I'm going to give you some letter strings, and I want you to read them out for me, if you can. Audience: "Can you read this?" "You are not reading this." "What are you reading?" Beau Lotto: "What are you reading?" Half the letters are missing, right? 00:05:04 There's no a priori reason why an "H" has to go between that "W" and "A." But you put one there. Why? Because in the statistics of your past experience, it would have been useful to do so. So you do so again. And yet you don't put a letter after that first "T." Why? Because it wouldn't have been useful in the past. So you don't do it again.