Mechanistic solutions are never meant to solve high level problems, but they very often make the fundamental bricks more advanced solutions will rely upon, at a later stage.
True. But mechanistic “solutions” can also be used as a crutch that allows us to avoid asking the right hard questions. I started my career as an electrophysiologist studying a big chunk of the thalamus referred to as a visual information “relay”nucleus. In 40 years I have never seen anyone question this “relay” function seriously. I am reminded of the phrase from Princess Bride: “I don’t think that word means what you think it means”. “Relay” is a crutch to mask ignorance. No collection of complex circuitry—one million neurons in this case—is just a relay. It is also an important processor, but probably in a domain invisible to a neuroscientist recording from one or even 1000 neurons simultaneously.
My vote is that the “relay” is actually a timebase corrector for noisy retinal input mosaics that have their own quirky dynamics and temporal noise.
