Elaboration 39.1

Trial & Error, is one of the clothes-pegs that is in use for verbalization without knowledge of what one is talking about. 'To try' really means a purpose, a strategy to reach a goal. When a dog, in chasing a cat, scratches at the tree, barks against it, it is not trying to climb trees. It only wants to reach the cat. When, in so doing, it should 'learn' to climb trees, this is not because it tried to do so, but because it wanted the cat. Children playing about in water, 'might' learn to swim. They just play, are not trying to swim at all. In general, when you 'try' to do A, and in so doing, you learn to do B, this is not trial & error. Only when you try to do A, and succeed (after failures) in learning A, is the term trial & error applicable. In many uses of the term, it is applied falsely (in pseudology that is fond of putting on labels, and certainly of slogans).