Feynman once said, speaking of the merits of seeking inspiration from experiments rather than isolated theory, "The imagination of nature is greater than the im

Feynman once said, speaking of the merits of seeking inspiration from experiments rather than isolated theory, "The imagination of nature is greater than the imagination of man." Riffing on this idea, the imagination of a human opponent (even when expressed as an algorithm) is far greater than the possible counterstrategies you will imagine yourself when inventing your own system. Having a motivated, intelligent, competitor actively probing your designs for weaknesses rapidly teaches one about the extent to which your expectations for what a given design will do match up to reality in the wild.