Introduction
As is well known, every living organism has needs, the satisfaction of which is necessary for maintaining the organism's life and for its development.
This applies especially to human beings. Any conscious activity in the last analysis is directed towards the satisfaction of needs. One of the most important of these is the need for information. We shall consider a human being as a complex, adaptive (cybernetic) system. It is known that a system needs information in order to survive. The more information available to a system about itself or about its environment, the more reliable it is and the greater its chance of survival. From this point of view, we may consider the need for information to be a vital need.
Numerous studies have ascertained the leading role of the nervous system, and especially the brain, in intellectual activity. Research on the evolution of the brain in the development of living organisms on Earth (bringing into evidence its function in safeguarding their vital activity) leads to the conclusion that the brain is developed as a specialized organ for survival of the organism through adaptation to a varied and time-changing environment.
But this adaptation, or accommodation, of the organism is impossible without drawing in information about the environment. This is why the function of the brain as the organ in charge of adaptive behavior consists mainly of processing the information it *To whom all correspondence should be addressed.