# The Brain Must Use Redundancy to Survive Damage by Claude Shannon > "We know the brain can suffer all kinds of damage and in particular neurons can go out of operation and it can still handle things pretty well. So it must use some redundancy to take care of faulty operations." > **— Claude Shannon**, *Anthony Liversidge interview, Omni, August 1987* ## Sources and Context - **Primary interview transcript:** [Anthony Liversidge, ‘Profile of Claude Shannon’](https://gwern.net/doc/cs/algorithm/information/1987-liversidge.pdf), *Omni*, August 1987, reprinted in *Claude Elwood Shannon: Collected Papers*, p. xxxi. Shannon was answering whether reliable circuits built from unreliable components might illuminate brain function. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Consciousness Continuity|Consciousness Continuity]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - **Article:** [[articles/Bell Labs and the Distributed Architecture of American Power|Bell Labs and the Distributed Architecture of American Power]] - **Article:** [[articles/Information Persistence in Complex Systems|Information Persistence in Complex Systems]] - **Article:** [[articles/An Order of Operation|An Order of Operation]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Information Theory|Information Theory]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Claude Shannon|Claude Shannon]] - [[wiki/Information Theory|Information Theory]] - [[wiki/Cybernetics|Cybernetics]] - [[wiki/Information Inheritance|Information Inheritance]] - [[wiki/Digital Continuity|Digital Continuity]] ## Share on Social Media ``` "We know the brain can suffer all kinds of damage and in particular neurons can go out of operation and it can still handle things pretty well. So it must use some redundancy to take care of faulty operations." — Claude Shannon, Anthony Liversidge interview, Omni, August 1987 https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-claude-shannon-brain-redundancy-survive-damage ```