Listening to the Freakonomics podcast this morning I heard this gem, by Rory Sutherland (behavioural psychologist and advertising consultant):

"We have evolved to live in a world not of perfect information, but in a world where information is often incomplete. We have to survive on inference, and we have to draw those inferences from wherever we can find [them]"

How very true! The brain, along with the higher order cognitive processes it allows, can surely be seen as an inference-generator, allowing us to predict how the world will behave before it does so. Thus maximizing our chances of survival based on the 'incomplete information' available.