Can you show or explain how it does? Welcome to the world of belief systems and preferences.

The lightening is not "searching" anything. Inequalities within the system are resolving to destinations and expending themselves. That energy is discharged into many endpoints merely indicates that the amount of energy on one side of the inequality can overflow many receptacles on the receiving end, before overflowing all the way to the ground state offered by the earth.

Is this really so hard to comprehend? In a non-vacuum filled with charged moisture, why should it surprise anyone that mid-air electrical arcing should take curious paths? Why must the lightening be anthropomorphized, such that it "thinks" and then "chooses" the "best" route to the ground?

If the static charge had been less intense, and satisfied an equilibrium before even reaching in the ground, would it still have "chosen" anything?

    If the static charge had been less intense, and 
    satisfied an equilibrium before even reaching in the 
    ground..

fun aside, this is potentially exhibited in the video

if you watch the video one of the routes the original bolt takes loops back in on itself, right at the top of the frame

then it seems a second bolt follows that same loop, there is a momentary irradiance

if you watch the lower branches, some that had faded irradiate as well

possibly implying the original bolt may have lacked sufficient energy to reach the earth, but the second was able to piggy back on the original's expended effort

or it all could just be artifacts of the camera and its sensors

just such a cool video

forgive me, i was unaware this was a semantic argument

i thought your issue was with coherence 'resolving' multiple routes simultaneously, specifically the simultaneous aspect

by using the word 'search' i was anything but suggesting that we should anthropomophise lightning, but i'd argue the article failed to do the same for light

i created an opportunity for you to lash out by using a vague term to simplify a description and i apologise to posterity for that

but you're derailing any substantial discussion on the science with a strawman

if you read the study the words: 'think','choose', and 'search'; are completely vacant from the paper.. you're projecting