It's obviously the latter, a system that 'remembers everything perfectly' is probably not optimal in most senses. Mortality is a property of both life and artificial systems, forcing the same retention policy on new information and old information probably does so at the expense of lifespan or stability.

I think design-by-nature is consistent with seeking perfection, of course it won't ever be achieved, but organic inspirations can and often help maximize a lot of parameters.

There's now commercially-available computers that operate using human neurons.

I figure before too long we'll be feeding our computers Pepto-Bismol and Tums.