I'm not sure what a better word would be. We use the same word informally to describe how babies learn—they poke and prod at their environment and see what happ

I'm not sure what a better word would be. We use the same word informally to describe how babies learn—they poke and prod at their environment and see what happens. Just because they aren't rigorous doesn't mean the process doesn't give them some idea (with an implicit confidence level, of course) of how things work.