The Essence

To seek happiness at the bottom of towering stacks of books. To solemnly believe that one can walk through the doors of perfection and superiority, satisfy the need for a purpose, and figure out the essence of life, only through unveiling and understanding all the mysteries and secrets of the universe. The drive to reach absolute knowledge; to conquer it all. It’s the most beautiful of all curses.

‘I do not imagine I know aught that’s right;
I do not imagine I could teach what might
Convert and improve humanity.
Nor have I gold or things of worth,
Or honours, splendours of the earth.
No dog could live thus any more!
So I have turned to magic lore,
To see if through the spirit’s power and speech
Perchance full many a secret I may reach,
So that no more with bitter sweat
I need to talk of what I don’t know yet,
So that I may perceive whatever holds
The world together in its inmost folds,
See all its seeds, its working power,
And cease word-threshing from this hour.’

From Goethe’s Faust.

So that I may perceive whatever holds, the world together in its inmost folds: “was die Welt im Innersten zusammenhält”.

Filed under: Philosophy, Science and Technology , Faust, Knowledge, Life, Quest

Mind over Brain

Recently I’ve been wondering about the physical structure of our brain and its limitations; how we feel what we feel, think what we think, experience emotions the way we do, and have the skills we have. This was triggered by a question I had regarding the way we perceive things, whether we are capable of changing it easily or it’s hard-wired into our brains through our past experiences or simply by our genes. Reading around on the topic actually led to some optimistic findings on my part.

In the February 12^th edition of TIME magazine, in an article by Sharon Begley called ‘How the Brain Rewires Itself’, it was shown that we are able to change the physical structure of our brains by simply willing it, and then practicing. An experiment was devised at Harvard Medical School by neuroscientist Alvaro Pascual-Leone, in which a group of volunteers practiced a little piano exercise two hours a day for five days. At the end of the experiment, a TMS (Transcranial-Magnetic-Stimulation) test showed that the motor cortex, which is the area devoted for controlling the finger movements needed for the piano exercise in the brains of the volunteers, has stretched out to surrounding areas. This was in agreement with the discoveries at the time that greater use of a particular muscle causes the brain to devote more cortical real estate to it.

But then the experiment was extended by having another group of volunteers merely think about practicing the piano exercises. They played the piece of music in their head while holding their hands still and imagining how they would move their fingers. Then they too took the TMS test.

“When the scientists compared the TMS data on the two groups-those who actually tickled the ivories and those who only imagined doing so-they glimpsed a revolutionary idea about the brain: the ability of mere thought to alter the physical structure and function of our gray matter. For what the TMS revealed was that the region of motor cortex that controls the piano-playing fingers also expanded in the brains of volunteers who imagined playing the music-just as it had in those who actually played it.”

“…the discovery showed that mental training had the power to change the physical structure of the brain.”

The impressive powers of this neuroplasticity seem endless for people who have had strokes or for amputees. When the cortex that is responsible for moving a certain limb is damaged by, for instance, a stroke, constraint-induced movement therapy can coax next-door regions to take over the function of the damaged area. The brain can be rewired. It has also been suggested by another experiment conducted by neuroscientist Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin that meditation and thinking positive thoughts can produce changes that underlie enduring happiness and other positive thoughts. They were basically based on comparing MRI results of Buddhist monks, who have spent a good portion of their lives in meditation, and undergraduate students.

“…we can think of emotions, moods and states such as compassion as trainable mental skills.” The results of his experiment were in agreement with this hypothesis. We can train ourselves to think in a certain manner.

Another article I came across discusses that “a discovery by researchers at the Brain Mind Institute of the EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) shows that the brain rewires itself following an experience. The research further shows that this process of creation, testing, and reconfiguring of brain circuits takes place on a scale of just hours, suggesting that the brain is evolving considerably even during the course of a single day.”

“This continual rewiring of the microcircuitry of the brain is like a Darwinian evolutionary process, where a new experience triggers a burst of new connections between neurons, and only the fittest connections survive.”

Personally, there are a number of aspects in the way I think and react to experiences that I would like to improve. The willingness to change and improve and the ability to actually grow better ‘hardware’ through ‘software’ stimulation and training is an amazing notion. It is what I like to call ‘Mind over Brain’. Granted we each come with certain initial conditions (wirings), but it’s up to us to improve, and I’m sure that this is a fact already known to many of us. Through this lengthy post, I merely wished to remind ourselves of the possibility, for within it lies a better tomorrow for those who want it.

Filed under: Science and Technology, Thoughts

The Beautiful Unity of Things

I have always been amused by the similarities between the different systems around us. It is a true joy to examine the remarkable resemblance between models of electrical, mechanical, thermal, hydraulic, and even biological systems. Throughout the ages, scientists and mathematicians have been developing tools to deal with these systems in a unified manner; tools which fill the gaps between various disciplines and which provide us with a set of equations and models in which one can replace the corresponding elements and variables of a certain system by those of another, and use the same model to analyze and predict the performance of the new system.

Similarly, on a more elementary and physical level, physicists have been striving for centuries now in an attempt to reach an understanding of the universe we live in. Step by step, the different forces of physics are being grouped and joined together in a beautiful manner (General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics,…). But each theorem functions only within a limited scope and on a certain scale. The ultimate goal would be reaching a grand theory of everything, which governs the behavior of everything in the universe, and of which different, simple systems are nothing but special cases.

In the engineering sense, mathematics and Control Theory have played crucial roles in unifying various systems and disciplines in terms of analysis and design methodologies. Control Theory has been tailored to deal with most systems, whether linear or non-linear, and it utilizes almost every field in mathematics to do so. Highly complex and non-linear systems have even been compared to existing complex biological models in an attempt to find analogies when classical techniques fail. An example of this would be Neural Networks or Fuzzy Logic, which use the structure of the brain and human reasoning techniques, respectively, in order to model and analyze, and hence control, complex systems. But all those techniques are still developing, and the journey continues for control theorists to reach a valid set of equations and analysis techniques that unify such systems in terms of stability analysis and design, and hence develop a solid science.

It is marvelous how it seems to be embedded within us. Man has always tried to unify things around him and group them in a grand category. It simply makes sense. And as a result of this quest of making analogies, theories have been validated, while others falsified, and new sciences were born. In that sense, the achievements of a certain field will nourish the other fields and so on. Thus is the beauty of mathematics; a universal language of all disciplines.

Filed under: Mathematics, Philosophy, Science and Technology

On Achievements

I recently came across this interesting article regarding a research by the University of Warwick indicating that winning a Nobel prize can add about two years to a person’s lifespan. The exact way in which this privilege affects the laureates is still unknown, but it seems like the average lifespan of the group of scientists who actually won the prize is about two years more than those who had merely been nominated.

‘…they found that the amount of actual prize money won by Nobel prize winners had no effect on their longevity – suggesting that it is the sheer status boost of the award that is important in extending lifespan.’

Quite interesting, huh?

Some people go on their entire lives just working on something without any recognition. For many, achievements are not defined by any awards or medals; the essence of achieving something is inspired by the process itself. Even if the work does not get to any tangible results, the joy of working on something you love for the duration of your life is more than enough.

I guess we all like to be recognized. I guess we all indulge ourselves from time to time with the idea of someday being honored for whatever it is we contributed to our fields of specialty, regardless what they are. Sometimes it is fair and nice, not to mention motivating. But those I truly respect are the ones who expect nothing from the people around them when it comes to work. The self-motivated. The genuine contributors. Imagine what life would be like without those people. If people only worked for the prize at the end, it would be sad, not to mention pointless. I can only hope that one day I’ll be completely self-motivated and that the passion of working and the satisfaction of being part of the process will always suffice. I salute those silent workers nobody knows of, for I’m sure that to them, the juice will always be worth the squeeze just as it was for those laureates. Although I’m pretty certain everyone agrees with me that the longer life, the money, and the global recognition won’t hurt as well!

Filed under: Science and Technology, Thoughts