Sunday, March 9, 2008

Swalpa Adjust Maadi

I keep comparing humans with circuits all the time. Sometimes the parallels drawn seem so significant to me. I go ahead and force some parameters of a circuit to a person. Lets take some very basic parameters. Any one who has done a basic networks course would definitely agree that any circuit can be approximated to a second order system (two pole systems rings a bell??). So there is a dominant pole frequency and a non dominant pole frequency. They sorta give an indication of what your response would be to a change of inputs. Ofcourse we assume the change in the inputs is within some boundary conditions such that the system behaves in a linear fashion.

Ok am done with the circuits part (couldn't do away with: second order system, pole frequency, linearity. sorry!) of it. Coming to the fantastic feature of human brain. It has hundreds of such systems in parallel and the pole frequencies can be different for each system. Each system is associated with the various objects in his/her life (eg: cricket, sudoku, music, ex-lover, current-girlfriend, future husband whatever). So, the theory is "nothing is permanent".

When the environment around you changes (a new job, flat, friends), humans have this capability to adjust. No matter what the change is (again within the boundary conditions), we adjust to it. Its just a matter of time. Sometimes, it takes few seconds (dim light in a conference room), few minutes (bad odour of shoes), few hours (change of body cycle..jet lag), few days (those moments with buddies who are no longer around), few months (you are married!!), few years (you are still married!!) to adjust. Life always changes our surroundings so that our brains do not get used to the comfort level and are constantly challenged. It comes with the tagline "Swalpa Adjust Maadi" (Adjust a Little, please in kannada).