Thursday, January 31, 2008

Of a Happy Mind and a Pessimistic Heart

I am involved in something which is quite stimulating to a happy mind, though a bit worrying to a pessimistic heart.

From the happy mind
During the course of this "activity", I stumbled upon a thought which may warrant further discussion with a bored fellow geek on a sleepy Sunday afternoon. Here goes:

Hypothesis
Study of the interaction of vibes between a pair of people (or even broader, a pair of entities, e.g. a person and a song that he is listening to) could be used for predictive purposes.

How it works?
Imagine the interaction of vibes as super-positioning of two-dimensional waveforms. Assumption: the brain of each person knows enough about them to be able to draw out their own waveform (Wave[self]) when required. This waveform may not always be correct and therefore we only too often have situations like “he thinks too highly of himself”! Delusion of grandeur or impression of worthlessness can be attributed to the brain drawing the Wave[self] wrong. Perception of self can be faulty, no doubt.

Step 1: The person comes in contact with another person (“Alien”). The interaction with the Alien is by means of one or more senses: eye, nose, touch, ear, tongue.
Step 2: The five senses meet for a “round-table discussion” to ascertain the waveform (Wave[alien]) for the alien. Each sense contributes depending on what it perceived. It is possible that a sense does not report anything due to lack of data, for example, interaction was on phone, therefore nothing for eye, nose, touch and tongue to report - that could also explain that we understand a person best and completely when as many senses are involved as possible (though of course, all senses especially tongue cannot always be involved!).
Step 3: Based on the assertion from the round-table discussion, a second section of the brain (a first section stores Wave[self]) tries to draw Wave[alien]. Just as with Wave[self], Wave[alien] may be drawn entirely wrongly, but as they say perception is the reality.
Step 4: Brain superposes Wave[self] and Wave[alien] and determines the outcome. It may result in the two superposing waves reinforcing each other (Good vibe) , resulting in a zero wave (no effect, though both in theory and practice it is hardly the case, as in we may have a mild positive or negative feeling about almost everything we come in contact with) or result in the two superposing waves weakening each other and in phase with Wave[alien] i.e. negative to self (bad vibe)
Step 5: Brain sends signal to all of its “reportees” (the senses it controls) to act according to the result of super-positioning e.g. “kiss him” or “kick him”!

Example from and use in real life
Example: Friends are often able to “predict” whether someone will like another entity (a person, a piece of literature etc) based on their perception of Wave[friend] (its not Wave[self] as they are not predicting for themselves) and Wave[alien]. That their prediction is wrong can again be attributed to their faulty perception i.e. wrong data and not on the applicability of the theory.
Use: By systematically capturing what the different senses ascertain of the alien, prediction could be made (using regressive analysis or other statistical tools) which indicate the likelihood of the user of the theory towards liking or disliking the alien.

If we can devise a way to represent vibes (essentially what the different senses “pick up”), perhaps like a written notation for music, we should be able to predict how two entities will behave when they interact based only on some data on their "vibeprint" (inspired from fingerprint).

From the pessimistic heart
(with credits to Harry Connick, Jr.)

Promise me you'll remember
This love together today
We may not have tomorrow
It's not for us to say

Fate isn't kind to lovers
It breaks the hardest heart
Promise me you'll remember
How good we are

Why do I find the sadness
Under your sweetest kiss
Destiny seems to whisper
It won't stay like this

When wherever we're together
I feel time standing still
I only know I love you
And I always will

If we should lose each other
Somewhere inside the dark
Promise me you'll remember
How good we are

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference." Robert Frost

P.S. :)