Sentient Science

Last week, yet another business trip to Bangkok, one of hundreds so that now Bangkok is somewhere between a second home and paradise. Anyhow, this time it was a gruelling one as I was part of a team of R&D professionals trying to solve a mysterious problem in one of our products. I spent quite a few days prior to the visit boning up on past work, and there were plenty of old R&D reports I could lay my hands on. Boss informed to ensure we could reproduce the problem i.e illuminate the problem so that the causative factors can be identified. I thought that was Catch 22, if I knew what the causative factors were, we could at least plan technical approaches to solving the problem. This is the funny thing about science. In some ways, it touts to rely on facts, facts and facts, but too often we have hypotheses or correlating factors. These are not root causes. In an industry like ours, the correlating factors are many, facts fewer to identify. This is not because there is not enough science, there is plenty but the systems are hard, non-equilibrium structures that cannot be tested non-destructively. Anyhow, so armed with hypotheses , I did a square dance with other R&D folks. We brain stormed and found some vague solutions. In the afternoon, we met up with business and we managed to push all the right buttoms , ask the real leading questions which miraculously shed light on some unforeseen issues - something about how we transport the products , store them, the chugs and halting stops and delays in a long, unpredictable supply chain...and viola we had a much smarter solution strategy than just "science" could suggest.

We dont know if it works but in some sense the skies cleared a bit.

I think over my career and life as a scientist engineer, I am always humbled by how simple solutions can be if we shed the flab and examine the lucid details and look at problems holistically - if we only shed the pomposity of jargon and hiding behind strained constructs.
Same true of life, I suspect, though I am much too warped in my cloudy veil of unawareness: If Life can be viewed as series of "quality" problems that can only be solved when one views these in a context. These can be overcome and a more chiselled chapter of life can reveal itself if we realise how astonishingly simple thought should be.

The Neurology of the Etymology of Everything or, Meaning of Life

As a serious, committed and fundamentalist athiest, I am always looking out for the neuro-something explanation for everything. Not that we non-believers not believe in the quotidian, the joyous, the inexplicable sorrows, the FEE-EElings, you know. Often times when I drum, I enter a zone - a space, hard to describe, what a line of cocaine must feel like? what sleep feels like? a transportation where only fingers and sound matter. Mind you, I am not a great drummer but I have rhythm inside me. But, out of an inexplicable fear, I retract from this endless space and enter a drone and then stop entirely and wrap up the drumming. I found this interesting piece of news by Dr Barry Bittman (see Here), a neurologist practicing alternative healing medicine together with traditional medicine. He and his colleagues conducted several clinical studies on drummers and measured plasma stress hormones - cortisol. He found drops in cortisol, as well as heightened immune responses with no change in normal parameters (Inetrleukin 2, etc.) But, this describes "wellness", what a good run would do. What I experinece is something, well, more profound, a trance like state.

But, if I put on my scientist hat, does even this wellness thing really mean much? As a previous boss used to say: "Absence of Evidence is not evidence of absence". To paraphrase it, "Evidence of Presence is not presence of evidence". So, now even findings by Dr. Bittman are doubted by Steven Pinker. (see Here)

I am quoting Dr. Pinker entirely:
None of that impresses MIT's Steven Pinker. "I think people who argue that music is an adaptation have confused theeveryday meaning of the term - meaning something that is beneficial or salubrious - with the biological meaning of the term,which is something that causally increases the rate of reproduction or survival," he says. "Now, it's not enough just to showthat something is correlated with reproduction. Wearing a linen suit or driving a Porsche might help you find a sex partner,but that doesn't mean it's an adaptation. What you need to do is show, on sheer engineering grounds and in terms of causeand effect, that some particular trait would lead to an adaptive outcome".

The "trance state" on drumming is beautifully described in a non-scientific book - but a beautifully written experiential book, The Shamanic Drum , by Michael Drake, now on Google Books. It describes the altered states adrummer can enter, allowing her to be malleable, transform and experience a state rarely touched upon, all this with no faith or belief chnages. This I can relate to.