Do All, Pick One

Not too long ago, we had machines of different kinds -- each for a specific purpose. There were the big printing machines to print books, there were typewriters or "compact printing machines", cyclostyle machines for making copies, slide rules for doing calculations, files, ledgers, library "index" shelves, films, photo processing studio... one could go on and on.

Most of these have been replaced by one thing -- the computer.

Till the mid twentieth century, machines were always custom built for a specific purpose. But sometime in the late 1940s a new notion began to take root -- that of stored program computing. The main idea here is to go "meta" -- build one machine that could do act like several other machines, depending on what it is "told" to do.

This was not as novel as it sounds. Mathematicians had already been talking about going meta for several decades by that time. And indeed there were some machines which were "programmable". Textile looms for example.

But it was only with the advent of the "stored program computing machine" attributed to John von Neumann, the current day computer really took shape. Stored program computing has changed engineering so much so, that it was singularly responsible for the birth of an entirely new field: software.

Software is an intangible entity that we cannot see, touch, hear or feel in action. Yet, it controls our money, our entertainment, our knowledge and our lives.

So what makes a machine support software? You certainly cannot make your old bicycle (which is a machine) run a piece of C code. We also cannot make out room light and fan run code even though they run on electricity, just like a computer.

How does a computer "change its circuits" in response to what it is commanded to do? How does a machine that was wired to perform numerical computations, suddenly start showing a movie and do word processing?

The secret here is an extremely interesting and intriguing phenomenon, that we somehow seem to take for granted and never sit back and observe. This is what I call the "Do All, Pick One" algorithm.

The basic idea behind how a microprocessor can change its circuitry in response to its commands is based on this. The "rewiring" of circuitry takes place in the "Arithmetic and Logic Unit" (ALU) of a microprocessor. Each ALU is built to support a basic set of arithmetic operations like Add, Subtract, etc. and a basic set of logical operations like AND, OR, NOT, etc.

When a piece of instruction is loaded from memory into the processor, it is sent to a "decoder" that has one line each for every operation that is supported by the microprocessor. The decoder determines which operation is the instruction referring to, and switches on only that line (set it to logical 1) and switches all other lines off (set to logical 0).

Now comes the best part. The ALU meanwhile takes the data that needs to be processed and runs it through all the instructions in its instruction set! Each such execution gives out a result, which are then paired with the output lines of the decoder. Then, only that result is sent out, whose line has been switched on! Every other result is stopped in its tracks.

Hence, if your processor supports arithmetic operations like: ADD, SUBTRACT, MULTIPLY, LEFT-SHIFT and RIGHT-SHIFT; and your instructions ask the processor to perform an ADD, it actually performs all of the above! But only ADD is chosen to pass through the exit!

This neat little trick of "Do All, Pick One" enables the machine to become so flexible that it can now be "programmed" giving it such power that it sets serious directions of research, like asking "Can Machines Think" or will robots take over the world from us?

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Whenever we think that we have invented something, nature would have invariably beat us to it by millions of years. And it is true of the "Do All, Pick One" algorithm too. Nature has been using this for eons and eons.

Machines of nature -- also called living beings, are built on principles very different from the machines that humans build. Ever notice that while we say "Don't reinvent the wheel" when it comes to machines, nature does not seem to use wheels at all? Animals don't run on wheels, they don't require highways, birds don't have engines and don't require runways. There are no turboprop birds and no jet birds. In fact, nature's pump -- the heart -- seems to be so strangely inefficient. It does not have a rotor or a jet. It works by the "primitive" method of contracting and expanding.

So what is happening here?

Well, nature's machines are not built from custom parts. Our building blocks are not components like spark plugs, crank shaft, etc. Look inside a womb when a new baby is being born, and it is definitely not the case that the organs, bones and limbs are built separately and assembled together. The entire baby is born right from inception! And it just "develops" and "grows". One fine day it grows big enough to come out of the womb, another fine day, it grows big enough to go to school and yet another fine day it grows big enough to ask for pocket money!

So what does it have to do with "Do all, Pick One"?

Machines of nature -- living beings -- are built by basic building blocks called "cells" -- each of which is a living being in itself. Recursive? Well, I think.. Maybe..

Each cell is an "autonomous agent" capable of not only doing a set of things, but also taking care of itself. That is, it is not just a processor with some arithmetic and logic capability; but it also has the requisite code to do what it takes to keep itself alive for as long as possible. It is a computing, self-regulating system capable of mechanical tasks and locomotion.

As part of their quest to keep themselves alive, cells collaborate and compete with one another. In this process of collaboration and competition, cells take on different roles. Some go on to become muscles. Some go on to become nerves. Some go on to become tissues. Some take care of the heart. Some take care of the brain. Some manages our legs. Some build bones and maintain them.

Not very different from a human society comprising of engineers, lawyers, doctors, accountants, artisans, painters, drivers, teachers, etc.

A cell, when it is born, is "multipotent". It has the capability to become anything, and it picks one. It can do all, but it picks one.

Go deeper inside a cell and into the genes and there is a "Do All, Pick One" game happening even there. Our genes contain certain "encodings" of our properties. Some properties are pretty clear and stable. Each human for example, should have a heart, lungs, liver, intestine, eyes, ears, tongue, etc. whose properties are fairly stable.

But certain other properties are not that stable. For instance, what "temperament" does a new born ought to have? Should the organism be optimized for physical tasks, artistic tasks, computational tasks, or what?

Well, guess what. Let's give everything to the organism. But have a circuitry to "choose one". This is what genes seem to say..

We have genes for a whole lot of our characteristics most of which are "suppressed" and only a few which are "expressed." When we are born, some choosing circuitry is created that determines which of the characteristics ought to be expressed and which ought to be suppressed. This choosing circuitry is determined by the signals given by the larger organism (the mother) in which all this is taking place. This gives credence to the folk wisdom that mothers who are expecting babies ought to be taken care of, both physically and emotionally. A stressed out mother gives implicit signals to the offspring to express characteristics relevant in high-stress situations, making the offspring have an overtly aggressive or defensive temperament.

Our basic circuitry for "pick one" is embedded in our firmware, so to speak, and most of us lead our entire lives blissfully unaware of its existence. Sometimes however, either due to external pressures or internal exploration, some of us discover characteristics within ourselves that we never knew existed in the first place! That is when we "discover ourselves" and come out saying "I never knew I had it in me" and so on..

At bigger scales, doing and picking that happens in the daily life of a diverse, democratic society is what makes them so resilient. And on places like Wikipedia, the doing (writing) and picking (editing and fighting it out on the discussion pages), is what helped create the world's largest encyclopedia without any contributor being paid anything.

While at the level of a microprocessor, the "picking" is a binary operation (either choose or discard), and higher levels of granularity, the "picking" operation is a matter of degree. For those who know Game Theory, it is somewhat like the difference between a pure strategy and a mixed strategy. But the basic algorithm is the same: Do All, Pick One (even if in the form of a probability distribution).

Synergistic thinking - VII: Resistance to depth

Synergistic thinking - I
Synergistic thinking - II
Synergistic thinking - III
Synergistic thinking - IV
Synergistic thinking - V
Synergistic thinking - VI

In this post, I'll not repeat myself and define synergistic thinking and contrast it with imperative thinking again.. Please read the earlier posts in this series for my theory of synergistic thinking.

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As a teacher, one of the very common traits I see among students is what I call "resistance to depth." This is the mental reluctance to explore deeper in a given topic and instead, try to want to move sideways and work on several diverse projects -- albeit in a superficial manner.

There is nothing "morally" wrong about resistance to depth and it should not be treated as such, whenever I urge students to dig deeper. It is a very human tendency -- I display the very same resistance myself; and I'm sure most others do as well.

Resistance to depth is a fundamental survival tactic as I will explain below. Except that, the tactic manifests itself for very different reasons for the imperative thinker and the synergistic thinker.

Imperative thinking, as I'd mentioned earlier is "how-to" thinking. The imperative thinker registers to a course or a project with a "how-to" reasoning something like: "How to increase the chances that I will get a well-paying job in a prestigious company?"

(Again, to reiterate, there is nothing morally wrong about wishing good for oneself).

With this as the underlying question, it is clear now why resistance to depth makes sense. Working on a number of disparate projects in different fields "hedges risks" and increase the "catchment area" of companies that are in the fray for employment. This kind of "hedging of risks" is a fundamental survival instinct.

Unfortunately, the above reasoning is a bit incomplete; and it would still make sense for the imperative thinker to obtain depth in at least one field of expertise. The reason is competition.

Consider two contenders in the job market -- let's call them A and B. Suppose that A has superficial knowledge in 10 different fields, while B has in-depth knowledge and expertise in one or two fields. Now whenever a company that is looking for employees in the field of B's expertise comes looking, B would win over A.

And the more competition there is, the more likely it would be that no matter what field A chooses, there will always be someone else who would have more expertise than A in that field, at the cost of the breadth of knowledge that A has.

On the other hand of course, it does not make sense to just focus on one field of expertise only and get into tunnel vision. It amounts to keeping all eggs in the same basket. The answer then for the imperative thinker lies in striking the right balance between depth and breadth.

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Synergistic thinkers on the other hand, are also reluctant towards depth -- but for a very different reason. As I'd defined earlier, synergistic thinking is "model building" or "theory forming" or "what-is" thinking.

Synergistic thinkers typically have problems focusing on one thing -- and especially in execution, or getting things done. They are rarely task masters and resist over-specification of requirements. Instead, they value freedom of thought and expression and favour loosely defined requirements for projects.

But then, the resistance to depth by the synergistic thinker is not because digging deeper somehow is akin to getting focus and practising discipline (as in task mastery).

The main reason for resistance to depth is the possibility of cognitive dissonance. Theories and models, by definition are incomplete descriptions of the world around us. They are typically based on axiomatic assumptions that may have certain simplifications embedded into them. Digging deeper typically requires us to challenge our deeply-held axioms, endangering the very model that we've based our lives on.

Let me give a rather trite, but elucidating example. There is this young relative of mine, (let me call her N) who's all of 4 years old. I think she is one of the best insights I've got into synergistic thinking -- because, as a kid, her thinking is unhindered by other hang-ups and put-ons that adults typically have.

The other day, there was a conversation something like the following, between N and her mom.

N: Mummy, why do I need to go to school?

Mom: Because you can grow up to be smart and intelligent

N: But I thought you said, eating cereals made me strong, smart and intelligent? Why do I need to go to school then?

There you have it -- classic cognitive dissonance :-)

If doing one unpleasant thing (like eating cereals) can achieve a superset of goals than another unpleasant thing (like going to school), why do we need to perform the latter? Occam's razor! :-)

I've seen metaphorically similar behaviour from my students those which are predominantly synergistic thinkers. They are typically not thinking about payoffs for themselves (increasing job prospects, for example) when they resist deeper exploration. They're resisting it because the depth is opening up some can of worms that is causing conflicts with their mental models.

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Digging deeper for the imperative thinker typically means obtaining specialized skills. For the synergistic thinker, digging deeper means going meta.

I encountered this classic divide once when arguing with a colleague of mine who wanted to offer a course on "Advanced DBMS." (DBMS is database management systems). Our ideas of what constitutes "advanced" topics in DBMS basically went off on tangents.

According to my colleague, a course on advanced DBMS should open up the internals of a fairly large DBMS like Oracle or DB2 or MySQL, and look into how it is implemented.

According to me, a course on advanced DBMS should look into the limitations of the relational data model (which is by far the most widely used data model for commercial DBMS) and address the more general challenge of data management itself (as opposed to "database management").

Finally we agreed that using ambiguous terms like "advanced" in the title of a course does not make sense at all. Instead, we should perhaps have courses with more specific titles like "DBMS design" or "Challenges in Data Management" -- to label the above two versions of course contents.

Synergistic thinking - VI: Nature or Nurture?

Synergistic thinking - I
Synergistic thinking - II
Synergistic thinking - III
Synergistic thinking - IV
Synergistic thinking - V

After a long break, I'm back once again on the topic of synergistic thinking.

Just to refresh: last year, I'd proposed a theory called synergistic thinking, that characterizes a kind of thinking style that may be termed "what-is" thinking. The objective of this kind of thinking is model building or theory formation, as opposed to another kind of thinking called imperative thinking that focuses on skill building or "how-to" knowledge.

Before I begin this article, the standard disclaimer. My background expertise is in computer science and I have little or no background knowledge formal training in psychology. But just as it may be, these series of articles are meant to clarify my thoughts based on observations and experiences about thinking -- something that is of central importance to software engineers and researchers alike. The writing here is based on thinking from first-principles, rather than a more conventional research article based first on surveying "Related Literature."

With the disclaimer out of the way, on to the article now..

While synergistic thinking seems to be more pronounced in some people, it is interesting to probe whether synergistic thinking traits are due to natural factors only, or are they due to the environment of nurture?

The human brain comprises of two separate regions to deal with procedural (or imperative) knowledge and declarative knowledge. Procedural or "how-to" knowledge is the knowledge of "skills" -- like how to ride a bicycle, how to swim -- basically the kind of wisdom that comes from experience. Procedural knowledge is also known to be learnt largely in a non-conscious manner.

Procedural knowledge is learnt by the non-conscious acquisition of patterns of co-variations between events or features. This tacit knowledge acquisition happens not only in the brain but throughout the body. Learning of reflexes is an intrinsic aspect of procedural knowledge -- be it riding a bicycle or driving on the highway. Reflex actions are sometimes handled at much lower levels like the spinal chord to obtain immediate responses.

Imperative thinking in other words, involve the entire body, while synergistic thinking is largely a brain-only phenomenon.

Interestingly, all those whom I've observed to display synergistic thinking characteristics have invariably led fairly sedentary lives. Their idea of relaxation for example, is usually a quiet weekend at home reading or listening to music; and hardly ever something like taking up an outdoor hobby like sport, hiking, etc.

I've noticed this characteristic even in children as young as 2 years. A particularly strong example of this is a young relative of mine who is growing up in the US and visits India once in a while. As a two year old, she hardly seemed to show any interest in routine mischief like climbing up furniture, jumping from them, etc. Instead, she showed an extremely strong tendency towards observation and creating explanations. She could remember specific episodes from her previous visits to India (when she was just 1 year old!) and also make generic axiomatic assertions to explain phenomenon around her. An example: "If you leave the laptop alone, it makes bubbles" -- her explanation for the screensaver. Note the generic "ground truth" nature of that statement. She is not reporting on a specific observation about the laptop making bubbles. She is making a general statement -- whenever the laptop is left alone, it makes bubbles.

Declarative memory that is in charge of "what-is" knowledge like the above, is made up of two kinds of memories -- an episodic memory and a semantic memory.

Episodic memory is responsible for capturing vivid details of specific episodes that we have been personally involved in. Episodes -- or the experience contained within them form the basis on which we build theories.

Semantic memory on the other hand, is responsible for creating and managing a system of axiomatic predicates. Experiences contained in the episodic memory are combined with other knowledge already learnt, to lead to possibly a new set of predicates to fit in with the latent knowledge in the semantic memory.

My theory is that this process of converting the knowledge in the episodic memory into elements of a mental model or worldview, to be stored in the semantic memory -- is precisely the task of synergistic thinking.

Just like procedural knowledge acquisition, synergistic thinking happens in a non-conscious fashion. It is characterized by a number of concurrent cognitive processes working on several sets of episodic and semantic knowledge simultaneously.

A change in the content of our semantic knowledge by the addition of a new nugget of knowledge can cause some "disharmony" (entropy?) because of some potential inconsistencies that it may lead to. Disharmony is bad and needs to be weeded out. But weeding out one disharmonious association may lead to other disharmonies. Hence, several hundreds or thousands of nuggets of knowledge are manipulated simultaneously by the concurrent cognitive processes and disharmony is measured statistically. The thinking is said to have reached a point of "synergy" or "harmony" or "local minima" when disharmony is minimized. Synergistic thinkers are said to get bouts of insights every time they hit a synergy in their heads.

Coming back to the main question of this article -- it is clear to me that some folks are more naturally inclined towards synergistic thinking, while some others are naturally inclined towards procedural thinking. But, is this natural inclination a fundamental trait of the individual, or is it a result of the environment in which they were brought up in?

For instance, maybe the environment does not provide enough opportunity to build skills and therefore the mind is left with no option but to develop theories?

Or maybe it is the case that synergistic thinkers have slight bodily deformations that makes physical skill-building less than enjoyable? For instance, throughout my life, I have never enjoyed physical activity and exertion. Working out and muscle-building has never been "fun". I've never won any running races and I remember how frustrated my dad was trying to teach me swimming. For some reason, my body seems to be built in a way that it does not send enough gratification signals in response to skill building activities. Could this bodily reason be the root cause for my greater inclination towards theory-building and synergy? Or is it that synergistic thinking is so intrinsic to me that the gratification obtained by theory-building is so abnormally high that skill building gratification pales in contrast?

The answer to this question would have several implications in fields like education, medicine and social order.

For instance, if we are just as likely to be synergistic thinkers as we are likely to be imperative thinkers, then education can be seen purely from a perspective of environment building. If we need to teach theory, we build a certain kind of environment and if we need to teach imperative skills, we set it up in another kind of environment.

On the other hand, if people are likely to be intrinsic synergistic thinkers or intrinsic imperative thinkers, then our education models should seriously consider matching thinking types with corresponding types of educational methodologies and career paths, rather than force-fitting all students onto a single kind of examination system.

Synergistic thinking - V: Coping with runaway processes

Synergistic thinking - I
Synergistic thinking - II
Synergistic thinking - III
Synergistic thinking - IV

My next post in the series on synergistic thinking. But first, a disclaimer:

The opinions and recommendations in this post are based solely on my own experiences. They are not meant to be taken as medical advice. Please consult medical help if you are in a state where coping is hard.

To refresh, I've been thinking about and developing a theory called "synergistic thinking" for some years now. This underlying model of our cognitive activity may help throw light on several symptomatic "disorders" like unexplained anxiety, obsessive compulsion, unexplained hypersensitivity, some forms of persecution complex, etc. Please read through the earlier articles for more explanation.

In a nutshell, synergistic thinking is what I call the "model-building" or "what-is" thinking. This kind of cognitive ability exists in all of us, but is perhaps more pronounced in some folks.

Synergistic thinking is characterized by cognitive processes forking off along different facets based on an experiential trigger. Each such process may fork off other processes and so on. The end objective of this is to achieve some kind of a cognitive synergy or harmony -- i.e. to place the experience within a larger model that defines our world view.

Often, people who are prone to synergistic thinking silently suffer because of mismatches between what is happening inside their heads to what is happening outside. Synergistic thinkers are usually loners. In social settings they are typically labeled as nerds, geeks or even stupid and generally avoided. In addition, the daily grind of a "disciplined" urban life is no less than hell. It is very hard for the synergistic thinker to perform what are seen as routine activities like getting up early, leading a disciplined life, organizing stuff, etc. Urban life typically requires a number of context switches -- bargaining with the milkman, negotiating traffic, meeting clients, managing co-workers, managing children, etc. Such kind of context switching is very hard when there are so many processes going off in all directions every time something happens.

Every context switch involves a new experience, and typically takes some time for the synergy to set in. The synergistic thinker typically seeks harmony at all levels in every activity. For example, simple things like drivers honking and driving rashly often have made me so disturbed. This sensitivity is not due to some physical aversion to honking, but due to the synergistic process getting worried about where are we going as a country and as a population if we can't even drive sensibly. I've even found myself asking whether driving styles reflect personality styles and if so, does an aggregate driving style say anything about the overall personality that has dominated the population as a whole. Also what such things would mean for the ability of this population to explore new ground, to be creative, to be able to build or manage large systems, etc. All these thoughts keep running around in my mind even as I am driving. As a result I tend to drive slow and cautious and avoid driving altogether whenever I can. But you can imagine what a sudden, unexpected context switch can do in such cases.

Similarly in the search for underlying principles, there is often a trigger that generalizes an instance-level experience to a hypothetical type-level experience. Some months ago I realized that something was bothering me for several days, affecting my mood and efficiency at work. Only later on I realized that the trigger were a set of very disturbing articles that I'd read in newspapers and magazines by some self proclaimed intellectuals regarding a major issue like Kashmir. In what was no more than a play of words and rhetoric, these "intellectuals" advocated things like "We need freedom from Kashmir as much as Kashmir needs freedom from us" and other such nonsense. I don't want to comment on the contents of the article or on the issue itself; but suffice it to say that the article made a number of irresponsible and inflammatory statements, based on arguments of questionable merit.

Even though these articles were about a large issue, they had affected me personally at a level that it was impeding my day to day activities. (Fortunately and not surprisingly, I was not the only one to feel indignant and there were several more rebuttals about these articles. Here is one from Ramananda Sengupta, but that is besides the point).

The point I am trying to make is that an ordinary citizen like me feeling any which way about a large-scale issue like this is not going to make any difference at all. But my model-building processes were telling me that in case such stupid rhetoric led to large-scale repercussions, every ordinary citizen would suffer the consequences. And that was where the "unexplained" disharmony was coming from.

With today's information technologies like television, Internet, twitter, etc. we are constantly bombarded with information whether we were looking for it or not. The more information we are bombarded with, the richer is the dataset is on which we can build our models. However, couple it with a hectic daily life, it means nothing short of daily trauma.

So, here are some techniques that I use to cope with such runaway processes myself. Maybe it is of help to others.

1. Choose a career that places a high premium on flexibility, creativity, etc. Factories are simply not the right place to work in for synergistic thinkers. In most probabilities however, careers that emphasize freedom will not pay well. But the loner synergistic thinker does not place too much of a premium on money either. So there is some balance somewhere in there.

2. Given your proclivity to build models about everything, why not build a model about yourself? Note that thinking itself is not harmful -- the associated anxiety and the metabolic activity that follows are what are harmful. Model-building typically addresses deep underlying principles. If the outlook from this perspective looks not-so-good, there is no point reacting to it in the way that we are biologically programmed to face clear and present danger -- fear, high BP, high adrenalin, fight-or-flight responses, etc. For instance, even if the aforementioned "intellectual" articles had had larger repercussions, there was no point in brooding about it and wrecking our daily lives. They require specific solutions that need to be implemented in its own way.

In this regard, I've found the following model of the brain useful. Think of your brain as comprising of three major parts: a synergistic multi-threaded, multi-core model-building engine; a set of I/O processors that connect the rest of the body to this engine; and a central controller or the "consciousness" that controls these connections.

Anxiety can be seen as being caused because of spurious connections made by I/O controllers connecting parts of the body with the model-building engine. The model-builder is thinking away and visualizing an imagined worrisome scenario, while the I/O controller is taking it as reality and informing the rest of your body to press the danger or panic button.

To avoid this, whenever I start feeling tense for an unexplained reason, I imagine the controller (the conscious mind) intervening and literally removing these cables connecting the model-building engine to the rest of the body. Just by imagining that I'm pulling out these cables instantly relieves the tension in several parts of the body. I feel my fingers relaxing, the breathing slowing down, the toes relaxing and so on..

The problem of course, is that the moment I stop imagining this, the cables snap back into position and I'm tense again before long. So, it is something that needs practice.

Synergistic thinking - II: Some quick notes

Thought I'd jot these things down before I forget them..

Not too long ago, I witnessed this insight from a 3-year old who was tired and wanted to be picked up by her mother. Her mother was busy tending to the even younger sibling and told her to go to the grandparents. To which, the 3-year-old retorts, "But I am your child; I want you to pick me up.." and then bawls inconsolably..

Such an insight from a 3-year-old is unusual indeed. Her anxiety is not a function of what is happening here and now, but what it means in the underlying scheme of things.

This is what I mean by synergistic or "what is" thinking. Synergistic thinkers are concerned about underlying principles and not the present observations themselves. Given a set of observations and experiences, the synergistic thinker starts a concurrent breakdown process where these are stripped down to their underlying principles.

Synergy happens when a set of mutually consistent principles come together and are able to describe a major portion of the observations.

Much of theoretical science happens this way; except that, obtaining synergy in one's mind is not enough for other scientists to accept a theory. They will need imperative proofs and substantiation by experimentation to accept theories. Regardless of the subsequent rigour, the first steps towards building new theories are due to synergistic thinking.

Synergistic thinking is not the same as gestalt or holistic thinking. Holistic thinking (as far as I have understood it) is about thinking of the entire system as a whole. I have come across some articles on holistic thinking that included elements like religion, spirituality, culture and philosophy into what were essentially scientific questions.

Maybe that is also necessary or maybe it is not. I'm afraid, I don't really understand it.

But synergistic thinking is not about understanding the "whole system" but about understanding the "underlying principles".

I also have a theory why synergistic thinkers are prone to extra anxiety than others. It is essentially described by a quote that I have coined: We don't know what we don't know.

New observations or experiences are likely to bring in facts that conflict with existing theories that have been painfully built over a period of time in the minds of the synergistic thinkers. And such conflicts can cause major rollbacks of existing models in order to build new models. Worse, synergistic thinkers may have committed actions based on their earlier models, which have altered the state of the larger environment and to which they may be accountable. Now if new facts suddenly made their earlier paradigms invalid, they suddenly are much more vulnerable.

New, destabilizing facts can come at any time and may cause any amount of rollbacks. We don't know what are all the things that could destabilize our models -- because, "we don't know what is it that we don't know!"

Imperative and synergistic thinking

Note: This post, even though it talks a lot about me, is not an exercise in narcissism. It is just that it is better to talk about what one knows well, rather than speak in abstract inanities. The objective of this post is to perhaps be of some help to others who can associate with what is written here.

After reading this earlier post on fighting inner deamons demons, a friend had suggested to me that I may be suffering from OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) or some form of anxiety disorder. Sure enough, I took some tests and there is a moderate element of OCD.

Interestingly though, after I learnt about some of the symptoms, I have seen these symptoms in many of my colleagues, students and family members. And yes of course, there are well known cases like Howard Hughes and David Beckham.

One of the things I have noticed is a remarkable prevalence of these symptoms among academics, researchers and artists. And I think this is no coincidence. In fact, I believe that this so-called "disorder" is actually an indication of a different kind of thought process – something which I have been observing and trying to understand for almost 15 years now.

This is what I call "synergistic" thinking as opposed to more conventional "imperative" thinking. Before I start explaining both of them, let me once again reiterate that there is absolutely no implication about which kind of thinking is "better" or "superior" or whatever than the other.

Both thinking processes start with a trigger – an event or an idea or sensory inputs which triggers a thought process. Imperative thinking proceeds in a "logical" fashion and deduces one conclusion after another. Highly focused imperative thinkers put enormous energy into this imperative thought process and proceed onto thinking about finest details starting from the initial idea. Imperative thinking is very good at creating "actionables" – specific and clearly defined action points that need to be performed in order to achieve a particular objective.

Synergistic thinking on the other hand starts off differently. Given a trigger (an idea, event or sensory input) synergistic thinkers start off several processes – each addressing a different facet of this trigger. Each process then proceeds autonomously, forking off other processes if required. The synergistic thinking process ends when the thinker sees a larger harmony or synergy emerging from all these different processes. They have a very good idea of the overall topology of the cognitive landscape, while they may not be very good at specifying clearly defined actionables.

In fact, many synergistic thinkers don't see the need for actionables, and are put off by rules and processes that they consider to be too fine-grained. Synergistic thinking has created a map in their minds and they can't understand why someone is specifying a particular path in great detail.

Perhaps one of the extreme examples of synergistic thinkers was the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan who could conjure up sophisticated and intricate results in number theory just like that. About whom, the Cambridge mathematician Hardy described as someone “who didn't understand the need for proofs.”

Imperative thinking can be thought of as "how to" (reach a certain destination) thinking, while synergistic thinking can be thought of as "what is" (the nature of the larger system) thinking.

For example, when a new board game like carrom or chess or connect-4 is introduced to an imperative thinker, his/her thought processes would typically focus on how to play the game and how to win. The synergistic thinker on the other hand would be busy placing the game in a category of other similar games, understanding the nature of this game and the rationale behind its rules, etc. The game would also remind them of other real-life situations or systems, which they now seek to explain through this game, and so on.

The intrusive thoughts syndrome that is very characteristic of OCD sufferers can be explained due to synergistic thinking. Intrusive thoughts are involuntary, mostly unwelcome and painful thoughts that flash in one’s mind when they are least expected. It is said that while most people are able to dismiss off these thoughts, sufferers of OCD experience a lot of pain and distress because of intrusive thoughts.

I remember when I was a student in Chennai in the 1990s, several times when I visited the beach and was just looking around, there used to be a sudden intrusive thought of a tsunami sweeping away everything on the beach. It had caused me enormous pain and many times, I could stay on the beach no further, and abruptly got up and came back. You can imagine my horror when a decade later a tsunami actually struck these beaches!

However, intrusive thoughts even though unwelcome, are hardly random thoughts. They are not a result of brain cells firing off at random. On closer examination, it is possible to understand the cogitative chain from the current reality to the intrusive thought. In my case, I now remember how, some years earlier, I had earlier read about the Pacific Ring of Fire and the eruption of Mount Krakatoa in 1883, and had imagined tsunamis in the Indian Ocean several times. And it was this mental map that was causing the intrusive thoughts. This mental map fit in closely with the reality that was in front of me (the Bay of Bengal) and there was the intrusive thought. I had never consciously thought of tsunamis – just the reality in front of me had forked off several processes, one of which was creating a panic by noting that a tsunami is possible here.

For a long time, this kind of thinking was seen as a “weakness” of sorts. (I guess it still is, in some circles). It was as though, synergistic thinkers cannot “control” their thoughts and “focus” on one thing. Besides, concepts like harmony and synergy lacked formal definitions.

Only recently I think we are able to understand (at least I am able to) how to formally define harmony. A synergistic process is a process of optimization. There are several logical processes, each thinking away along its own path and often producing implications that conflict with that of other processes. Then there is an overall global process of selection that seeks to minimize these conflicts. Harmony or synergy is a system state where conflicts among the processes are minimized.

While imperative thinking is about deduction, synergistic thinking is about optimization. There you are, at least now, I hope synergistic thinkers would get some bhav. J

Synergistic thinking theory also explains why OCD suffers are often hypersensitive about certain things – especially issues like morality. When there are several processes going off in their own directions, harmony or synergy is achieved by focusing on the invariants in the system. These are properties of the system that remain unchanged in the larger picture even the system is undergoing several transformations (like laws of physics and Vicco Vajradanti ads ;-). Morality is essentially the invariant set of societal norms across cultures and time. It is these invariants that help us formulate appropriate behavioural strategies when faced with a new culture or when faced with large-scale changes happening in our life or the society. It is no wonder then that the synergistic thinker seeks to understand these invariants very closely.

It is also not that all synergistic thinkers are alike. Firstly, the different facets along which processes are forked may differ from thinker to thinker based on what they have been exposed to. Secondly, optimization processes are prone to this problem called local optima. These are system states which are not optimal, but are the best given a small set of other surrounding alternatives. Synergistic thinkers may end up in different local optima, even though they have the same kind of exposure and are working under the same set of underlying values.

Historically, one of the major impediments to synergistic thinking is the difficulty in communicating the harmony that is seen by one thinker to others. But with high-speed computers and advances in visualization techniques, hopefully synergistic thinking will get its rightful place in the scheme of things.