Friday, May 23, 2014

Brain vs Heart

Dear students,

Welcome to the new class. I have checked your answer sheets on the previous two lessons of 'World of unrequited loves' and 'Prepossessing beauty of ordinariness". I personally don't like this process of examination and rating you students but somehow we have to follow these mundane university regulations.

Now, without wasting much time lets start this lecture on one of the most omnipresent issue of "brain versus heart". It is a topic quite prevalent and quite widespread across the coordinates of time and across the coordinates of space. I will give you an example. Suppose there are two students: a girl (A) and a guy (B) sitting next to each other in the class. The girl already has a boyfriend (C) but somehow the love between the two is in decline phase of its lifecycle. Girl (A) develops liking for this guy (B) and once while in a party they drink a lot and both are left lonely. Now the dilemma between the girl is to kiss that guy or not kiss him. Heart say kiss him, brain say don't (as you have a boyfriend). Suppose she follows her heart, complications develop and she will not enjoy or concentrate in the class sitting next to him because she feels kissing him was not right. Suppose she follows her brain and not kiss him, she regrets that she should have kissed him. A perfect case of brain vs heart. These dilemmas are common, rather very common. You have a job say investment banking (which pays you good) but you wanted to a singer. Heart says singer, brain says investment banking.

Now, lets understand the theory of it:
Let us consider a variable 't' and is defined as the moment you perform an action after the decision. For example 't' is the exact moment the girl (A) and the guy (B) kisses (heart wins) or not kisses (brain wins). We are assuming "not kissing" also as an act. Also 't' is the moment you quit your investment banking job to become a singer (heart wins) or you decide to continue with investment banking (brain wins).
Now concentrate on the two equations below:
Heart equation: H(t): t (i+1)- (t)--> infinity (difference between two time periods in life tends to infinity)
Brain equation: B(t): t (i+1)- t(i)--> 0 (difference between two time periods of  life tends to zero)

What exactly it means that heart equation says the moment (t2 minus t1) tends to infinity and this means that gaps between two moments of your life is so huge that various moments of your life (t1, t2, t3, t4, and so on) become mutually exclusive and hence the correlation coefficient between all the moments t1,t2,t3,t4 is zero. If they are not correlated, hence the moment t2 is not dependent on t1. Thus as per heart equation, if girl (A) kisses at moment t1 and next day class (moment t2) is not inter-related and hence she doesn't feel any guilt of kiss (as t1 and t2 are mutually exclusive) and thus remains happy.

What the brain equation says that gap between each moments tends to zero, thus t1,t2,t3,t4 are highly interrelated that the correlation between each moment is 1. Hence you do not kiss and next day you sit in the class (at moment t2) you feel happy because at t2 you are proud having acted smart in t1 as they are highly related.

So you understood, how both the two different equations (brain and heart) are leading to same result i.e. happiness. But like all theories, they are ideal situations. Like any physics professor will not give you marks if in an experiment you take out the acceleration due to gravity as 9.8 meter per second square as it is ideal situations. Hence, Life is not ideal my dear students. The correlation coefficients will never be zero as per heart or one as per brain and hence all the problems and complications happen.

So in simple words this fight between heart and brain is actually a fight of correlation coefficients. It is fight to be either zero or to be one. But people end up in between like 0.23 or 0.67. Like however hard she tries, the love bite on her neck will not allow the correlation to be zero.

Now how to solve this duel between the heart and brain? Think about it tonight. Discuss it amongst yourselves in groups and in individual. Generate some wild ideas and tomorrow we will discuss it.

Good luck.

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Dedicated to a friend who followed her heart and quit her job (boring IT job) to pursue journalism

2 comments :

mikimbizii said...

You are blazing!! I'm awed.

Minona said...

I told you I kept reading your blog and my friend, this is amazing, crazy as you said but so true nobody can deny those feelings. The equations made it easier for me to understand without my heart bothering too much.
Love you Vikas, will there be any homework? (please say no!) :)
I will follow your thoughts and try to see you more ofthen. We have a song pending...
Kyunki tum hi ho...

Yours always, your little, curious, weird and loving Prakriti.

PS. We are still awesome.