STOP HEARING THOSE COLORS
Why you should concentrate on signal only
You just gave birth to a baby, Congratulation. I am so happy to hear that news though if I tell you that your baby will hear colors after some months, would you flip out? Oh no, I am not kidding, your baby will hear colors and see music. Get Out from here, you would be saying.
Let us understand some neurology today and what it teaches us but before that, you got to adore this piece of fat right here: Our Brain
Now that is an aesthetic visual art though we know its much complex inside. Our brain is made up of neurons, which are often inaccurately compared in quantity to the number of stars in our Milky Way Galaxy. Our brain has 86 billion neurons to be precise while our galaxy has over 250 billion stars. What do these neurons do or why are they not less than 86 billion? I will suffice to answer the first question only.
A neuron, when looked alone is no fun at all. The real fun starts when you combine it with the remaining 86 billion minus 1 neuron, but how do these neurons communicate, you must ask?
These neurons are connected at a junction called Synapse and every signal that a neuron sends has to travel through a synaptic connection. Every neuron in our body is at resting potential (consider this as you holding a rod with no electrical current passing through) until it gets a signal from another neuron attached to its dendrites. Whenever a neuron receives a signal from another neuron (joined at its dendrite), it gets electrocuted (consider this as I passed the electrical current into the rod that you are holding — so mean but imagine). When a neuron does get electrocuted (in technical terms called an action potential), it passes the whole signal to another neuron joined at its axon terminal (synaptic knobs) and this continues until the action is completed
The action potential can travel at different paces. In the above picture, the left -hand neuron is sending an action potential at a much slower pace like 1 m/s while the right-hand neuron (called myelinated neurons) send the action potential at a much faster pace — 100m/s (remember the instant pain you get if you hit your toe or imagine somebody chopping your finger off — I’m sorry but just imagine).
I believe now you have the basic understanding of how neurons work but remember don’t utter a word until you fully understand — resting / action potential and what these signals are made of (remember that bee). I will provide references at the end. Time to go back to your magic kid.
Synaptic Pruning:
In layman terms, synaptic pruning refers to the elimination of excessive neurons and synaptic connections from our brain in order to increase the efficiency of our neural transmission. Below picture will clear out the air :
As you can see that a 2-year-old has a much higher number of synaptic connections than 6-year-old! Why is this happening? What this taught us?- continue reading
Here comes the concept of “Redundancy” — elimination of obvious information (like you know that “B” comes after “A”). Your neurons will only fire signals when there is an abrupt change in the surrounding — like when you suddenly experience a loud noise, or sudden brightness coming out of darkroom after 3 days of writing or etc. Sensory Adaptation is what scientists call this and it achieves huge economies by exploiting the absence of sudden changes in our surroundings. Pruning eliminates all the excessive neurons which are providing the information that you don’t need — you don’t need to hear the colors like the way you don’t need to see the music! This is all so beautiful right though we are aren’t aware of this destruction!
STOP REACTING TO EVERYTHING (SIGNAL V/S NOISE)
Well, imagine you have given birth to a child whose skull is transparent and when he turned 2 years old, you start seeing the number of neurons and synaptic connections getting reduced. Would you freak out as parents (I am assuming that you don’t know about Pruning)? Indeed you will but why? Just because you can see it? But you know that you are smarter than your child right?
Well, I faced criticism for the very first blog that I wrote on Medium and I am sure there are many who are getting bullied or facing criticism. Should we react to every single criticism? If yes, in what form? We have formed this habit of concentrating too much on the NOISE, just because we can see it, hear it, or feel it. Our intuition because of our size doesn’t care about the atoms since we can’t see them though we are made of them.
The biggest fight, we have is the fight against the Noise in our head — Ah! She is worthless, he ain’t gonna make it, she is a slow learner and what not. We all have either said those things or heard those things consciously or unconsciously but let me tell you — these are just pure Noise. You need to concentrate on the “Signal”. Don’t react if the market is down 1% or your kid didn’t get through the best school.
What we need, is a comprehensive pathway to build “Objectivity”. Is this criticism constructive or not? How many times in the history Market was down 1%? Those negative thoughts in my mind are facts or mere opinions that I acquired from someone? Take a moment, before you form an opinion or provide your reaction to some news. Do I really need to do that?
I always recite this — “only a few good decisions in my life will make all the difference” but I won’t be able to make those decisions if I concentrate too much on the Noise just because I can hear or see it(would not be writing this as well). It will come and haunt you every time but remember “Objectivity” is your friend. Next time if you are criticized then ask for a constructive one, if it’s missing otherwise tell that person to keep quiet. I will end this with the beautiful Serenity Prayer:
“Universe (God), grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the Courage to change the things I can, and the Wisdom to know the difference.”
References:
https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/infant-kandinskys/
Let me know what is the worst criticism that you have faced and how you overcome it? Happy Learning. Stay Safe…..
