Necessity of grief

Some like to believe that all that happens around us is purely random and then other tend to believe that there is a dominant design in what happens around us. Then there are others who tend to believe that it is a function of time as well and so there are patterns set in randomness i.e. short predictable déjà vu patterns set in random order.

For those who tend to disregard all models, life is easy as they consider happiness and grief as ends of a continuum – almost like an infinitesimally long line circling to make its ends meet. For them it’s a mere point in time phenomenon and it does not matter which time slice of the oscillation of the random was seized for observation.

Those who seek patterns in the randomness and believe that there exists a dominant design, often a question arises what’s the need of pain or grief?

So imagine a system in equilibrium or rather lets consider “Everybody continues in its state of rest or uniform motion …” yes Inertia. Whether its slackness or hyperactivity of modern existence, equilibrium or inertia is bound to set in. So if the system is stable and self-sustaining, what should be the means to inject that impulse which will make it transform into something more elegant. What choice will the designer have but to inject an impulse that will rearrange the weights of the well settled neural network so that a richer equilibrium state can be reached? Again when the self sustained system believes itself to be self-fulfilling, what choice will the designer have but to show its limitations and therefore enable evolution? This is where grief comes in handy. It’s a simple and perhaps the most efficient means to rearrange the weights of a neural network so that transformation can take place. It’s the means to make the seeker seek for more elegant design patterns and therefore seek the same from the designer. It’s a means to make the seeker defocus and refocus on the pole star that will not move no matter how choppy the sea or how strong the storms. In simpler words, it will make the intelligence of the designed, however extraordinary, subservient to the intelligence of the designer.

While this is just a viewpoint, it should be doubtlessly understood that it’s only a poor reflection of a glimpse of the design, almost like blind men who feel the warm rays through a key hole and imagine and speculate the splendor and radiance of the sun.

Copyright Rajiv Bahl March 2008