Rational Philosophy

On systems that respond to feedback; home energy, Google, balance, and depression.

I woke up this morning at 4:30am and spent the best part of an hour awake before falling back to sleep. I’ve been groggy and tired all day, and feeling less productive than usual. My body is telling me to rest. But I’m telling it to keep going.

I’ve come across several stories today that refer to the value of monitoring a system in order to optimize it. The Energy Department’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, for instance, conducted a research study in which it equipped over 100 homes with power montoring and control systems, allowing the home-owners to trade off their energy use and expense with their habits and comfort (e.g., choosing to maintain the house at a slightly less comfortable temperature during periods of peak energy demand). The study found that people typically reduced their energy bills, and thereby the demand on the local power grid, by around 10%.

Another story tells about Google’s experiment on its own employees, letting them engage in speculative trading for modest prize money in order to derive information about its office culture and communication patterns. Google found that people who sit close together speculate similarly, showing that they communicate better than friends or coworkers. Google is using this information to help it plan its seating arrangements to foster valuable communication.

In the NY Times Health section, we read about one of the human body’s built-in feedback mechanisms — our sense of balance — and how it tends to deteriorate with age. Fortunately we can exercize it, improving our balance as we age, and reducing our risk of falling (the article tells us how).

All living organisms represent complex, complementary feedback systems. The organism responds to external and internal stimuli and adjusts accordingly, aiming to balance the system. Hungry? Eat. Full? Stop eating. Tired? Rest.

As human beings, being conscious, we can override or undermine our feedback mechanisms. Sometimes we don’t eat because we don’t want to get fat. Or we jump out of a plane, despite our fear, because we want to experience the thrill of sky-diving. Or we push on through tiredness because we don’t have the time or opportunity to rest.

All of which is getting me somewhere. Our mood is another feedback mechanism; whether or not we feel happy or depressed feeds back into our thoughts, actions and feelings. But it’s a confusing and sometimes dysfunctional mechanism.

I didn’t figure this out until my life-coach / therapist helped me see the pattern. Over several years of working with him I would go through periods of depression. He would help me root out the cause of the depression and, inevitably, coming to grips with the cause would leave me feeling happier and with more self-insight. The pattern showed that depression provided much needed downtime for introspection and gave me a sign that I was grappling with something.

And I’m writing about therapy because… of the debate about a NY Times “PsychCentral” posting. The comments, and their passion, made me realize just what a difficult subject therapy can be. I felt the need to add my own feedback on the subject.

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