Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Modeling Human Behavior?!

Last week, I got a chance to meet a couple of my well-wishers who were blessed to begin their process of enjoying the world a few decades earlier than the day I started...They were almost as old as my aunts and uncles. The two have been introduced well to my antiques, way ahead of time and they certainly had an idea of what they were going to witness. Unfortunately, they were also exposed to the common (mis)understanding of the generic behavioral pattern of a PhD, and obviously was entangled in that line of thought as well. The fortunate part for these people is that I have never met them personally, but I was introduced and been taught about them well enough, so meeting them on a personal level was just a formality.

Now, the meeting part did take place. Yours truly took a few nano seconds to gel in. Upon completion of the few formalities, I was all myself. Spoke to these people non-stop for almost an hour. Made them come outside for a drive in to the town along with a bunch of my friends whom they already knew and have gotten comfortable with, even before they had met me..... Ended up in an icecream joint in a winter evening making sure to show that the world around one can be wilder with just icecreams.... All these time I was ofcourse talking (being myself) and when I was outside in a place with rhythms all over, I took a dip in to the music left straight and right by responding to the beats now and then.

So at the end of the hour long stint, the aunt said that that was somewhat in the grounds like....'oh my god....I really didnt know it was going to be this intense...If you go to India, people wouldnt believe that you have a graduate degree...'

Now, that is almost everyone's comment after they spend few mins with you-know-who in a non-professional environment. Why would that be? Why would we frame preconceived notions that are based on traditional generational behavior of human kinds of different ages. I am glad that the notions that the people I met that day conceived were volatile in a few moments and the folks were versatile and wise enough to comprehend that 'understanding and expecting something that are based on rules that were set from a sample space of diiferent aspects could be absolutely wrong'.

If we move a step back and take a thinking pill we would understand that everyone of us have been there and done that. We expect something based on what we know and told upon. Even sometimes through our own experiences but there are several instances we witness that our expectation have not penetrated the complete sample space.... Sometimes we even comfortably sit back and say 'exceptions are not examples'....

Well to preach the least, I think it would be reasonable to say that it is ideal to use the knowledge that we have gained through pattern recognition and our own personal experiences. However, to extrapolate that to every set of conditions and call the ones that does not fall well with in the predicatable error limits, as abnormalities would be absolutely wrong. I don't think modeling human behavior with high predictability is an easy task to accomplish. Even if that is possible, I would rather stay away from that equation and enjoy the limitations of accepting and appreciating people the way they are!

I guess I am trying to say that Sky is Blue :)