Living in a “function” world

Through our lives we impact everything and everybody and although many of us do not know whether what we do now or in the future will have a positive or negative impact, the “real” world reminds us of who we are because we live in a “function” type of world. What is a function and how do we all fit in this “function” world? If we take the mathematical function definition: “a function (math) is a relation between a set of inputs and a set of permissible outputs with the property that each input is related to exactly one output”, it is very close to “cause and effect” in a known environment because for each outcome there is an input that will have a certain weight in the function that is in the “box” and under process.

This is the ideal case when we know the input, output and their relationship that resides in the “box”. Since the function is in the box, obviously everything that gets out can be controlled by understanding what gets in once we also know the function. But we rarely operate in a true mathematical known “function”, therefore most of the time in real life we do not know what kind of function we have in the “box”, while we can still measure the outcomes. Although we might not know very well all the inputs, by measuring outcomes we still get a reality “check” and ideally be able to make changes in the “box”. Many of us have heard the expression of “think outside the box”.

Moving towards reality, its meaning is to look for outside evidence about reality. If we ever want to change the reality that we all see, then we need to work on “the function within the box” when and if the inputs are not well known. Whenever we have precise knowledge of something that will work and yet the result is negative, we will need to record that a certain event has created an undesirable outcome, although we might not know what really happened in that “box” regarding the type of function. What happens when certain inputs can trigger functions that we are not aware about, yet we can see good outcomes? Well this is why we all imagined that by working on the positive inputs, we will reach to those functions that will transform the outcomes to be even more positive. We all remember at the beginning of computer programming when we used the expression “garbage in, garbage out” but that was during a time when we did not understand how to change the “functions in the box” to get to positive outcomes. If we know the type of functions we have in the “box”, we can change any negative inputs into positive outcomes.

So, all that we really need is to know the functions in the box. When we start projects in the real world, we do try to get to those outcomes that can be measured. This is why “planning” is important but as important are the changing plans if we see in “real time” that outcomes are not positive or as expected per the original plan.The video is about Computational Neuroscience and is interesting from the perspective of knowing more about our neurons and statistics.

The reason we hear so many times about the plan changes is because the functions were either unknown at the beginning, misunderstood or missed some inputs. We deal with real numbers in a real world therefore everything that exists can be counted for or in other words it has its own identity. In mathematics the transformation function can be linear, affine, rotations, reflections or translations. Can we apply these functions at personal and or company level? Where do we start? In companies where transformations are expected to happen yet they never happen, the main cause is the failure to identify that we all operate and live in a non-linear environment. When we try to transform the non-linear data into linear data we need to know each function, but the first transformation needs to be at the personal level. Seeing first yourself on how you can manage your own positive transformation will eventually move the entire reality towards known functions and we will see mainly the positive outcomes around the world.