Image Of Minimalist "Feedback 'Loop' " courtesy of WikipediaThe so-called "feedback loop" is not a loop at all, if the feedback is consistently monitored, acted upon (in the form of an adjustment or change in trajectory), re-monitored and acted upon in a cycle. It is then an ever outwardly-expanding, or inwardly-constricting spiral, which can never reach an endpoint - a sort of recursive, asymptotic orbit, with no ultimate landing or completion. This leads me to CASTLE'S CONUNDRUM.Here is the essence of Castle's Conundrum (named for Douglas E. Castle, who is constantly learning, but who is endlessly frustrated at the unsettling notion that "the more that you learn, the more acutely you realize just how much more there is to be learned.")*:
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* The worst part of this process is that the more knowledge you accumulate, the more questions that seem to emerge -- each begging for an answer. In plain English (not my specialty), the more I learn, the stupider I feel.
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Any scientific study or business project that possesses the following characteristics without parametric constraints (i.e, budget limit, time allotment, error tolerance levels, and the like) will prove to be perpetually dynamic, and therefore unsolvable, defying any natural conclusion or completion:
1) It contains a mechanism for monitoring the process and bringing back actionable feedback;
2) This actionable feedback is imputed back into the process, thereby refining some aspect of the process (and altering it as well);
3) This process is iterative, with both the process and feedback constantly subject to interactive variability.
The above sounds a bit confusing at first, but it ultimately defines the actual nature of many projects, experiments and systems. A Human Being is a system subject to this conundrum, as it interacts with its environment (external and internal), collects and analyzes data (through the learning and deployment of knowledge), and changes its heading for a different course.
In living the "examined life," the most frightening thing to cut through to the core of your reason for existence is the fact that we come into this life without consciously knowing our mission. We are, each and all of us, a bit like dogs chasing our own tails. Imagine the recursive irony of searching for a meaningful mission. There is no defined path ahead of us -- just trial and error -- the only path that we can truly know is the one that we have already traveled to arrive at where we are at the present moment. We gauge and measure things in retrospect.
And while we look behind us, we continue to walk ahead until we bump into a tree or stumble into an open manhole. I suppose that I would watch where I was going if I knew where I was supposed to be headed.
Damn! The smoke detector just went off. I think my mind must be overheating. Please excuse me.
Douglas E Castle
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