“Oh! Look at that go… On the roof… Its over it… That is huge… He has really captured it quickly with the bat… Ah… that was 91 meters… What a way to win… Last ball victories are always thrilling…”
The commentator’s voice was rich with experience and full of passion. Cricket came alive even to a novice through his words. As the crowd swayed with his words, cheering and resounding, Science smiled. He had known this would happen even before it actually did.
God: Now, how did that happen! Am I not the one who is supposed to know in advance?
Science: (Grinning) O Father! You know how I came to know…
God: (With a tender smile) Hmmm… I would still love to listen!
Science: We are still unravelling your mysteries Lord. For instance, today I have technology that uses a camera to trace the path of the ball, identify its speed, its path, its spin; calculate its pitch, bounce; predict its trajectory; through precise calculations in speed and strength, we know when the bat ought to be lifted and at what speed in order to connect with the ball in such a manner that it would in fact hit the ball to the boundary. I stand in awe of you Father, for I know that the immaculate system that works inside the human body, is calculating all this with far greater precision and without any conscious effort by the person, to make it a reality. If a Sachin Tendulkar has faced over 20,000 balls in ODIs, he must have faced at least a hundred times more in practice sessions. And each time his bat had to move in anticipation of the ball – he was never hitting a stationery object. That kind of a co-ordination by itself is a miracle. Add to it the phenomenon of humans actually understanding and controlling this process… Makes me whisper Father ‘Life is magical’.
God: My dear child! This is just a glimpse. There is so much more to it. Let me share with you a secret. But first, tell me what you know. How does the bat connect to the ball?
Science: The brain constructs internal representations of the world by integrating information from the different sensory systems. These sensory representations are the framework in which the motor systems in the body plan, coordinate, and execute the motor programs responsible for purposeful movement. The brain and spinal cord allow us to maintain balance and posture, to move our body, limbs, and eyes, and to communicate through speech and gesture in response to the stimuli.
God: I can understand this phenomenon when something actually happens. For instance, when a ball is caught, the muscles in the hand need to tighten to hold the impact of the ball. But how do you explain the hands reaching out in anticipation of the ball?
Science: We refer to these as the feedback and feedforward mechanism of the body. Feedback is the information we get from proprioception that allows us to refine motor skills. As we repeat tasks, our performance becomes automatic and we know what the correct patterns feel like. If what we are doing doesn’t feel right, we change our performance slightly until it does feel right. Feedback creates a memory of how things are done which can be used again and again in the same or similar situations. For instance if the elbow is to be maintained at a specific angle, the reference signal from your memory specifies the muscle contraction required to maintain the joint at the required angle. However visually if it is not correct, the input from the eyes give a feedback to the muscle and the difference between the current angle and the reference already present in the memory will activate the muscles to achieve the desired angle. This is a feedback mechanism.
God: So you are saying by programming everything into the memory of the person, feedback will help him keep repeating the same action right?
Science: Feedback and feed-forward work together to help us perform tasks efficiently. Without any conscious awareness, our brains compare what was anticipated to happen (feed-forward) to what actually did happen (feedback). This comparison allows us to self-correct an error quickly. The ability to write or type quickly and efficiently is an example. When you are writing or typing, you know what the next letter should feel like and your fingers quickly and unconsciously move into the correct pattern. When you make an error, feedback and feed-forward cause you to feel the error before you see it. Similarly with a golf swing, they must rely heavily on a visualised and internalised image of the swing to actually perform well. In other words, you feel and see the swing in your minds eye before it actually occurs.
God: Your motor responses are of three types right? Reflexes or involuntary coordinated patterns like ducking when a knife instead of a ball comes flying in the air; Repetitive rhythmic motor patterns like chewing, swallowing which actually lie in the spinal cord and brain stem; and Voluntary movements which are goal directed and improve with practice.
Science: Yes Father. Feed-forward and feedback mechanisms are both important. Experience is important in feed-forward control. Catching a ball is a visually triggered feed-forward response. We use visual information about the initial part of the ball’s trajectory to predict the ball’s path. Only after the ball hits the hand and displaces it can feedback begin to adjust the hand’s position. Feed-forward mechanisms allow us to compute the time of the ball’s impact and to contract the opposing arm muscles just before the ball reaches the hand. Interestingly, this anticipatory contraction always precedes impact by the same amount of time, regardless of the height from which the ball is seen to fall. This demonstrates that catchers use experience (knowledge that the ball is constantly accelerated by gravity) to time their muscle contractions accurately.
God: So feed-forward control is essential for rapid action.
Science: Yes Father! It also depends on the ability of the nervous system to predict the consequences of sensory events, such as where a falling ball will drop.
God: So does the feed-forward mechanism allow modification in movement if the judgement is wrong?
Science: Yes it does. Feed-forward mechanisms can modify the operation of feedback mechanisms in the spinal cord. For instance if a small pebble was being dropped from above, you begin by catching the same. However you realise it is actually a piece of burning coal, you immediately move your hands away. This is called grading. Our ability to grade motor actions is what allows us to vary the intensity of what we do. Grading allows us to catch balls of different sizes, climb stairs of various heights, and turn the steering wheel of the car just the right amount.
God: If sensory processing is a problem, man would appear to be clumsy and accident-prone. He may trip and fall over nothing or over his own feet, and may seem to be constantly running into things. He may frequently drop things because he is unable to plan adequately or grade the motor patterns required to pick up and carry them. Simple rhythm or other activities, such as jumping rope or catching a ball, require timing and sequencing and may be quite difficult.
Science: That is why I said, every movement man makes is a miracle. Ten trillion cells that constitute a human body, work in unison to make his every dream come true. That is a miraculous feeling!
God: It is an awesome responsibility too, my dear. Let me ask you this, my child, if those ten trillion cells actually can give you a feed-forward response on how you need to move in order to catch a ball, do you think they are not actually telling you how to live life?
Science: What?
God: My dear, when your body calculates in anticipation of an external stimuli what it’s reaction ought to be, do you think in aspects of consciousness there is no internal programming? Every cell knows, before an action, if it wants to really participate in that or not. You existence is actually talking to you all the time. Man just doesn’t listen. He remains unaware most of the time. His intuition is his feed-forward mechanism that prepares him well in time to handle any situation. He is capable of knowing before it actually happens. When he learns to tune in to his consciousness in meditation, he can confidently whisper ‘I know before I know’.
Written by Gita Krishna Raj | Published in infinithoughts in July 2012
When Science met God… | Segment Four: The dance of a trillion cells
Chapter Five: I know before I know…
