Complex questions are no strangers to us because, as scientists, have embraced them even as we work to crack them open. In science, we are all searching for the truth – a simple explanation, an elegant solution. What I have now realized is that, in this quest for a simple, straightforward answer, we often end up forgetting that, sometimes, there are no simple solutions. Sometimes, all we have is an interlinked and complex reality that can be tweaked gently but not radically rearranged. Messy complexity is what stares us in the face – be it in the form of thousands of proteins in a cells, millions of organisms making up our ecosystems or the many problems that plague our societies.
Events are the net result of a long and often interlinked chain of events – one cascading into another. Scientists have intuitively understood this inherent limitation in our mode of study. We know that we are limited by being able to only view snap-shots of a disease in progress or of the life of a cell. And so we strive to put together a coherent story based on these vignettes – adding in our own intelligent speculation to patch over the gaps. We narrow down the variables and focus on the minutiae. We stare down a microscope and break down complex processes and phenomena into parts that can be individually tweaked, studied, understood and exploited. And thus we create our version (a version) of the truth -one experiment at a time.
However, I have often felt that in trying to solve our favorite problem, we often get trapped into this tunneling, microscopic perspective. As we break down a problem into the tiniest of its parts, we often need a reminder that we are only looking at one flower, in a big garden of flowers, in a big city, in a big country and all of this in one big universe. It helps to stop once in a while just to step back from our microscopes and see the big picture.
A bigger picture, where the questions we ask are shaped by the answers (we think) we know. A whole where progress in one stimulates progress in another and answers in one leads to more questions in another. Where different fields of study are constantly talking to one another even though we are not always listening. We are all part of an evolving entity where even tiny alterations in the initial state can radically alter the final state in no small measure. More than ever, I now feel the need to walk away from the trap of specialization where we were long taught that the “Jack of all trades is the master of none”. In the spirit of bad pun, a lot of times, only a jack can lift the car even as the master stands clueless and helpless.
In life too, I now feel, one needs to step away from the details and minutiae of everyday living to look at the bigger picture. A framework, where we are shaped by the society we make; where our decisions are the result of our past, our present and our future desires. Where events halfway across the world can impact us is no small manner. Where change can be brought – one nudge at a time, one person at time, if only we kept at it. We need to step back from our microscopic and pixelated view of life and view the whole that is beautiful from the right distance. We need to be able to examine our lives in the third person even as we live it in the first person. And that is how we can identify our blind spots and our prejudices and open our minds to facts that have been ignored for long.
And so, when I was urged to write something for the IISc group – this was the one thing that stood out based on my limited exploration. As we run tirelessly on our own individual ferris-wheels of proteins and pathways, grants, projects, papers and jobs, I have realized that I must try and live an examined life. A life able to view itself in the context of a bigger perspective and a life able to appreciate the complexity around it. I now think that we might be better served if we try and wrap our minds around the chain of events that brought us here and work our way forward – as a person, a scientist, a group and a society.
About the author: Suvasini Ramaswamy is currently working as a post-doctoral researcher at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California after completing her PhD at the Indian Institute of Science. Her current work involves developing stem cell based therapies for diseases of the liver. She is interested in art, photography and the history of science and society.
(https://www.linkedin.com/in/suvasini-ramaswamy-71305928)
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