Control system design

All the same tricks of the mind

If my furnace and my thermostat is actin’ erratic

I’ma ask a mechanic to fix it, that has understanding

Of the mechanistic interactions of every part in the whole

And the specific system failure that lost me control

And if my mood is erratic and catchin’ the blues is a habit

And minor triggers seem to move me to panic, I'ma do Psychiatric

Assessment, and if they label it a “major depression”

I’ma conversate with clinicians, and maybe take a prescription

To correct that “chemical imbalance” between my ears

But what I really wanna hear is control system engineers

Explain the tradeoffs built into designing race cars

If you want them to go faster, they’re gonna have to break lots

When they fly off the track. What kind of design flaw is that?

Not a flaw, just a compromise between safe and fast

Control system design, identify the central target

The homeostatic optimum the system is benchmarkin'

Every cell in my body’s got a sense of its margins

A hundred thousand mini control systems in every organ

Quick responses, pushin’ the gains out of the pockets

Positive feedback loops, so easy to overshoot

From blood pressure to temperature, glucose to mood

The optimum depends on what’s been poppin’ with you

What did you eat? What did you see? How far did you run? What did you do?

I’ma get back in the groove when the situation improves

Control system design

Keep it all inside the borderlines

You know them by their polar sides

All the same tricks of the mind

Control system design

Keep it all inside the borderlines

You know them by their polar sides

All the same tricks of the mind

I want to talk to the original design engineer

That put my brain and body together, this arrangement is weird

I’m not talkin’ about a non-existent god with a beard

I’m talkin’ Darwinian selection over millions of years

Each organism adapting to environmental stress

Optimizing behavior to its situational best

And not for the purpose of living life healthy and blessed

The ultimate target was always raw genetic success

Threat assessment, anxiety rises, and that’s adaptive

Even if a threat is imagined, false negatives are disasters

The trigger is tracking an average fitness maximum

With redundancies overlapping, robust is better than accurate

Anxiety and depression, are they diseases or symptoms?

Like physical pain, it depends on the day, depends on the triggers

Relationships catching damage, frustrated ambitions

And trauma, and mismatches from ancient to modern living

Some people have a genetic predisposition to mood swings

It’s not surprising that evolution can’t do some things

Like eliminate all the mutations that cause harm

And protect a modern day brain from false alarms

Natural selection made control systems to keep track

That are naturally fragile to swings of positive feedback

From surges of confidence to falling deep in a morass

Find the high spots in the swamp to creep back

Control system design

Keep it all inside the borderlines

You know them by their polar sides

All the same old tricks of the mind

Control system design

Keep it all inside the borderlines

You know them by their polar sides

All the same old tricks of the mind