SynTalk

Are there happy poets? Can one write poetry without having suffered (some) exile? Why has there been deep pessimism about poets, & might poets cause wars and genocide? How is deeply personal poetry dangerous? Does poetry represent perfect, universal and eternal truth? How is a poet different from a philosopher? Does poetry find its foothold in a good society, when philosophical truth is understood as a process, & not a product? How might limitless (anarchic) emotions be expressed given the limits of language? Can one ‘suggest’ that which cannot be written? How do ‘word’ and ‘meaning’ come together in poetry? What is the relationship between form and content? Is poetry a very personal use of language for the poet (and the reader)? What is the link between the ethical and the aesthetic? How might bhava become rasa? What happens the moment you come in contact with yourself? Is poem something whose essence cannot be removed from it? How & when do poems get exhausted? Should poetry be history? How did the ‘first’ poetry come to be? Is an exile always asked for? Might an exile be a voyage? Will ‘mistakes of intellect’ continue to happen? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from political theory & poetry (Prof. Ashwani Kumar, TISS, Mumbai), literature (Udayan Vajpeyi, Bhopal), & literary theory and philosophy (Prof. Sitanshu Yashaschandra, ex-M.S. University, Vadodara). Listen in....

How does rate of change change? Is equilibrium balance, & what happens when there is no balance? Is equilibrium attained when fast processes have done their job, and the slow processes have not started? Do all systems tend towards equilibrium? How are biological, physical, and economic systems different in this context? What would happen inside a closed box of Hydrogen atoms in (say) a billion years? Is equilibrium scale and time dependent? Is stability desirable? Is daily temperature stable on an average? Is graphite more stable than diamond? Is it possible to have stability far from equilibrium, & can equilibrium be unstable? Can prices be chaotic, & how does market achieve equilibrium? Can stability be thought of as, among others, constancy, persistence and resilience? Can ‘only’ one sub-market (or species) be out of equilibrium in a market (or an ecosystem)? What is the role of credit in creating (dis)equilibrium? Do predator-prey population sizes fluctuate naturally? Are buildings in local stable equilibrium? Will the world notice if all the human beings were to die? Is the ‘balance of nature’ strong or fragile or neither? Are there only local equilibria and ‘no’ singular global equilibrium? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from biology & ecology (Dr. Sutirth Dey, IISER, Pune), physics (Prof. Deepak Dhar, TIFR, Mumbai), & economics (Prof. Anjan Mukherji, JNU, New Delhi). Listen in....

Is babble the beginning? Are languages pure, or were they originally mixed? Was Shakespeare writing in English? Are languages negotiated like in a bazaar, & where then does the power lie? Are there areas & languages where mixing is flaunted, & some where it is not? Do you communicate in a mixed language (Hinglish?)? Does the label of language operate in a retrospective manner? What does it mean to have a first language? What does it mean to loan and borrow words? Do you pun? Do words travel more easily than syntax; why? Do scripts mix? Is it possible to legislate languages? Is the French of French Canada ‘purer’ than of France? Why aren’t other languages not completely incomprehensible? Is everything translatable? What might be the impact on languages of the disembodied global marketplace or the digital? Is it likely that the standardized language (of literature) in the future would (again) be poly-genealogical, & something that we would not recognize today? Can media or political spaces possibly be pluri-lingual? Can a totally artificial language be created? Do languages need custodians? Aapko space chahiye? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from linguistics (Prof. Probal Dasgupta, ISI, Kolkata), English literature (Prof. Jonathan Gil Harris, Ashoka University, Delhi), & translation and cultural studies (Prof. Rita Kothari, IIT Gandhinagar, Gandhinagar). Listen in....

What is a (hard) problem? Can we know which problems do not have solutions? Is scheduling flights a hard problem? Is assembling cars an easy problem? Theoretically, are there more problems (uncountable) than solutions (countably many)? Are algorithms well defined? Are they a finite description for infinitely many possible inputs & processes? What is not an algorithm? Can processes be algorithmic and not computational? Does it matter how algorithms are embodied? Is every algorithm a Turing Machine? Is there a difference between equations and algorithms? Can algorithms be approximate? Where do heuristics come from? Are comparisons the easiest measurement? Do physical symbols always underlie any computation? Are the best algorithms exponential? Is there infinite richness of algorithms, & are computers infinitely reconfigurable machines? How is the real world abstracted (& discretized)? Do problems need analog computing, since (real life) variables are usually (?) continuous and not discrete? Is a recipe, then, an algorithm? Is the brain a computer? Is the world analog or digital? Do algorithms have an ontology? Are algorithms abstractions? Are they here to stay? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from logic & theoretical computer science (Prof. Anuj Dawar, Cambridge University, Cambridge), & operations research & industrial engineering (Prof. Ashok K. Mittal, ex-IIT Kanpur, New Delhi). Listen in....

Is your (everyday) life repetitive and mundane? Does squirming life lie just underneath the layer of banality? Is the everyday always laced with fantasy and/or skepticism? What is the place of mythology in this context? Can a polluted river be a sight to behold, & might it be crucial to hold such ambivalent feelings? What is an event? Can household events be dreadful? What is totally new? Can a fleeting moment sometimes come as a gift? Equally, can dormant stories suddenly come into being again? Can a word or a gesture embody different temporalities? Can the norm and its transgression be joined together in everyday aspirations? What is extraordinary? Do concepts have sharp boundaries? (How) can something ordinary be designated as art? What does & can an artist do? Can the city go from feeling indoors to becoming outdoors? Do language, gestures and words have the capacity to produce certain kinds of resonances? Can the ordinary gesture of washing the face (say) mean a lot more? Is there a way in which the mundane changes over time? Can human subjectivity ever be fully colonized? What might be the future of experiencing and representing life (and death)? How would you describe a piece of dry wood? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from anthropology & philosophy (Prof. Veena Das, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA), & art (Sudhir Patwardhan, Mumbai). Listen in...

What do you believe ‘in’? Do you hold irrational beliefs? Why is it difficult to revise beliefs? Can it be beneficial to have false beliefs? Do you (objectively) believe that there is Heaven? Can beliefs be like axioms, or are they all (iteratively) based on facts? Are absurd beliefs particularly beneficial in forming a community? Does belief always imply an affect? Do you believe that voting is a foolish thing to do? Is belief an instrument of power? Can one infer beliefs of animals or children? Why is there suspension of disbelief or testing (of the truth criterion) in cinema or theatre? How are ritual spaces different? Does cinema tap into the collective (un)conscious (belief)? Is it profitable to believe that God exists? Will there be belief as long as there are skeptics? Can beliefs become redundant? Is the problem of deciding what a new belief should be NP-complete? How do we automatically change our (practical?) beliefs all the time, when it is technically extremely difficult? Would there be a pristine (messianic?) theory of belief revision in the future? How could belief revision be: a variation, a change, a decision, a monstration, or an event? Would you look through Galileo’s telescope? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from performance theory and philosophy (Dr. Soumyabrata Choudhury, JNU, New Delhi) & logic, philosophy and computer science (Prof. Rohit Parikh, CUNY, New York). Listen in....

Have you been stuck in a traffic jam? Is it ‘difficult’ to wear helmets? Can one conceive of one’s own death? Can traffic self organize? Is the ability to reverse, as in certain molecular motors, fundamental to the design of all efficient transportation systems? Are there lanes (microtubules), porters, & ‘bypass roads’ within our cells? Why does the tendency towards order increase as the traffic density increases? How are traffic shockwaves created? What are the interrelationships between density, speed, & flow? Why can’t traffic always be directionless? When does planning need to step in? Is speed to be feared or embraced? Why are there speed limits at all? Are there interpenetrating movements of matter within our bodies? Is flow of people different from flow of goods? Are we (as people) turned into goods when we are within airports? Would all constituents in an ‘ideal’ transportation system be ‘moved’? Are roads a Public Sphere? What is the role of the State? Can States become ‘traffic police States’? Is there a conflict between logic and ethics in traffic? Is the way up the way down? Might slow vehicles be the future? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from biophysics (Prof. Gautam Menon, Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai), transport planning (Prof. P. K. Sarkar, School of Planning & Architecture, New Delhi), & philosophy (Prof. Vijay Tankha, St. Stephen's College, New Delhi). Listen in....

Why aren’t there ant sized elephants? Or, why aren’t there elephant sized ants? What is small, large or infinite? Are there theoretical limits to size for living & physical bodies? Was the Universe infinite in size even at Big Bang, & how? Is there a center of the Universe? Are there different kinds of infinity? Do different infinities have different cardinalities? What is countably or uncountably infinite? Can there be an infinity ‘smaller’ than Aleph-naught? How is infinitely small (infinitesimal) different from infinitely large? Would the smallest interesting living bodies be about 3,000 Angstroms in size, & why is this dependent on the size of DNA? Is there a reason why whales are larger than elephants? What is the reciprocal of infinity? How can point-like elementary particles be massy? How large is the (yet unknown) elementary particle comprising dark matter likely to be? For natural evolution, over very long time scales, does it pay to be small? Are we equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which we emerge and the infinity by which we are engulfed? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from evolutionary & developmental biology (Prof. Vidyanand Nanjundiah, Center for Genetic Studies, Bangalore), mathematics (Prof. Sujatha Ramdorai, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada), & cosmology and particle physics (Prof. Raghavan Rangarajan, PRL, Ahmedabad). Listen in....

What are tigers worth? Why is diamond more valuable than water? What is Nature’s role in economic value? Is non-use value also a part of total value? Is valuation always the same as measurement in terms of money? Is value fundamentally a (human) welfare concept? What is the implication of Nature not being ‘in the market’? Does Nature include the moon? How did water and land come to be commoditized? Would it be a mistake to give a value to (say) Sundarbans? What is Nature, & how have our interrelationships changed historically? What does conservation involve? Is nature conservation just a small part of environmentalism? Are both preservation as well as resource management a possibility? Can bringing in the future continuously into our conception help correct the use of resources? Might a time return when water might not have a market? Do we (always) ‘Bring out number, weight, & measure in a year of dearth’? Must the economy (once again) become a subset of society? Is ‘man the measure of all things’? Are we capable of something much greater than anthropocentrism? Should we be optimistic? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from economics (Prof. A. K. Enamul Haque, East West University, Dhaka, Bangladesh), conservation studies (Dr. Ullas Karanth, Wildlife Conservation Society, Bangalore), & philosophy and economics (Dr. Aseem Shrivastava, New Delhi). Listen in....

Are you here by chance? Does probability exist? Can we decide if the world is deterministic? Is probability an outcome of our ignorance, & are we ‘forced’ to model using probabilities? Is there a trade-off between hardness and randomness? How did statistical modeling & probabilistic reasoning help establish irrefutably that smoking causes cancer? Why is Law of Large Numbers true? What does sampling mean in a world with Big Data? Is Brownian motion invariance principles manifesting themselves in a different space? Is probability theory merely a mathematical model which fits the world ‘very often’? In what sense is quantum mechanical uncertainty different? Can probability help gather knowledge about the world without intervention? Can randomness be generated? Is the best estimate of tomorrow’s (Markovian) weather today’s weather? Is the (need for the) probability of missing the train going to be different in the future? Is DNA sequence random? Would understanding biological systems using probability be a key endeavour for the future? Is it also important to regain a sophisticated understanding of probability besides just calculating? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from computer science (Prof. Jaikumar Radhakrishnan, TIFR, Mumbai), mathematics (Prof. Rahul Roy, ISI, New Delhi), & philosophy (Dr. Federica Russo, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands). Listen in....