Can you meta point? Do you celebrate objectivity? Is there a lot happening that is ‘undocumentable’? Are facts and values entangled? Are several valuable things tangible but not measurable? Are we ourselves instruments? Can ‘fact’ have variations? How is truth different from truism? Must Truth be recognizable? Does mathematics ‘change’ over time? Can experience invalidate mathematical statements? Is the metaphysical always mystical? Is the artistic metaphorical? Are the three (Penrose) worlds – platonic, mental & physical – distinct? Is there a ready-made world? Do you always look for ‘another way’ to experience the world? Does great architecture present the immeasurable? Can built spaces be conducive to certain values? Can one reflect while in action, such that use and contemplation co-exist? Where do concepts come from? Is analyticity an undefinable notion? Can you hear the voice of the table without existing in a ‘certain way’? When is threat visible? Is there normative desire in the world to both donate and take blood? Could one be at peace when one loses voice? &, would our consciousness, in the future, be both vibrant and participatory? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas and concepts from architecture (Prem Chandavarkar, CnT Architects, Bangalore), philosophy (Prof. Amitabha Das Gupta, ex-University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad), & art/film-making (Amar Kanwar, New Delhi). Listen in...

#TWATA (The Witness And The Analyst) --- SynTalk

f(q) = Who owns the past? (#TSTP)

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Is pencil complex? Is computationally hard complex? Is ‘i’ a weird number? Why wasn’t Hamilton able to multiply triples? Are we just a bunch of neurons and connections? Is our ability to think (& do mathematics) an emergent phenomenon? Is mathematical thinking core to understanding the world? Is complexity always a subjective feature? Do opinions spread in complex random graph-like patterns? How is alternating current complex? How do quaternions help with (3D rotations) in computer graphics? Are there (irreducible) prime complex numbers? Can real prime numbers be understood via functions of complex variables? How is the idea of ‘limit’ (& continuity, & differentiability) different on a complex plane? Is something more complex the more you can talk about it? Can there be a general theory for conditions leading to complexity? Are all complex systems many bodied? Will several emergent phenomena & biological systems see invention of a new kind of math to understand them? Will computational models (& ever more complex machines) likely precede such mathematics? &, will more branches of sciences / knowledge keep getting more integrated? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from electrical engineering (Prof. D. Manjunath, IIT Bombay, Mumbai), non-linear science (Prof. Ram Ramaswamy, IIT Delhi, New Delhi), & mathematics (Dr. Kaneenika Sinha, IISER, Pune). Listen in...

#TTTC (The Transformations To Complex) --- SynTalk

Are you a master of your emotions? How do banks learn to loan better? Is king less queen = boy less girl in the word2vec world? Does your ‘body’ sometimes feel inferior even when you do not think so? Do humans learn only cognitively? How do you learn to have self respect? Are models a result of learning? What can be learnt by trial and error? Can mere prompts sometimes be enough to learn vast new things? Are there unthought knowns? Can you have the thought of going to dinner without thinking in a language? What is the nature of internal representations in between the multiple layers of neural networks? Do we acquire languages sub-consciously? How does one account for integrated multilingualism? How do you speak with your Gods? Is grammar social? Did sociality (& then spoken language, & then writing systems) evolve (or exapt) from tool making? What is hunger for LLMs if it has never itself gone hungry? Why does the familiar feel safer? Can machines learn behaviorally (without modeling/cerebration)? Why do couples sometimes fight over the same issues after several years? What are your default neural pathways? &, what can AI do in the future? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from psychotherapy (Aruna Gopakumar, Navgati, Bangalore), computer science (Dr. Shivaram Kalyanakrishnan, IIT Bombay, Mumbai), & linguistics (Prof. Pramod Pandey, Deccan College, Pune). Listen in...

#TLAN (The Learnable And Not) --- SynTalk

Do you have the courage of a Spartan? Are we all partly anarchists? What are we truly? What do we value? Are Reason and Nature entangled? Is there a hierarchy of beings above/below human beings? What do Gods have that humans don’t have? Does Nature offer us moral guidance? How do plants imitate Gods? How much does human nature vary with (say) geography, culture, language, & time? Are we more (or, less?) diverse at birth? Do you want to transcend your body? Is matter evil? Does social evolution change (the psychological) human nature? Does one need to have a theory of human nature to think about political forms? What is it to be a flourishing human? Do literature and art have the function of ‘making’ human? Do stories around the world share something? Why do classics endure? Do each one of us need to realize our human-ness? Where does this normativity come from? Does (only) force keep us together? Is the construct of human nature both useful and dangerous? Are (most) determinisms dangerous? &, will any new kind of world in the future (off a new structure) have a new kind of human nature? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from German language & literature (Dr. Milind Brahme, IIT Madras, Chennai), philosophy (Dr. Aditi Chaturvedi, Azim Premji University, Bangalore), & political studies (Prof. Chandran Kukathas, Singapore Management University (SMU), Singapore). Listen in...

#TEHN (The Eternal Human Nature) --- SynTalk

‘How’ are you hearing what you are hearing? Is hearing decoding? Do you already know what’s next? Would it have helped to have an accompanying video? Do we ’need’ to be able to differentiate at the level of sound to be able to ascribe different meanings? Why do a few hear Yanni, & a few Laurel? Do frogs need to see each other when croaking? When does the ear begin to form? Is the ear also a vestibular organ? Are you aware of the coordinated movement of your articulators? Are these articulators highly inefficient? Is there a link between hearing and higher cognitive functions? Is there a critical period for articulation? Did Neanderthals have vocalization? Are speech production and perception multi-sensory? Do gestures accompanying speech indicate that they may have been all integrated in the past? Did we get eyes before ears? How do sound vibrations become electrical signals? Have you experienced auditory hallucinations? Is the process of hearing confirmatory? Is silent reading (almost like) speaking ? Do we know how we think in language? Do several animals catch musical beats? Could the deaf hear in the future? How do dolphins hear? &, would we communicate via telepathy in the future? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from phonetics & linguistics (Prof. Indranil Dutta, Jadavpur University, Kolkata), & developmental biology (Dr. Raj Ladher, NCBS, Bangalore). Listen in...

#TAOTA (The Audition Of The Audible) --- SynTalk

Does randomness lie in the eye of the beholder? ‘What’ is music? Why is ordering often a consequence of scaling? Is there such a thing as non-repetitive music? Do there need to be ‘types’ for there to be repetitions? Are there patterns out there independent of us? What would a Kantian say? Are fundamental algorithms at the heart of Nature? Does this conflict with fundamental laws of physics? Why can’t finite state machines count? Are Turing machines able to recognize repetitions? How? Why isn’t any combination of notes a raga? Why is ‘Sa’ the fixed point in Hindustani classical music? Can the link between moods and musical keys / notes / ragas be understood via the pigeonhole principle? Is there a deep link between repetition and consonance (or dissonance)? Do we tend to classify things that are not ‘not different’? Is the ability to have knowledge of similarity a distinct faculty? How are multiple renditions ‘in’ a raga same yet different? Can repetitions help charge our musical consciousness? Do ever-fresh accents make repetitions rhythms? Is there asymmetric dependence of error on truth? &, do hallucinations ‘repeat’ Reality? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from theoretical computer science (Dr. Arkadev Chattopadhyay, TIFR, Mumbai), music studies/history (Prof. Partho Datta, JNU, New Delhi), & philosophy (Prof. Anand Vaidya, San José State University, San José). Listen in...

#TWATA (The Witness And The Analyst) --- SynTalk

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