The wheel has turned. The penny has dropped. The sun has set. The Word is uttered. The blood is shed. The clouds have gathered. The tongue is tied. The lies have lied. The Arrow Has Left (#TAHL). An instant ago. Ages ago.

#TAHL (The Arrow Has Left) --- SynTalk Album

SynTalk thinks about quarrels (in a general sense), while constantly wondering whether there is a civilizational ‘need’ for it. Is it possible to have a sustainable theory for interactions (and by extension, quarrels)? What are the links with language structure and language usage? The concepts are derived off / from Upanishads, Bhagwad Gita, Sarala Das, Oliver Goldsmith, Locke, Bertrand Russell, Grice, Nozick, & Chomsky, among others. Can we think of an idealized quarrel? How do we understand sentences & discourses that have non literal (suggestive) meanings? How only the non-obvious counts as information. The maxims of quantity, quality, relation, & manner for ideal conversations, and how these cooperative principles break down in quarrels. How in a legal context the adversarial system is used to resolve difference of views. Are spoken quarrels different from the written, and whether norms, conventions and several para lingual aspects are lost (& sanitized) when written? What is the difference between interests and positions? What are the set of things that are not allowed to be used as bargaining tools in a conversational context? Are quarrels structured and institutionalized in many areas of life, where it may be possible to separate the person’s views from the person? Why are there so many lawyer jokes? How deeply should one hold one’s ideas? How a lawyer (an agent) sometime morphs into the principal. Why do some societies have so many (out of court) settlements? Is it possible to have an argument without investing certain aspects of one’s self? Why should some words not be used in ‘parliamentary’ language? Is the Supreme Court always right because it is final, and not final because it is right? Where do swear words come from, and why do they linger? Who decides what is polite or impolite language? How norms of political correctness start out as public acknowledgement of past rights or wrongs. Can one apply the Theory of Implicature to understand how swear words can come to be used as an endearment? What are the dynamics of multilateral conflicts, even if they are handled by two individuals? Why many societies do not accept the pardon by the victim? The links between ego, Judgment of Solomon, Mona Lisa, ‘devastating counter example’, debates, horse trading, Ataturk, tyranny of language, & ‘matters of taste’. Would a society without quarrels be dead? Can quarrels be replaced by some playful ways of inhabiting conflicts? ‘For e'en though vanquish'd he could argue still…’. The SynTalkrs are: Dr. Arudra Burra (philosophy, IIT Delhi, New Delhi), Prof. B. N. Patnaik (linguistics, ex-IIT Kanpur, Bangalore), & Somasekhar Sundaresan (law, J. Sagar Associates, Mumbai).

#TAOQ (The Argument Over Quarrel) --- SynTalk

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....

#TMOL (The Medley Of Languages) --- 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....

#TEOP (The Exile Of Poets) --- SynTalk

Do we often misunderstand ourselves? Can we be aware of everything? Is introspective knowledge reliable? Can we be mistaken about being hungry? Might the gap between successive thoughts be increased until there is complete thoughtlessness; can this be measured? Is introspection voluntary or involuntary? Is awareness a general relational state (& not a 'happening’)? How does global consciousness emerge in the ensemble state of neurons? Do animals develop conceptual self understanding? Why do we have the introspective faculty? Do introverts and extroverts introspect differently? Is introspection culture-bound? Do you feel your body during silent speech? Is inner speech unstructured or does it have linguistic features such as pronunciation and syntax? Can introspection sometimes get to concepts parallel to those reached via scientific empiricism? Does awareness necessarily involve directed representations of reality? Does introspection need distance? What is the structure of inner awareness? Would there be more accurate ways to understand which types of introspection are more reliable? Is the future of understanding introspection very bright? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from philosophy (Prof. Christopher Hill, Brown University, Providence), linguistics (Prof. Pramod Pandey, JNU, New Delhi), & physics (Prof. Sisir Roy, NIAS, IISc, Bangalore). Listen in....

#TGOI (The Grounds Of Introspection) --- SynTalk

Did H. M. lead an eventless life? How was your last beach holiday? How do languages make events granular? Can events in texts be ‘inferred’ computationally? Do events always occur in the past? Is evental time modal? Are events objects? Are places facts? Is a decaying apple evental? Are all events spatiotemporal? How do recent events become long term episodic memories or facts? Are events and facts stored in the same region? Are space and time encoded differently? What is the role of relevance? Is the amount of encoding directly proportional to the amount of surprise? How accurately do we remember (or even annotate) orders and intervals? How do we relate to events in stories? Could certain events be like knots in time? What renders an event impossible? Do some surprises (trauma?) get encoded 'elsewhere’? Do our brains work in reverse gear in a dream (generating images 'from' thoughts)? What would the new kinds of events in the future be? Will we get nothing from everything? How would we tend to the right signal? Will we en/de-code or summarize differently? Would a new ‘form’ find us? Is it already here? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from psychoanalysis & philosophy (Prof. Anup Kumar Dhar, Ambedkar University, New Delhi), neuroscience (Dr. Balaji Jayaprakash, CNS, IISc, Bangalore), & computational linguistics (Dr. Inderjeet Mani, Chiang Mai, Thailand). Listen in....

#TPOE (The Properties Of Events) --- SynTalk

Why don’t we misunderstand the number 3? Do you have a private photograph? Is most of perception ineffable? Do propositions capture reality? What cannot be shown? Or, said? How does one describe touch? Or disgust? What/how do you understand if you watch a foreign language film without subtitles? How is it even possible for our thought to be about the world? Does the logical form of a fact and its (corresponding) sentence match each other? Does language 'depict' the world? How does this picturing take place? Is saying helpless without showing? Is seeing believing? Are films merely audiovisual? Is there a limit to what can be said in filmic narration? Can tautologies or contradictions only be shown? How do you show? Can a shot of an ocean have a narrative arc? Are films more compatible with the way we form memories? Which shots stay in your mind? Is cinema closer to immediate perception? Are propositions always abstract? Can we speak about just about anything? When do descriptions fail? What would a world of only blind people be like? What might be the future of saying and showing? Should one be silent when the situation is of great importance? What else can one say…? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from philosophy (Dr. Nilanjan Bhowmick, University of Delhi, New Delhi), & documentary film making & film theory (Dr. Aparna Sharma, UCLA, Los Angeles). Listen in...

#TSAS (The Saying And Showing) --- SynTalk

Do you trust your translator? How can ‘worlds’ be translated? Where is Tamil when a novelist writes in English about Tamil speaking characters? Are all translations interpretations (judgment?)? Can one ‘read’ Nature? Can mathematics be translated into (natural language) prose? Is translation prior to language, & (therefore) is it in the nature of languages to be translatable? How then are languages different from one another? Can the forces of translation be located within one language itself? How are scientific texts different? Is symbolization a form of translation? Is science a form of storytelling? Are both equations and poetry essential & point-like? Do you read poetry with footnotes? Must the translated text do all the work on its own? Could a 20-page commentary on a 2-line sutra be considered a faithful translation? Does the specific history of interpretative communities always matter? Can Quran be translated and read as Ovi Marathi poetry? Did colonization happen via translation? But, is all translation violent? Will the ideas of interpretation, translation, & language always exist in the future? Will language die (?), but translation live? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from poetry (Prof. Mustansir Dalvi, Sir JJ School of Architecture, Mumbai), philosophy (Prof. Sundar Sarukkai, NIAS, Bangalore), & translation studies (Prof. S. Shankar, University of Hawai’i, Honolulu). Listen in....

#TFOT (The Fantasy Of Translation) --- SynTalk

Are you free if thoughts just occur to you? Is alienation – as loss of a sense of belonging and subjectivity – a phenomenon of modernity? Is freedom contra-causal and spontaneous? Is it truly in human nature to be free? Are people ‘already’ free? Do you exercise your freedom in the Market? Is all of production voluntary? Is production a form of fulfillment? Is leisure (without work), then, a threat to freedom? Are you overworked and overspent? Are your desires yours? Are we accumulating ‘garbage’? Why don’t consumers go on strike? Are we biologically and socially constrained? Is there a connection between language and freedom? Are you able to put together disjoint concepts out of a context? Does language create possibilities? Can notions of freedom also be propagandized? Do you think of the mountains as Gods? Is freedom (along with the ability to act) essential for survival of the human species? Is it sufficient to think that one is free to be free? Is it necessary (?) to end Capital, as we know it, to save ourselves? Can you conceive of the end of the world? Is the future just like the past? Will we exercise our angelhood? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from philosophy (Prof. Akeel Bilgrami, Columbia University, New York), economics (Dr. Arjun Jayadev, Azim Premji University, Bangalore), & linguistics & philosophy (Prof. Nirmalangshu Mukherji, ex-University of Delhi, New Delhi). Listen in....

#TAAF (The Alienation And Freedom) --- SynTalk

What’s a thought? Could that chair have been water? Does perception precede production? What does it mean to know a language? How & why did humans end up acquiring the very complex (& ‘discontinuous’) linguistic capacity? How do we carry meaning detached from the real physical world? Do we reason axiomatically or algorithmically? Is semantics logical? Do non-human animals care about reasons? How different is our brain from the primates ‘right behind us’? Do the ‘number’ of brain areas matter; why? Does language have a tendency to structure itself? What is one innate with when one is born? Is the linguistic faculty inferential? Do languages, thoughts, artefacts and organisms co-evolve? How can’t language be? Do birdsongs carry information without grammatical structures? Can culture cause genetic changes? Is artificial language reflexive? How does a language talk about itself? Are non-human animals very serious? Can all languages express all thoughts? Are there thoughts that language cannot express? Can crows (say) evolve a ‘language’ in the distant future, or do we have an unassailable lead? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from linguistics (Prof. Veneeta Dayal, Rutgers University, New Brunswick), logic & philosophy (Dr. Nirmalya Guha, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal), & cognitive neuroscience (Prof. Atsushi Iriki, RIKEN, Wakō, Japan). Listen in....

#THOTT (The Higher Order Thought Tools)--- SynTalk

Are you unique, even though you are of a certain type? What kind of a tree is the tree of life? Are all organisms, languages, and substances in the world distinct? 'Can' languages be genetically interpreted? How do we know if we have an origin common with (say) bacteria? Are types always fuzzy, and tokens always particular? Do types exist, & are they like classes? Does our craving for understanding lead us to structures, or does the World 'have' a structure? Are all languages tokens of a meta-language? Is Japanese (language) an isolate and therefore both a type and a token? Are all facts structural facts? Can there be tokens that do not belong to any type? How do new types come to be? What is language itself a type of? Is the Chomskyian Universal Grammar evolving? Did (inner) language precede speech? Is our thinking overlapping, and speech ordered? Do animals think? What is inherited? Can it be said, for a certain function (or a disease), how many types we are? Would we all have precision medicine available for each one of us in the near future? &, from the standpoint of eternity is there only one type – sub specie aeternitatis…? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from linguistics (Dr. Tanmoy Bhattacharya, University of Delhi, New Delhi), genomics (Dr. Rakesh Mishra, CSIR-CCMB, Hyderabad), & philosophy (Prof. Priyambada Sarkar, University of Calcutta, Kolkata). Listen in...

#TTAT (The Types And Tokens) --- SynTalk

What paints the scene for you? Do you often get carried away? How do we recall the mutable past? Is all implicitness context, time, politics, language, and subject dependent? Is our freest choice also controlled by culture? What makes something visible, sayable, perceivable, or (even) intuitive? Can the visual be more implicit than the textual? Is sound most implicit? Is our implicit explicit for ‘God’? Is architecture, being both symbolic and real, the language of the given? Is architecture mythical? How does the built form (say, the stage) reflect the natural world or the cosmology? Are airports non-places? How do the givens change (either dramatically or slightly)? How might tea be advertised? Does modernity reference only itself? Do you sell things off you do not use? Why can’t a performance be fully reproduced or archived or described? Do each one of us have our own implicit? Do we always create more implicit? Can Reason make everything explicit? Will we keep pursuing the promise of presence as we attempt to ‘leap’ forward? What do we want to be? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from performance studies (Dr. Trina Nileena Banerjee, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta (CSSSC), Kolkata), semiotics & linguistics (Dr. Seema Khanwalkar, CEPT University, Ahmedabad), & art history / architecture (Dr. Venugopal Maddipati, Ambedkar University, New Delhi). Listen in...

#TCOTI (The Context Of The Implicit) --- SynTalk

Are we neighbours? Do ghost authors write probabilistically? Could one build a house between your and your neighbour’s house? Can we draw a graph of the universe with colours of all the points in it? Do languages have distances from each other? How do sounds create neighbours linguistically? When/how can process states or words or sentences be said to be neighbours? Can A be a neighbour of B, when B is not a neighbour of A? Why can’t there be adjacent ‘points’? Are neighbours geometry dependent? Does the idea of neighbours change if time and/or space is continuous? Are scripts a technology to transmit (natural) language? Is Latin evolving? What role do texts play in language transactions and for context? How is pursuit of chess different from the pursuit of science? Can chess games be said to progress like sentences? Are humans language-using-machines? Is thinking of ‘only’ adjacencies as neighbours limited in most contexts? Are meanings neighbours? Are both humans (also randomly) and machines always changing the idea of neighbours? &, how did Hamilton Bridge become Barber’s Bridge? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from computational psycholinguistics (Dr. Emmanuel Keuleers, Tilburg University, Tilburg), discrete mathematics (Prof. Navin Singhi, ex-TIFR, Mumbai), & control theory (Prof. M. Vidyasagar, IIT Hyderabad, Hyderabad). Listen in...

#TNAN (The Neighbours And Neighbourhoods) --- SynTalk

f(q) = Is soil a definitive sign of life? (#TCAFG)

SynTalk is a freewheeling interdisciplinary talk show with a philosophical approach to understanding the world from a long term perspective.