A feast. Free seating. They've all come - the 'apple-specialists', Tuatara, gypsies, 'that' bacterium, & pianists (playing soft music in a loud bar). You may be drugged or befriended. For, alas, The Beings Aren't Any Different (#TBAAD).

#TBAAD (The Beings Aren't Any Different) --- SynTalk Album

What happened in the 6th century BCE? Can a non-human (robot? dog?) have a soul? Does God’s time move from the past to the future? Is the present, in a sense, always avant-garde? How are bureaucratic orders made to perpetuate in time? How does a common person today understand the yugas? Who has the ‘need’ to think about the future? How are different time periods squeezed into a single register in art? Why do we invoke ramrajya? Do ideal types constrain how far (& ‘how’) one can think of the future? What did women joining the Buddhist sanghas (not) cause? Could science fiction become a historical artefact? Is a ‘genius’ science fiction writer akin to a ‘genius’ scientist? Is religion all about survival? Are religion, art and politics interwoven in the pharaoh? Are the pyramids, megaliths, Stonehenge, & the Chinese burial pits for the immediate afterlife of the dead or the future of those later alive? Are genealogies often invented? Is there a part of us that ‘needs’ to believe? Do we wish that the future were pre-ordained? Do we inhabit multiple temporalities? &, when is the messiah coming (back)? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from art history (Dr. Shailka Mishra, Jagdish and Kamla Mittal Museum of Indian Art, Hyderabad), theology (Prof. Ori Z. Soltes, Georgetown University, Washington DC), & ancient history (Dr. Meera Visvanathan, Shiv Nadar University, Greater Noida). Listen in...

#TSOFF (The Susurrus Of Former Futures) --- SynTalk

How ‘deep’ would a 1,000 years be? Is all space place? How do use, identity, value, law, power, or (‘imaginative’) memory hold them together? Do we live in layers? Are all human beings historical? Are all places relational? How do ‘material’ cultures of the past enable excavation sites to be dated? Where do ghosts and Gods live? Do all humans think of a place the same way? Can power structures lead to discursive spaces becoming material ‘reality’? What is the wilderness for you? Do you follow official maps? Do you know the seating configuration of the people you are hearing just now? What was below the Mosque? Is land a fictitious commodity? Is it possible to have an affective relationship with a property without having a legal claim? When is a place abandoned? How does a community disintegrate? Could long standing customary rights co-exist with legal rights? Is Law fiction? Are most relational boundaries always in a state of flux? Do leopards also want to take it easy? & How will we interpret our linkages and places in the future – would all space be propertied, financialized & commodified? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from anthropology & film-making (Prof. Ashish Avikunthak, The University of Rhode Island, Kingston), human ecology (Prof. Asmita Kabra, Ambedkar University, New Delhi), & history (Prof. Anindita Mukhopadhyay, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad). Listen in...

#TPOP (The Production Of Places) --- SynTalk

How do the disposable get marked out? Which institutions have cognitive control over you? How do you develop railways in Argentina? Who changes institutions? Is it always from ‘within’? Do institutions help us with the ‘higher order’ decisions? Are military, markets, prisons, families, religions, borders, languages, & villages coercive in the same way? Are prisons (in reality) chaotic? What’s the price of joining an institution? Is there conformity of opinion around you? Do religions evolve? How do you think of the family? Do institutionalization and socialization go hand in hand? ‘When’ do markets need to be regulated? Are cryptocurrencies really a counter-current?  Does our continuous search for meaning gives Religion its power? Do universities live longer than political organizations? What are universities from the perspective of the dropout? Does the world need one anchor currency? Can algorithms be inclusive of local issues? Have institutions, thus far, been spatially bound? What would planetary scale institutions look like in the future? ‘How’ are the marginal voices to be heard? &, are nation states the best institutional form for the modern world? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from sociology (Prof. Mahuya Bandyopadhyay, IIT Delhi, New Delhi), economics (Prof. A. Damodaran, IIM Bangalore, Bangalore), & history (Prof. Srinath Raghavan, Ashoka University, Delhi (NCR)). Listen in...

#TOOI (The Order Of Institutions) --- SynTalk

SynTalk thinks about the meanings, implications and the future of coexistence between & amongst the several biological species on earth. The interaction space between species is explored via known strategies such as symbiosis, predation, parasitism, antagonism, mutualism, commensalism, & competition, while constantly wondering if ‘nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of ‘selfishness’’. The concepts are derived off / from Sushruta, Charak, Hegel, Malthus, Darwin, Hamilton, Kropotkin, Gandhi, Dobzhansky, Hawking, & Dawkins, among others. Is there often selfishness in nature without the ‘self’. Why does the host change its genetic makeup to coexist with the parasite? Why do most species exist in communitarian groups? Why does a predator never run out of prey in nature (in stable equilibrium)? How it may be unavoidable to ‘tolerate the most intolerable’. How sickle cell anaemia developed as a response to malaria. What is the difference between the antibiotic and aseptic conditions, in the context of the coexistence of different species? The links between human beings, mosquitoes, Chernobyl disaster, raptor birds, Ayurveda, dinosaurs, consciousness, natural selection, Tom & Jerry, oranges, sibling rivalry, wolves, & tribes. How do dominant & exploitative social structures result from the ensemble of unevenly evolved groups (in terms of techno economic capacity). How autonomy of certain groups (the weakest doing menial jobs, say) that had their pristine existence can be annihilated, incorporated, subordinated, subjected, or even destroyed institutionally. How cooperation amongst the uneven develop? Does consciousness promote cooperation? Is culture (merely) a survival strategy? How (bacterial) mitochondria and chloroplasts (green alga) getting incorporated into eukaryotic cells was a significant evolutionary event. Are plants and animals also cruel? How Toxoplasma gondii insidiously finds its way back into the cat (the definitive host) from the rodents (the dead end). Can there be sacrifice in the Darwinian world? How culture is a complex mix up of both material & ideological practices. Can we truly understand the concept of queen bee (without the metonymy)? Is resource abundance always temporary in the biological world? Why kids don’t always agree with their mothers? Why does each orange segment often have one dominant seed? Does the critical self reflexive faculty of human beings make them fundamentally different? Is techno capitalism likely to be a key actor? Will human beings go out and colonize other celestial bodies, even as we coexist on Earth with other species? How human consciousness, survival instinct and (the bacterial) gut instinct could be the ultimate assets for the future? The SynTalkrs are: Prof. K.N. Ganeshaiah (agricultural sciences, writing, UAS, Bangalore), Prof. Rajan Gurukkal (history, social theory, IISc, Bangalore), & Prof. Swati Patankar (molecular microbiology, IITB, Mumbai).

#TPOC (The Poetry Of Coexistence) --- SynTalk

What do you expect to see on windy islands? Can you soar? Are there a finite number of ways of flying? Did we glide before flying? Do birds & insects fly like planes, & vice versa? How are the lift-off forces and moments generated? Was the Wright Flyer I (which made the first sustained manned flight in 1903) actually a very bad design? Do flies fly merely by seeing? Are wings thermo-regulatory devices? Why has flying evolved several times across different species? How many times of its own weight can flying structures take? How should flying carpets be made? Does it matter to the moth what the value of ‘g’ is? How might dragonfly wingspan change with atmospheric oxygen content? Can airplanes fly like sharks swim? Why shiver? How are/would the helicopters that fly on Mars (be) different? How will a balloon inflate on Venus? Are biological flyers far more efficient than the human engineered ones – how? Do birds and insects of the same size fly similarly? How are unmanned and manned systems different? Why don’t we have faster commercial flights (given they are possible)? Can one expect to see new ways and manners of flying? Will we ‘fly’ to Mars at some point? &, is there still a lot of ground to cover? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from aeronautical engineering (Prof. Rajkumar Pant, IIT Bombay, Mumbai), & neurobiology & physiology (Prof. Sanjay Sane, NCBS, Bangalore). Listen in...

#TGFF (The Grounds For Flight) --- SynTalk

Are you a lobby strategist? Do you negotiate with yourself? Which taste group do you belong to? What are you allowed to see? Do you pay to publish? Do the algorithms that serve you change with you? How are counterpublics generated? Is society constantly transforming itself? What role does capital play? Does media influence human rationality? Are you able to tell real discourse and propaganda apart? Was there ‘public opinion’ (say) a 1000 years ago? Does public sphere have capitalistic roots? What happens to niche ideas in an information supermarket? Are newspapers opinion ‘takers’? Have most modern societies moved from being axiomatic to algorithmic? Can one have societies without a moral discourse? What happens to our base instincts? Do you have the ability of have your own individual opinion? However, are niche morals undesirable? Do ads serve a symbolic norm-making function as well? ‘How’ do you go after your ‘target’ audience? Is it alright if mass media becomes ‘hyper personal’? Is the public just a sum of the all the individual echo chambers? &, what is the kind of public that we want? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from philosophy (Dr. Muzaffar Ali Malla, Islamic University of Science and Technology (IUST), Avantipura (J&K)), social sciences (Prof. Narendar Pani, NIAS, Bangalore), & media studies (Dr. Vibodh Parthasarathi, Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi). Listen in...

#TOOP (The Oxygen Of Publicity) --- SynTalk

Do you have neanderthal DNA? Is your body your identity? What makes the knowledge of death possible when no one alive has experienced it first hand? How does dying feel? What are your schemas for understanding death? Is death the default, & it is life that happens occasionally? Does a cell know when it ought to die? When is an organism dead? When can we not dream? Can (certain) tissues and organs regenerate? What are the biochemical reactions a response to? What does oxygen do? Does the concept of death make control over others possible? Can we reverse death itself? What is the 'location' of a person? Do all cells come from other living cells? Or, can cells be created artificially from scratch? Is the body inferior to atman? Intrinsically, is everything conscious? Why do we see matter around if it's all one consciousness? Is Higg's boson dead? Do the cells need to divide to avoid death? Is dying like falling in deep sleep, & do we therefore die everyday? How does structure and order reproduce? What did you inherit from your mother at birth? Can dead mammoths be resurrected? &, will we have the power to create varied artificial life in the future with genome writing? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from philosophy of science (Prof. G. Nagarjuna, IISER, Pune), theology (Swami Narasimhananda, Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama, Kozhikode), & genomic sciences (Prof. Binay Panda, JNU, New Delhi).

#TDAG (The Dead And Gone) --- SynTalk

How do you look at women? Do Goddesses follow Gods? Is the ultimate Reality an ‘It’? What’s the relationship between matter and energy? Are dualities necessarily conflictual? Is Eve inferior to Adam? Where do the Cosmos and the Body intersect? How did the sacred geography of the subcontinent evolve? Do Goddesses have an influence on the lives of men (& kings) & women? Where/how did patriarchy exist? How did Ramabai become Pandita Ramabai? What did the colonial encounter do to the archetypes of Goddesses? How did the early literary women appropriate the Goddesses? Is (only) education responsible for empowerment? Is Vishnu’s primal inner energy essentially female? Who is capable of hedonistic bloodlust? What invoked the wrath of Nanda Devi? Are male and female in a union like speech and meaning? What is evil? Or, dirty? Did women have a voice in pre-Colonial ‘India’? What are your models for feminism? How do courtesans become poet saints and Goddesses? How did the tribal women of India ‘transform a priest’? What might indigenous feminism look like? &, what is the future of the several goddesses & the little (folk) traditions? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from cultural studies (Prof. Sachidananda Mohanty, IIAS, Shimla), Dr. M.D. Muthukumaraswamy (folklore studies, Chennai) & Sanskrit studies (Dr. Bihani Sarkar, Lancaster University, Lancaster). Listen in...

#TGIP (The Goddesses In Particular) --- SynTalk

SynTalk thinks about interpretation and understanding of the self & the other, while constantly wondering why & if it is difficult to truly understand another culture. What more do we need besides translation and interpretation? The concepts are derived off / from Aristotle, Homer, Aquinas, Omar Khayyam, Descartes, Akbar, Marx, Wittgenstein, Bakhtin, Gandhi, Edward Said, Huntington, Derrida, Donald Davidson, Fredrik Barth, Stanislaw Lem, Tarkovsky, Janet Abu-Lughod, Bernard Williams, Immanuel Wallerstein, Aitmatov, & S. N. Balagangadhara, among others. Has one culture interpreted and described all others, & are all cultures cognitively understandable? Is a meta theory of cultural understanding possible? Are cultures ‘configurations of learning’, with both teachable and learnable components? Is ‘cultural-difference’ (& not culture or difference) the a priori (somewhat) like space-time, & how does the process of saliencing some domains (such as morality) work? Can pristine nature be scary? The long historical process of nomads gradually moving to cities? How a civilization (with writing, language, technology, & polity) makes its cultures robust? How the way identities are individuated may be very different across cultures, & how some modes of relationality may be inherited? Is it possible for a culture to have a private language? When do people begin to be cultured (links with city-life)? Should we try to break up culture into diverse units to see the robustness in them? The puzzle of the knitted-together-ness (inter-textuality) of descriptions (from priests’ to traders’) completely distinct from each other? How Silk Road (from China to the Mediterranean) is an indication of pre modern globalization? Does a culture need (say) territory, ethnicity, religion, or sovereignty to thrive, and is descent a vital part of any thriving culture? Why are some cultures dominant, and what is the need to bring in other kinds of narratives? The difference between the nation and the ethnie. Why did multiculturalism come up in the 1970s in Australia? The fascinating possible historical (1250-1350 AD) connections between Europe, Middle East and the Far East. Is it commonsensical to think that every culture would have a religion? Why? What then was the religion of the early Greeks or Romans? Is it only through others that we can know ourselves – the internally familiar world, and the need for the other (mirror, border, foreigner). Is monologue death? The links between theory of radical interpretation, 1480 BC, Babylon, brain matter, pottery, shamanism, lion, conquests, cutting wood, marriage, Kannada, slave trade, Nagaland, Sulh-i—kul, & the Asian Renaissance. What would be the nature of the multi-cultural moment if we come in contact with aliens? The deep need for hospitality without thematization. The SynTalkrs are: Prof. Vivek Dhareshwar (philosophy, Srishti Institute of Design, Bangalore), Prof. Rashmi Doraiswamy (international studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi), & Prof. Shereen Ratnagar (archaeology, ex-JNU, Delhi).

#TMCI (The Multi Cultural Isms) --- SynTalk

How many meals do you have time for? Why do sweets make you happy? Does fruit sugar (fructose) need insulin? Why does sugar spike? Are oranges and grapes differently sweet? Has sugar always been a transnational commodity? How did Europe get sugar? How did the first sweet shops come up? How did we end up milking animals? Is time the fourth factor in nutrition? Are apples autochthonously sweet? Do sweet making techniques travel easily? What travels first – people or food? What does grinding do to grains? Where do you get your samosas and croissants? Does your tea have blood in it? Is your diet carbohydrate heavy? Might you crave ‘more’ food if you consume less sweets? What has the relatively recent non-seasonal abundance done to human bodies? Have our metabolic systems evolved to fight abundance as well as scarcity? Do all blood pressure patients need to restrict salt? How important is the sensation of sweetness? What exactly do sugar-free sweets do? What is monk fruit’s future? Is greater industrialization of our food systems inevitable? &, would sweets continue to embody the spirit of indulgence (& excess) in the future? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from endocrinology (Dr. Hemraj B. Chandalia, Jaslok Hospital, Mumbai), culinary anthropology (Dr. Kurush F. Dalal, Gyaan Factory, Mumbai) & sociology (Dr. Ishita Dey, South Asian University (SAU), New Delhi). Listen in...

#TEST (The Entangled Sweet Tooth) --- SynTalk

Are you a born criminal? Is genocide ever justified? Is meritocracy a ‘garbage’ concept? What are the entitlements that you have by virtue of being a human being? Do rights exist because the State exists, & vice versa? Are rights sometimes anti norms? Do nomadic and sedentary societies think differently of rights? Are rights always a product of struggle? Are you 42 and a communist? Are all rights inter-related? Can the right to dignity be limited? What gets transmitted across generations? Are the normative social structures of the past in our prefrontal cortex today? Does reservation come under the framework of equality? What are a prisoner’s rights? Does it suit us to have certain sections of people stigmatised? Must social, political & economic rights go hand in hand? Can societies be changed without economic incentives? Is West Africa still scarred by slave trade? Can historical recompensation be done forever? Do you have a present bias? When are gender points a good idea? What makes rights effective - is this scale dependent? Why is Geneva Convention not always enforceable? Which rights are non-derogable? &, what are the rights of the next generation today? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from economics (Prof. Sujoy Chakravarty, JNU, New Delhi), history (Prof. Ajay Dandekar, Shiv Nadar University, Delhi-NCR) & law (Prof. Arvind Narrain, NLSIU, Bangalore). Listen in...

#TEOR (The Effects Of Rights) --- SynTalk

Are our brains log-normal? Why is breathing rhythmic? Why is there a hum in the universe? Do our hearts beat chaotically? Are the (stock) markets random and ‘unbounded’? What is a market? How is Mercury perturbed? What has sleep-wake cycles? Must you go up and down with the sun? What causes whirlpools in a smooth flowing river? Where do rhythms reside? Is there an equivalent of homeostasis in the markets? What is your sigh rate just now? Are you depressed? Could you move fast, vocalize, eat and breathe at the same time? Why do we hyperventilate when we are anxious? Is there phase lock-in between (say) moving and (quantized) breathing? What role do feedback loops or self organization play in regulating complex systems? Do risks become more systemic in a complex & connected world? Why are flight transportation systems more easily perturbed than bio-physical systems? In general, are emergent systems less easily perturbed? How is degeneracy different from redundancy? How do certain monks (?) go without breathing for a few hours? Do order and disorder lie on the same continuum? &, must we always build bottom-up? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from neuroscience (Dr. Sufyan Ashhad, NCBS, Bangalore), econophysics (Prof. Anirban Chakraborti, JNU, New Delhi) & philosophy (Rev. Fr. Dr. Mathew Chandrankunnel, JIS University, Kolkata). Listen in...

#TRAP (The Rhythms And Perturbations) --- SynTalk

How do chicks fly back to Africa on their own? Is recognition merely re-cognition? What are the different mechanisms for differentiation? How do (say) most new-born insects recognize objects without any social support? How, besides sight and sound, odour-mediated recognition plays a special role in several species? How there is a lot of consistency with smell. We journey into the world of both precocial and altricial species and wonder if the ability to recognize may be both innate and learned. How do unhatched chicks communicate with each other and their mother? Does a life form have the option to not know? Can animals identify that which their nervous system does not allow them to identify? Do brains process information from the environment in a non-linear way? Can one recognize that which has not been experienced before? How the North American apple flies were set up to love apples even before apples were there? How do starlings recognize each other in a murmuration of almost a million? Does time need to be continuous (& finite?) for recognition to make sense? Does knowledge consist in knowing what a thing is not? Is identity always ecological? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from chemical ecology (Dr. Shannon Olsson, NCBS, Bangalore), philosophy (Prof. A. Raghuramaraju, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad), and ornithology (Dr. Asad Rahmani, BNHS, Mumbai). Listen in....

#TRAI (The Recognition And Identification) --- SynTalk

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....

#TRON (The Revaluation Of Nature) --- SynTalk

Can one stay in a hole through one's entire life? Is a system always embedded in another? How large can (or should) the smaller system be? Is the market a free floating entity? Is it difficult to understand when a system has been monopolized? Do almost all communities have skewed abundance patterns? Are niches always n-dimensional hypervolumes? Can there be a qualitative difference between two forests with the same amount of timber generated and harvested? Is niche fundamentally a ‘fund’ (& not a ‘stock’) concept? Are niches inherited? Can inheritance also happen mimetically? How are niches constructed: what role do key innovations play? Can niches also diverge over a period of time? Has there been a progressive loss of diversity of (efficiency) norms, & does this inevitably lead to an increase in systemic risk and centralization? Did thermodynamics and economics coevolve during industrial revolution, & is the transition from charcoal to coal a pivotal turn? Are humans the only species that modify the ecosystem to their own detriment? Is the 'tree of life' a clumpy, gappy, crooked, jagged line? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from ecological economics, chemical engineering (Dr. Deepak Malghan, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore), & ecology (Dr. Kartik Shanker, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Bangalore). Listen in....

#TNAM (The Niches And Monopolies) --- 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.

#TRAI (The Recognition And Identification) --- SynTalk

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