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

Were there thoughts >80,000 years ago? Can you say what you feel? How is your Broca’s area? ‘Where’ is the mind? Is it individuated? &, insulated? When did our ancestors first create art? Are human beings incorrigibly abstract? Are social minds more emotional? Are single cell bacteria social? Who is accountable for a mob? How do social values get revised or (sometimes) resisted? Is the mapping between brain states and mental states (largely) mysterious? Does language change the brain? Is mentality a part of the universe? Are complex long term decisions also a series of micro decisions? How do you decide on a home loan? What can neuroscience (alone) explain? Can political leadership impact personal decisions of the masses? Are groups of strangers safer than individuals when crossing train tracks? Do behaviours differ across cultures? Why? Do you hold all the beliefs today from your childhood? Can you ‘decide’ without emotions? Do decisions precede interpretation? Do you trade on uncertainty? Are we currently in the infancy of a cognitive revolution? &, must cognitive sciences and public policy work together in the future? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas and concepts from behaviour architecture (Biju Dominic, Fractal Analytics, Mumbai), cognitive sciences (Prof. Ramesh Kumar Mishra, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad), & philosophy (Prof. Smita Sirker, JNU, New Delhi). Listen in...

#TMIE (The Mental In Environmental) --- SynTalk

Do you live with animals? Are your summers busy? Could a 1000 metres apart be several hours apart in the hills? How does that define culture? Could there be multiple places in one hill? Do you have a simple dream of having a kitchen with a granite sink? Are hill people traditionally more cohesive? What do hills do to States? How do/did sovereign Godlings rule their territories in the mountains? Have these Godlings (& their people) also been at war? What brought them together? Where did the clergy come from? Where did Raghunathji come to Kullu from? Did Shaivism and Vaishnavism have differing impacts on the Himalayan polity? Do change and continuity exist in tandem? How do the great traditions and the little traditions interact? Did the first British maps change us? Are the Himalayas the spine of the world? Did Radhanath Sikdar measure the Mount Everest? Did Maharaja Ranjit Singh Ji connive with the French and the Russians to fight the British? When/why did the British give up on Tibet? Why make hill stations? Do shepherds have ‘places’ of worship? Why do sacred groves exist? Why do the hills evoke a spiritual response in us? Can hills and rivers vanish? &, is everything already lost? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from history & South Asia Studies (Prof. Sudipta Sen, UC Davis, Davis), and history & anthropology (Prof. Mahesh Sharma, Panjab University, Chandigarh). Listen in...

#TSOH (The Sandbox Of Hills) --- SynTalk

Are humans statistical systems with random biases? Is the world fundamentally discrete, & the continuum an emergent property? Or, is the quantum world foamy? Should black holes be a part of the Standard Model? Does the Standard Model (surely) undergird the periodic table? Is space-time merely a causal ordering of events? Where does physics end, and chemistry begin? Can the shape of water molecule be inferred from macroscopic water? How is the whole different from the sum of its parts? Can having a very old universe help with these questions? What may have led to structures in the early universe? Are the various scales interconnected? Are molecular geometries & properties better understood via electron density functions rather than wave functions? ‘How’ are n-electron systems confined? Can you ‘visualize’ the (network-like) posets? When/which systems self organize? Are there different collective behaviours at different scales? Can we synthesize a complete living system? Can the spectra of any newly synthesized molecule be predicted – & how? Can earthquakes be predicted precisely? &, what are a few open questions? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using ideas from statistical physics (Prof. Deepak Dhar, IISER, Pune), quantum chemistry (Prof. Kalidas Sen, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad), & quantum physics (Prof. Sumati Surya, Raman Research Institute (RRI), Bangalore). Listen in...

#TSSM (The Sub Structure Mosaic) --- 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

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

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

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.

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