Syntalk

Did Buddha have friends? Did Gandhi have enemies? Can you renounce friends? Is friendship universal? Do we ‘need’ enemies? Is competition ever with enemies? Why is there ‘narcissism of small differences’? Can rivals be friends? How are enemies, adversaries, and opponents conceptually distinct from each other? Are democratic structures meant for pacification of politics: can enemies be turned into adversaries? Does self interest contaminate friendship or does mutual self interest bind it together? Can power be shared? Does allegiance to a world view come along with enemies that need to be fought? Did competitive sports (Olympics) come to be as a substitute for combat and battles? How is the sense of the self developed? Can there be friendship between collectivities (such as countries)? Would the European Union have come to be without the preceding World Wars? Why and ‘how’ did Panchtantra come to be? Would a highly transactional world make friendships redundant? Are there friendships in competitive sports? Is

Can suicide bombers be farmed? Who is a terrorist? How are terrorists recruited, trained and incentivized? Do terrorists run out of weapons? What role does leadership play in the success of terrorist groups? What happens when a terrorist group is decapitated? Is it possible to dabble in terrorism? Is a terrorist attack always a mixture of violence and theatre, and always a part of a communication strategy? How are terrorist groups organised? Can terrorist groups maintain armies, and military like organization structure? Is (perceived) grievance a necessary condition for terrorism? Is a failed State and chaos always an opportunity for terrorists? Is warlordism usually the first stage in state formation? Is the State usually complicit in allowing a terrorist group to form? Is war politics by other means? Is terrorism often a result of the orthodoxy asserting itself against a reformation(?)? Are terrorist groups willing to engage in dialogues or surrender when they are in ascendancy? Is the use of force always c

Do you know that you are ignorant? How do you understand clouds? What would total knowledge do; could you create the entire universe then? Is the process of acquiring knowledge an iterative tussle with ignorance? Does every new knowledge also produce new ignorance? Are all descriptions answers? How is a discipline made possible? Is it possible to classify ignorance a priori? Is science primarily a representational endeavour? What is painter’s knowledge? How does biology understand nature? How do objects form? How does the connection between theory and the phenomena differ across disciplines? Do all disciplines operate at the level of (formal?) language? What is common between the sciences? And the arts? Is there a unitary underlying method? Can we understand tides as a mystery? Is nature ideal? Can we, in principle, make a zebra from fundamental particles? What is imagination constrained by? How is biology different from physics? Do disciplinary boundaries have more to do with knowledge transfer than knowledg

What cannot be abstracted? What was Grothendieck up to? Does abstraction exist all around us; as notions of (say) numbers, distance, money, & more? Further, is there a way of abstracting the notion of distance across different kinds of geometries? Is labour (power) abstract? Is it surprising that we are able to think of 2 apples and 2 oranges as just 2? Does cinema & art usually give a concrete body to abstract things like emotions? What is the method of abstraction across realms, & does it involve turning ‘inputs’ into ‘commodities’? How does the orange-seller know how to efficiently pack the oranges? How is abstractness embodied, and what role do materials play? Is the concrete an instance of the abstract? Does the word ‘room’ (say) signify a concept in our heads? Can cinema (a la ‘absolute films’) be concrete without (the artifice (?) of) actors, sets and dialogues? What role do aesthetic & philosophical principles play in the process of abstraction? Can there be/is there a method of ‘rising from the abstr

Do kids understand adults? Does foetus feel pain and pleasure? What does the world look like from the crib? Is the new born infant alert, aware & awake, & not confused? What are kids pre-wired for, & is pre-wiring largely genetic? Do we learn fear? Do new-borns get bored? How do children learn, and (what) do they need to be taught? How is grammar learnt? When do kids start becoming autonomous? Have you experienced the Terrible Twos? When does a child stop being a child? Is the concept of late childhood a product of modernity? Must adolescence be a ‘productive’ period? Do children have rights? What exactly is childhood ‘innocence’, & must childhood be valourized? Can some kids be unusually cruel? Is parenthood naturally anxiety inducing? Might the absence of disclosure of love for the child be a problem? What might indiscriminate ‘limit setting’ by parents lead to? Is it hard, however, to always be a calm carefree parent? How different and similar are kids from each other, & is it alright to compare them? What

Is Colin McKenzie for real? What cannot be faked? Are fakes lies? Can copies be more valuable than the original? What is the test of something being original? Is originality a fact? Is it culturally determined? What are the ethics and aesthetics of fakes? How and at what point do we know when an experience is not real? What about reality that cannot be experienced? Is seeing believing, or is believing seeing? Is ‘seeing’ always ‘seeing-as’? Why do some of us prefer artificial flowers over fresh flowers? Does the idea of the original always imply its opposite? What kind of objects can (cannot) have copies (originals)? Can there be fake words? Or chairs? Is the copy of a copy the copy of the same original? Can there be a fake documentary film? Are there false images for astronomers? How does science ‘handle’ reality? What are the (dis)similarities between archaeology, astronomy and film-making? Is most of reality constructed, and do we really know what reality is? Does reality always depend on the technology av

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’

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 equilib

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-lin

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, a

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 mund

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

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 th

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 w

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 cap

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 en

Are you addicted to snake poison? Or gambling? Are you an alcoholic? Have you quit smoking? Why are cigarettes so popular? Why are slot machines more addictive than games of skill? Why are we addicted to anything? Is there a threshold? Are some of us (genetically) more vulnerable than others? Is an addict always aware that she is an addict? Does addiction always have both ‘loss of control’ as well as ‘potential to harm’ components? Can we be mistaken about the (subjective) experience of our own bodily sensations? Is addiction always a desire for certain kinds of sensations? What precedes the craving? Are addicts price sensitive, & do they respond to financial rewards? Does tobacco tax work? What if the substance is not available? Is it always irrational to be an addict? Can one avoid severe depression via addiction? Are hardcore addicts different? Is their ethical vision deeply skewed? Might brown sugar and alcohol addicts look down upon each other? Why does relapse happen? Is it tough being an addict? Is our

Is 100% memory loss possible? Is the past ‘preserved by itself, automatically’? Is the notion of decay linked intimately to the concepts of order and memory? Does life grow towards order, even as physical systems go towards disorder? Does maintenance of order require a significant amount of energy? Is there a fundamental unit of order? Are rituals (say) the work required to reproduce social order? Is anomie or agonism the opposite of order? Is too much cohesion also a symptom of decay? Do systems decay when they go ‘out of context’ vis-à-vis the neighbours? Is memory the sense-organ to perceive time? Why does a fly develop a complex memory for a life of ‘just’ 1-2 (human) days? Do life-forces wax & wane? Are there different forms of decaying? Can some systems self heal or (erroneously) self destruct? Are perpetual systems possible? Do automata (or, human beings) always display highly rule bound behaviour? Is physical immortality (with selfhood) technically possible? Can machines introspect? How do you prove t

Does Mowgli have fun? Why do we crack jokes? Why are spoofs enjoyable, & is having fun, fundamentally, an act of subversion? Does having fun require us to be innocent ‘fools’? Is fun the basic objective of human existence? What is it, then, not to have fun? Is it a fact of human existence that most of the time we are not having fun? Is pain the (obvious) obverse of pleasure? How can tragic spectacles be pleasure producing? How can an expression of sorrow, such as Blues, be enjoyable? Does the idea of fun primarily come to us in retrospect? Is having fun in the present often a contrived and laboured idea? Is the idea of fun intimately linked to the notions of spending, forgoing, & forgetting? Must fun be ethically driven? Why & how can (say) a musician sometimes refuse to entertain? Why do there exist self inflicting pain systems? How is the ‘crucified’ the model for human excellence? Why do musical concerts work, & can fun be manufactured formulaically? What is it to be an individual in a rock concert? Does o

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 b