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Showing posts from March 27, 2016

How the twain shall meet -- III: Dharma and Game Theory

Continuing in my series of posts about how I see synergy between Eastern and Western thought, I would like to connect one of the most beautiful mathematics of the 20th century with some of the foundations of Indian thought. As mentioned in previous posts, if there is one concept that can encapsulate the cultural paradigm of India and parts of China, East and South-East Asia, it is the concept of " Dharma ". The term is used in so many different contexts, giving it several different translations like "righteousness", "religion", "duty", "ethics" etc. all of which fail to capture its essence. Dharma represents a state of "sustainability" or "invariance". (Here is a paper describing dharma as sustainability or a state of "equilibrium" and here is yet another paper defining Dharma as sustainability). As described by Robert Lingat in his book " The Classical Law of India " Dharma is defined as &