It's a small world after all...

Students of architecture and town planning in India, are familiar with the name of Le Corbusier, who designed the planned city of Chandigarh. But it is quite unlikely that they would have heard of Kempegowda, or maybe would have heard of him as some local, sundry chieftain from the south. This post is about why Kempegowda is so revered in Bengaluru and the science behind his founding of the town that is now India's tech capital. Kempegowda was a regional chieftain (ಪಾಳೇಗಾರ) under the Vijayanagar empire that was headquartered in Hampe (known as Hampi, to the outside world). He is widely regarded as the founder of present-day form of Bengaluru, but very few people know why this is so. Bengaluru is situated on top of the Deccan plateau, and is about 3000ft above sea level. It literally sits on hard, igneous rock, and was historically known for its white granite. The name of the town literally comes from the white granite (ಬೆಂಗಲ್ಲು) that is found here. The name of the town has n...

The terms astika and nastika from Sanskrit are wrongly translated as "theist" and "atheist". This post tries to explain their meaning. There is no notion of theism in dharmic thought. Sure, Hindus have several deities, but it is not the same as theism. A deity is used as a handle to focus one's thoughts and hermeneutics around what it represents, as a means of spiritual inquiry. This is characteristic of the bhakti marga mode of inquiry. The terms asti and nasti respectively represents something that is or is not . The video above, explains these terms. The fundamental debate in dharmic thought is whether there is a reality that is beyond our perception and cognition, or what we can perceive and think of is all there is. As in a much later era, the quantum physicist Werner Heisenberg, once said, "What we observe, is not the universe itself, but the universe exposed to our method of inquiry." A core debate in dharmic thought is as fol...

Recently, I had written a Facebook post stating that I was not particularly impressed with deep learning -- from an academic perspective. This is not to say that deep learning is not significant at all. Indeed, the applications and impact of deep learning are opening up so many possibilities (mostly scary ones), like never before! There is indeed a lot of "scope" for young professionals to major in deep learning. My reservations has to do with the dearth of conceptual insights provided by deep learning. My post had understandably caused a lot of consternation from many in my network -- most of all, in my former students. And predictably I was subject to argumentum ad throwing-the-book-at-me with links to several high end mathematics that gets used in deep learning. There is a difference between using high-end mathematics to do something, and obtaining a conceptual breakthrough in understanding some underlying principle. Despite all the really awesome mathematics that...

Usually (among my Indian readers) while growing up, we would have heard bedtime stories from our parents or grandparents, explaining the concept of dharma. Most of these stories would have involved some form of social dilemma, which is ultimately resolved by a wise person who understands dharma. Given that we were also taught to think "scientifically" at school, it is hence natural that we would have interpreted dharma as some form of a divine code of ethics, that defines our "religion". And sometimes, when someone would have asked us which scripture spells out the codes of dharma, we would have had no answer. Sometimes, some of our bedtime stories would have involved celestial bodies like the sun and the moon. Later on, as adults our "scientifically" trained minds would have told us that if ethical concepts like dharma were applied to the sun and the moon, it means that our ancestors had a primitive, anthropomorphic model of the universe. In realit...

Recently, a well-known researcher in my area of work, died an untimely death. He was just 42. While we were recovering from the shock of the sudden news, a colleague pointed to a news story that said the he had most likely taken his own life -- by jumping off from the terrace of his apartment building. And while we were still reeling from this even more troubling news, another colleague of mine found his online blog post, where he had written about his fight with depression -- and had ended the post with a note of optimism that depression can be overcome. It was particularly poignant to read this, and I think something snapped inside me. It was too much for me to remain silent. Depression is a problem that is not new to me at all. I've written extensively about it on this very blog, including my own experiences as well as my analysis of what is the cause of such high rates of depression in our society. And like any other post on depression, I've hopefully ended my posts ...

In this post, I would like to contrast between the models of life as defined by the theory of evolution, and as defined by the theory of being. Evolution, or the " The greatest show on earth " is considered the scientific basis to describe how life operates. There are several underlying theories that make up the modern synthesis of evolutionary biology. Among these, the most significant is the theory of natural selection, proposed by Charles Darwin, in the mid nineteenth century. At the core of this theory is the concept of " natural selection " that posits a differential selection among members of a species in an evolutionary cycle, by natural conditions. Natural selection is based on a concept of "fitness" of the phenotype. A phenotype refers to the overall expression of an organism such as its physiological properties, behaviour, dispositions, etc. that is a result of the interaction between its innate characteristics (its genotype) and the environ...

It was some time in the '80s when as a teenager, I was visiting some places in north Karnataka with my family, during Dasara time. On the evening of Vijayayadashami, we went to witness a Ramlila celebration. There was a large statue of Ravana, which would be put to flames by Rama. We were all excited to watch this event as was the large crowd of people that had gathered there.   However, there was some glitch because of which the performance was getting delayed and time dragged on and on, without anything happening.   The gathered crowd became increasingly restless. First the shouts started, then people started pushing one another. Soon, there were fist fights among people, vandalism, and.. the works.   We were stuck in the midst of the crowd and quite far from the gates, and got very worried. Some of my family members also started shoving us younger folks, in a bid to keep us safe. Needless to say, it was a harrowing experience.   In the midst of t...