The story of the design of Bengaluru

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 nothing whatsoever to do with boiled beans. A similar town near present day Chennapattana called Kengal (ಕೆಂಗಲ್ಲು) was known for its black granite.

These areas had no natural source of water like a big river or the sea coast. It was far away from the coast, and high up in the Deccan plateau. The nearest major river was Cauvery, almost a 100km away. Nevertheless, the demand for granite from different parts of the kingdom had made Bengaluru into a thriving trading hub under the Western Ganga dynasty up until 1000 CE, and under the Chola Empire later on. The story of Bengaluru goes back far into history. Ancient Roman coins have been found in Bengaluru, and not just that, in Talakadu on the banks of the Cauvery, archeologists even found a mould for minting Roman coins! Talk about counterfeiting!

Kempegowda had recognised the importance of Bengaluru as a trading hub, and proceeded to build a planned township around several markets called Petes (ಪೇಟೆ). In 1537, he built a fort with eight gates to the town, with a moat surrounding it. Only small parts of the Bengaluru fort remain standing to this day, near the K R Market area.

Bengaluru Fort. Image Source: Wikipedia. By Indrajit Roy - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28760709

Inside the fort were several marketplaces or Petes: Balepete, Akkipete, Chikkapete, Nagarathpete, Ragipete, Arelepete, etc. all of which exist to this day as localities in the city. The entire town was designed around marketplaces. On a related note, the cosmopolitan nature of Bangalore is not a post IT boom phenomenon, as is widely believed. It was not even the British Cantonment that brought diversity to the place. The town was a trading hub from much further ago.

The township within the fort was demarcated into blocks (called Agrahara) and were allocated explicitly for residential and business areas. Most roads in the town ran from East to West, or from North to South. This practice continues to this day. People interested in city planning often find this curious property about Bangalore roads -- some narrow roads are called "mains" and some big roads are called "cross". The names "main" and "cross" does not refer to the size of the roads in Bengaluru -- but to whether they are a East-West road, or a North-South road.

The main challenge for Kempegowda was to provide water supply to the capital city of his province. As noted earlier, there are no major rivers or the coast nearby.

In order to cater to the city's water needs, Kempegowda surveyed a much bigger area starting from Hesaraghatta in the north, to Begur in the south, and studied rainfall patterns and lakes in the area. He then constructed a vast network of lakes and feeder canals between the lakes, to connect almost 1000 lakes in an intricate pattern of canals. These feeder canals were called Rajakaluve (ರಾಜಕಾಲುವೆ) or "main canals" that were not to be disturbed. They were critical to ensure not just water supply to the lakes, but also to form a continuous system of flow, so that the lakes remained fresh.

This approach to planned cities based on principles of Vastushastra, is very different from what present day students study about town planning -- that involves concerns like design of public spaces, creating central business districts, paved roads, footpaths, etc. All of these are important, but they come much later. The provision of a near continuous source of fresh water to a landlocked town, is architectural design at a much more fundamental level.

Kempegowda also knew that this network of lakes cannot sustain a large population. He then estimated how the city would grow, and created markers in the forests outside of the city until which the city could grow comfortably with the designed network of 1000 lakes. These markers are called "Kempegowda towers" today -- of which only 3 of 4 towers are remaining.

Kempegowda north tower at Mehkri circle. Image source: Karnataka.com

Today all four Kempegowda towers are within the city limits, and the city has grown far beyond the four towers.

At the time Kempegowda built his capital, its population was estimated to be about 500,000 and the larger area till the Kempegowda towers could sustain a population of about 1 million. And today, with a population of almost 11 million, the Bengaluru metropolitan area has only 29 of the 1000 lakes remaining! Many of the Rajakaluves have been encroached upon by roads and buildings, leading to major flooding during rains and dying down of lakes. 

Today a major source of water supply to the city is from the Cauvery river which still remains where it was -- 100km away and 600 feet below in altitude. The daily electricity bill of pumping up water from the Cauvery is almost 1 crore rupees! 

Following the industrial revolution (in Europe) and the semi-industrialisation of our colonised society, there has been a fascination for constructing large, non-local solutions to address local problems. Hence water supply for Bangalore was designed to come from somewhere far away. But what about the people and the ecosystem who already depended on the water over there?

When we construct a large infrastructure to solve a local issue, we in turn disrupt the ecosystem around the places where we source our materials from. This in turn causes a migration in search of jobs and business opportunities, into the urban centres that have large infrastructure built for them. This increases the demand for even more infrastructure, thus starting a vicious cycle of infrastructure building, disruption of existing ecosystems, and large inflow into urban centres. 

In contrast to this, the Vastushastra approach to architecture and town planning, emphasises on extensively studying the structure and dynamics of the surrounding ecosystem (called the Vidhi), and make minimal, sustainable changes to the existing ecosystem so as to cater to our needs (the principle of dharma). The system that we build should be in harmony with the surroundings and form an overall stable ecosystem. 

For some reason, Kempegowda is never regarded as a master architect in our mainstream education, and is never featured in any college syllabus on architecture and city planning (as far as I know that is, I would be glad to be proven wrong on this). Vastushastra is not studied as part of architecture or civil engineering curriculum either (as far as I know). 

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Coming back to the story of Kempegowda, such was his popularity among his people, that many neighbouring provinces started feeling insecure, and even worried that his popularity would become more than the kings at Vijayanagar itself. 

The chieftain of Chennapattana, Jagadevaraya filed a false case against Kempegowda with the Vijayanagar king, alleging that he was minting coins illegally. This caused the king to imprison Kempegowda and take over Bengaluru town. 

But the citizens of the town fought for him and finally convinced the king to drop the false case against him, after five years. After his release, Kempegowda constructed an underground cave temple near Basavanagudi called Gavi Gangadhareshwara temple as a thanksgiving to the divine. 

Gavi Gangadherashwara cave temple at Gavipuram near Basavanagudi. Image source: Wikipedia. By Pavithrah - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20746521

The citizens of the town organised a grand festival to celebrate his return where they put him on a swing (Uyyale ಉಯ್ಯಾಲೆ) as part of the celebration. The area came to be known as Uyyale-kavalu, which in the present day is known by the Anglicised name Vyalikaval, near Sadashivanagar, that is home to several celebrities and political leaders.

Astika and Nastika

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 follows. What we can perceive, imagine and conceptualise is called Maya. The true nature of reality is said to offer its glimpses to us only when we can escape the illusion of Maya. There is no single way to achieve this. This spiritual inquiry takes several forms, each of which has a core component -- like jnana (pursuit of knowledge), bhakti (devotion), yoga (harmonization), karma (deeds) etc.

Each marga or pathway of inquiry has a different characteristic. The jnana marga for instance, uses skepticism as its core element of inquiry. It is sometimes called "Neti, Neti" (not this, not this). One who pursues knowledge is eternally skeptical of everything that is presented, and wants to go and explore their foundations -- until one day, they turn their skepticism onto their skeptical mode of inquiry. And get thoroughly confused. And are completely lost. At this point, they are considered to have qualified for spiritual inquiry (passed their comprehensive exam or quals).

Similarly, a seeker using the bhakti marga for spiritual inquiry, holds on to an object of their devotion and idolises it or deifies it. They express themselves without inhibition towards their object of devotion. Their object of devotion would be the centre of their universe and they dedicate themselves totally in it. Until one day, they realise that all the ideal and divine attributes that they have been attributing to their object of inquiry is in fact, within themselves! If they felt that their deity was the epitome of gracefulness and compassion, it is because their mind was able to experience it. If they felt that their deity was the epitome of justice and order, it is because their mind was able to experience it. By attributing things to the deity, they are in fact, discovering themselves. And that is when they have cleared their comprehensive exam and gained candidature.

This beautiful rendition from the Markendaya Purana, estimated to be more than 5000 years old, explains the above -- the purity of thought and action we attribute to our ideal deity, is in fact, within us.

Like the above, there are several pathways, each having its own dominant heuristic to help us escape the hermeneutic framework in which our mind resides. Each such transgression of the underlying hermeneutics leaves the seeker in a potentially different part of reality and they would come back with a glimpse of one small part of the underlying reality that is presented to us as Maya, in our matrix.

Where there are several pathways and heuristics to escape Maya, there is also a "null" hypothesis, which is the nastika hypothesis.

The nastika hypothesis basically says that there is no such thing called reality beyond our perception and cognition. Just because we stumbled upon something unexpected, which made our entire mental framework crumble, does not mean that it was somehow unreal, and whatever we experienced in the resultant state of confusion and hallucination is somehow real.

In fact, whatever we experience in our state of confusion (that gained us our candidature), is still in fact, being experienced within the framework of our faculty for perception and cognition! How can we claim to have transcended our existence, if all that we experience is through our perception and cognition? Sure, we may not be able to understand what we experienced, or we may not be able to explain it, but we did experience it in our mind, using our brain and body -- that is, we experienced it within the framework of existence, or Maya.

The astika mind would argue back by saying that, what the seeker experienced is not just a new experience, but a new insight and a perspective. Which can only be experienced if one were to escape from sensory and cognitive limitations. For instance, did mathematical truths like the primality of a number, exist when dinosaurs roamed on the face of the earth? Sure they did. Except, there was no seeker who could escape from the confines of their mind, and discover them. It was only after several millennia, that the human mind discovered it. It was always there, but the earthly creatures were too trapped in their minds to discover them. Who knows how many more elements of reality we can discover, if only we made an effort to escape from Maya?

The nastika mind would reply by saying that in our quest for truths that lie outside the realm of Maya, we may end up neglecting our very existence and well-being. If for instance, people around me are suffering, I would rather engage with them and find solutions right here and now, within the framework of Maya, rather than neglect all these "worldly matters" and go off on a "spiritual quest" and breaking our own minds. This line of argument, for instance, was what philosophers like Siddharta Gautama (later known as Buddha) gave, in their rejection of the astika philosophers.

Buddha himself went on a spiritual quest, but in a guided fashion. He went to explore the roots of suffering and pain. He didn't reject everything, saying Neti, Neti. And he didn't idolise anything, like a bhakt, pursuing the pathway of devotion. His pursuit had a focus called "What is" (the cause of human suffering), and based on focused struggle or "Srama". This pathway of focused inquiry was later accepted as yet another valid pathway, and is now called Sramana.

The idea of nastika is very important, because it brings in the notion of a null hypothesis for spiritual and philosophical inquiry. It is possible for us to adopt scepticism as a blind belief (religion), just like we can be proud of our humility, and flaunt our modesty at every given opportunity. The nastika frame of reference can give a reality check in such cases.

The above debate is very different from the debate as to whether "God exists" or "There is no God". This is also not the same as the (confused) dilemma between "religion" and "science". 

AI: The Missing Piece

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 go into deep learning models today, they are really still pretty much, optimisation engines. The underlying concepts that build deep learning networks of today have been around for several decades now.

I'm aware of several arguments challenging even the above notion as well. One of the primary breakthrough that made deep learning applications possible, is advances in hardware with general purpose GPU processors being used to produce massively parallel neural network applications.

Sometimes, advances in hardware will help us explore conceptual spaces that were hitherto unreachable with purely analytical models, and help bring about a conceptual breakthrough. For example, the advent of digital computers helped achieve some conceptual proof in mathematics like the four-colour theorem for planar graphs. The theorem had remained an open problem since the 1800s, only to be proven with the use of computer programs and automated theorem provers as recently as the early 2000s.

But purists aren't exactly happy with theorem-proving of this kind. A mathematical proof usually requires some kind of philosophical insight into the problem, which is what is the primary attraction of a conceptual breakthrough. A computer-based proof only helps validate a conjecture, without any insight into underlying philosophical phenomena as to why this theorem is true.

But let's not talk about theorems and proofs; let's talk about intelligence, which is what the promise of DL and AI are all about.

Recently I read another argument that all that the human brain does is also just optimisation, and "intelligence" as we know it, is simply all the lucky breaks obtained by the greatest optimisation process on earth -- evolution. Genetic evolution simply foraged its way over millions of years, and got a few lucky breaks, that resulted in the intelligent life of today.

Well.. yes and no.

Consider the following pictures:

Diamonds

Anthill

Both pictures show intricate patterns that are a result of complex optimisation processes that happen in nature. The first picture shows a set of diamonds formed by a process of intense high-temperature annealing, and the second picture shows an anthill built by a swarm of termites, each of which is trying to compute some local optima for itself. 

While both represent intricate, complex structures resulting from processes of optimisation, I'm sure we would agree that it is only the second picture that represents output of some kind of "intelligent" activity. 

What is the difference between an optimisation process that forms diamonds, and an optimisation process that builds an anthill? Why is the former not a result of intelligence, while the latter is? 

The point I am trying to make here is that, while the human brain does forage around a lot, and mostly indulges in optimisation, its activities are not arbitrary. The brain forages in very specific ways -- and is driven by a concept of "Self". 

The same is true of the termites that built the anthill. While the set of termites are collectively optimising something-- individual termites too are optimising-- by autonomously acting in their self interest. Each element of the termite system is an autonomous agent, while the same is not true about the hydrocarbon molecules that form the diamonds. (In the Western model of physics, that is. In Eastern dharmic models, both molecules and creatures are made of the same essence of "being" called Atma, and are essentially optimisers). 

Regardless of whether we use the Western model or the Eastern model of physics, the key takeaway in my argument is that, the essential element of intelligence is a sense of "Self" and optimisation processes driven autonomously by the Self in either trying to sustain itself, or out of a more generalised form of "self interest". An intelligent collective is something that has a collective sense of self -- like an ant community or a nation state. The collective sense of self is an emergent property of the interactions (and interferences) among the constituent set of selves that make up the collective. 

But deep learning based on artificial neural networks, model neurons as "gates" rather than "agents" that they really are. The "gate" model of a neuron comes from traditional models of computing that are based on digital logic, that in turn comes from electronics circuit designs based on transistors and valves. Which in turn comes from flow models in electrical engineering. 

In contrast though, life forms are better understood as "societies" of interacting autonomous agents, each of which, are pursuing self interest. Each neuron in our brain is much more than a gate. They are autonomous agents that take decisions on their own regarding who to connect to, where to get information from, and where to transmit to. Of course, decisions taken by neurons are based on their surroundings and the signals they get. But there is no overarching blueprint that decides a priori how neurons connect or remain connected to one another. 

Societies of agents are inherently declarative in nature, and routinely build abstractions on their own, to help them coordinate. For instance, when we grasp something with our hands, in our minds, we only have a mental image of our hands doing the grasping. Our minds have no idea how many muscles are involved in this process, and how or who is coordinating them. It just creates an abstract image of the hand grasping something, and this image is translated into action by who-knows-how-many layers of neural abstractions underneath. 

The complex nature of coordination that such an action requires, is managed by a distributed system of incentives and disincentives that bring about the desired collective behaviour. 

I would like to conjecture that without a sense of self and autonomous decision-making, deep learning will remain largely a process of generalisation from training data, or finding patterns in data. Neurons should be able to build their architectures on the fly, and continuously keep adapting them. And fundamentally driven by a sense of self preservation and utility maximisation.

Stories of Dharma - 1: The heart

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 reality, the concept of dharma is way more fundamental, and way more profound. It is by no means, a divinely revealed code of ethics. It is a natural phenomenon that can be experimentally verified in a repeatable manner, and is resilient against attempts at falsification.

So, to revive genuine scientific curiosity about this concept, let me start a series of posts featuring bedtime stories related to dharma. Except, these stories are not about social dilemma leading to ethical questions. Instead, these are stories that perhaps Sheldon Cooper would like to hear during bedtime!

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Today's dharma story is about the human (or any animal's) heart. The heart is a critical organ in our body, which powers our blood circulation system. It is because of the heart that our body is able to assimilate nutrients and oxygen, and discard carbon dioxide and waste. 

Image source Wikipedia: By DrJanaOfficial - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50477765

But if we look at how the heart functions, it seems rather strange. The heart pumps blood using recipocatory motion that continuously keeps the organ expanding and contracting. Any mechanical engineer would agree that this is an extremely inefficient way to build a pump. An alternating motion creates fatigue in the material, leading to wear and tear. None of our pumps for instance, use such a technique. Instead, we use motors involving rotary motion that is much more efficient. 

So why didn't nature evolve a motor for the heart? Why did it settle down for such a crude implementation of a pump? 

It is dharma in action! Let me explain. 

Firstly, let us bust the myth that the human heart is somehow inefficient. Our heart has been beating continuously, at an approximate rate of 70 beats to a minute, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, ever since we were born! It has not taken a single break, and has not been shutdown for maintenance. If it were, we wouldn't be here, reading this blog. 

No "efficient" motor-based pump designed by humans, has known to perform for 80-100 years at a stretch, continuously, without a break. So clearly, nature has different ideas about what is "efficient". 

What we call as living beings is essentially a vast colony of even smaller beings called cells, that are trying to sustain themselves. In order to sustain themselves, they have come together to form a large system -- a metropolis of sorts -- where they are cooperating and complementing one another and helping each other sustain. 

Our heart is no monolithic entity. It comprises of several thousands of cells that are in a cooperative setup, and are contracting and expanding autonomously to result in the overall heart beat. Cells do experience wear and tear, and die away. But they are quickly replaced by newer cells that are born in the system. Indeed, every few years, we are biologically not the same creature anymore! 

So why does the heart pump blood using contractions? Why did the cells not evolve to collectively form a motor, so that they can work more efficiently? 

The answer to this is that, a motor is actually less efficient when it comes to sustainability, than a pump based on contractions. A motor is adharma, compared to a contractions based pump! (Imagine interpreting this as "a motor is unethical or immoral!" 😀)

A motor requires its blades to be so finely organised, and the system of blades to be synchronised so well that it creates a neat, rotary motion. Get a set of people to form a circle and run in a circle, and you'll know what I mean. It is very hard to maintain a circular motion with a group of agents acting autonomously! 

For a motor, the circular motion is extremely critical to maintain the flow. Even a little loss of synchrony in the circular motion can effectively shut down the pump. 

In contrast, it is much more simpler to organise a collection of autonomous agents to contract and expand together. The contractions need not be tightly synchronised. Indeed, the rate at which the heart beats, keeps varying throughout the day. The rate at which individual cells contract and expand also keeps varying. But within a fairly large interval, these variations do not disrupt the overall operation of the pump. 

Sometimes our heart does go out of synchrony. Such phenomena are called fibrillations, where the heart cells become uncoordinated. Fibrillations would be far more commonplace, if the heart cells were to have evolved into a motor, rather than in their current form. 

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There you go. Hope you enjoyed today's bedtime story of dharma. Express your gratitude to dharma, and have a good night's sleep while your heart beats on!

Ruminations

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 on a positive note, that life is worth living after all.

But clearly, in his case, depression seems to have won the battle. And it is not reassuring at all.

One of the reasons for my "coming out" publicly with my struggle with depression is that I see this as an endemic social problem afflicting our society. It is not just my problem, and my writings are not just for me to feel better. I have cited stats and formal studies to show that levels of depression and suicide are very high (compared to the global average), especially in south India. And also that the primary causes for depression are social in nature -- not physical.

My writings are meant to be an appeal to our society in general, to put a stop to this social "auto-immune disorder" and to recognise the latent trauma and insecurity that is driving and amplifying such problems. My writings are meant to be a fervent appeal to central elements of our society -- like parents, teachers, political leaders, bosses, line managers, industry leaders, religious leaders, etc. -- to please stop psychological assaults on those in a weaker position than them, using euphemisms like humility, discipline, chastity, submission, etc. It is literally killing people.

Most importantly, my writings are meant as an appeal to the next generation -- including my students -- to become aware of their own sense of insecurity and fear that is driving them. Becoming aware of these emotions is the first step towards overcoming them.

I have seen layers and layers of defences among our student population, who not only distrust the "system" and any person whom they associate with the "system", but have also learned to cynically play the system.

When going through other blog posts from this person, one thing stuck me as kind of odd. Most of his other posts were about the "outcomes" of his research. They were not about the research itself -- but its outcomes. They talked about the conference or journal where it was published, the impact factors of these venues, the bibliometrics of his work (h-index, i10 index, etc.), the peer review process, etc. I could not see any post that talked about the research itself -- the ideas that he was pursuing, the significance of those ideas, the new perspectives he is bringing to the table, the implications and possibilities of an idea becoming a reality.. stuff like that.

If my hunch is right, then I think I know why depression won the battle in this case. According to his posts, he first started experiencing depression in the year 2013. While for me, my first major visible tryst with depression was during my student days in the 1990s. And with more exploration, it was not hard for me to figure out that I'd been coping with trauma ever since kindergarten.

And the problem that was causing the trauma was also clear. The education system continuously asked for just two things -- compliance and outcomes. It wanted us to be docile, passive and compliant "good" children, and wanted us to generate superlative outcomes after superlative outcomes. The more we complied, and the better we performed, the more expectations we had to shoulder.

The system was not at all interested in how we were developing as individuals. It was not at all interested in what we were thinking, or what kinds of challenges we were facing while growing up. Nobody talked to us about adolescence or puberty. The changes in our body and mind in our teenage years was a matter of deep shame and guilt, for us. We read Archie comics on the sly, with a feeling of guilt, when we knew we should be studying for that board exam or entrance exam. We often bragged to one another about how much we studied -- the least was 10 hours every day (outside of school hours). I remember this one friend of mine, who used to keep a log of what time he went to sleep and what time he got up, and ensured that he never slept for more than 4 hours every night, so that he may be well prepared for his exams.

In high school, we often heard of some student or the other committing suicide, for having got less than what they expected in their exams. "Dull" students were often thrashed physically by their parents after their exams. And parents and teachers, often extolled the virtue of "fear" that younger generation should have towards elders and towards God ("God fearing" meant someone with good virtues). 

The same culture continues to this day, and in many ways it has become worse. I have somehow survived so far, that too in academics -- that is still ruled by prestige, pedigree and medals. I do not know what is keeping me going. Perhaps it is my undying curiosity to learn what is causing something. Every time I have been hit by something, while others have run away from it, I have naively tried to get hit again, to see what is causing it to happen:

There have been several times for instance, where I have been subject to rampant slander and derogatory gossip. And I'd also seen some very high-achieving individuals around me, get completely destroyed by such kinds of slander. But so far, what I have done is to only act even more provocatively and elicit more such gossip to try and understand how it works. This has given me rich data about the psychology underlying social cognition, the role of "narratives," and how it shapes our collective worldview. It has also led me to develop a formal model of what is an opinion, and the different ways in which opinions can come together to result in different forms of collective phenomena.

We have applied this understanding to model the dynamics of social media, political movements and economic battles.

Studying slander and gossip has also helped me understand the difference between "private" information and "secure" information. It has also helped me narrow down the question of information utility to four primary factors.

The study of narratives has also helped me understand predatory and non-predatory (sustainability) dynamics of social cognition. Predatory approaches to social cognition model knowledge creation as a "convergent" process. All parties involved in the process have to converge to one narrative. Some elements of "fairness" are introduced to provide a semblance of balance. However, on the whole, it would be amply clear that prevailing power asymmetry would be the primary factor that governs the final shape that the knowledge takes.

For instance, on Wikipedia, every topic has to have one page that all different perspectives have to agree upon. To keep the process "fair" some rules are introduced, like NPOV (neutral point of view), NOR (no original research), VS (verifiable source), etc. However, it is amply clear that the model is biased towards a Western worldview that has had a tradition of formal book-keeping and recording of research. Consider an article about (say) the Mahabharata, which has been kept alive for thousands of years in India, by a tradition of story-telling. None of these stories would be considered a credible, scholarly source, while a "research" article published in a Western journal about the Mahabharata, based on flawed colonial theories of Indian history, would be considered more credible.

Such kinds of questions have prompted us to explore non-predatory models of knowledge representation, where multiple narratives can co-exist without necessarily having to blend into one another in a semantic melting pot. This question also has implications on managing a large country like India, that has ample amounts of innate diversity. We cannot have a pan-Indian "melting pot" (like for example, having everyone speak in Hindi), without causing severe cultural damage. Yet at the same time, we have to nurture and develop the sense of Oneness underlying the diversity such that the disparate cultures exist separately, yet interoperate seamlessly.

Inspired by such thoughts, we have developed a knowledge model in our lab, called Many Worlds on a Frame (MWF), which we have in turn, applied to several problems like knowledge integration, privacy preserving transactions, decentralised access control, etc.

While we have published much of our work, I really do not know the impact factors of the venues where we published, nor have we kept track of the citations. We have not really tried to play the research networking game of increasing citations and impact either.

Whenever faced with a dilemma of working towards greater impact, or working towards greater insight, we have always favoured insight over impact.

I have seen that working towards impact is primarily driven by a sense of insecurity, and it only ends up increasing the insecurity. Working towards insight on the other hand, gives us more insight into the insecure and fragile nature of our lives and careers, and ironically, this insight helps us manage our insecurities better.

Much as we like to be objective, and separate ourselves from our ideas, it is amply clear that the original ideas we develop are an extension of our selves. We develop it in an objective fashion, because we care about the quality of the idea. But that does not refute the fact that ultimately we see ourselves in the ideas that we develop.

To live in a system that judges solely based on our outcomes and quantifiable factors, makes us vulnerable to getting assaulted at every step. It is a matter of time before depression gets the better of us, if we start implicitly believing that our outcomes and metrics somehow define our worth, as a person. 

Dharma and Evolution

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 environment.

Natural selection is based on a concept of "fitness" of phenotypes and the process is called "survival of the fittest." The problem now becomes what defines the "fitness" of a phenotype. At the core of the theory seems to be a circular argument that says that, selection is based on "fitness" and "fitness" can be established by observing which phenotype gets selected.

To overcome such circularity, the concept of fitness has been attributed to various characteristics by different people over time. Fitness has been equated with characteristics like ability to produce offsprings, physical combat ability, ability to survive in harsh conditions, etc.

Although Darwin perhaps did not mean it this way, the idea of "natural selection" rests on a "judgement" metaphor of life. It is almost "religious" in its suggestion, that nature sits on a high pedestal and decides which phenotype shall live and which shall not. And species had better adopt the slogan, "be fit, or perish."

This judgement metaphor of evolution has given rise to so many misguided social, political and legal misadventures. Such a metaphor has made people explore theories of racial purity, it also created an obsessive compulsion about physical desirability leading to complications like anorexia, etc.

Regardless of what definition we take for fitness, there is ample evidence to the contrary. Phenotypes that were considered the epitome of fitness have either been deselected from the gene pool, or evolution seems to have simply ignored it.

Dinosaurs were "fit" in the sense of having enormous physical capacity. Yet, they are extinct now. Cockroaches are "fit" in the sense of being able to survive under vastly different conditions. Yet, despite the fact that cockroaches survived where dinosaurs didn't, nature preferred to evolve dinosaurs into birds, rather than asymptotically converging every species to the cockroach. Germs multiply very fast (have several offsprings) which is another interpretation of fitness. Yet, several disease causing germs are still contained across the world, and have not exactly resulted in a worldwide pandemic.

So clearly, while evolution is there to see and does explain how life functions, the problem is with the "judgement" model of how life works.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Let us now develop a "Theory of Being" concept of how life works. 

What I am going to assert here is that fitness is a consequence of evolutionary dynamics and not a driver of evolutionary dynamics. 

To recap the theory of being, the fundamental unit of existence is an abstract entity called "being" (atma). Every being has an innate capability for self expression called prana. Self expression is constrained and characterised not just by the being's innate capabilities, but also by the characteristics of its environment called the vidhi. The interplay between the prana and the vidhi, settles down in some stable state, which is called its dharma. Dharma is the state where a being maximises its self expression given its innate characteristics and the environmental characteristics. Disparate stable states of being for a given species, represent the different phenotypes that are observable for that species. 

In that sense, the phenotype itself is an expression of fitness -- it is an optimal state of robust sustainability that is achieved by the interplay between the being's prana and its vidhi. 

The fact that some phenotypes survive and some do not, has to do with the characteristics of the environment, rather than that of the being. When the vidhi changes, some phenotypes that emerged as optimal states in the previous generation, may no longer be the optimal states for the next generation. The previous generation did nothing "wrong" or "unfit" for its phenotype to be rejected by the next generation. It is just that the vidhi has changed, and what was optimal earlier is no longer optimal.

So, rather than nature passing judgments on us, nature is just finding its dharma -- that is, its stable states over time. Life in turn is responding to how nature is changing, and changing its stable states suitably. 

Climactic changes in the Mesozoic era made the dinosaurial life form unsustainable. This life form found a new class of optima in the form of birds. This change is not a judgement on the dinosaurs or their "unfit" life form. 

The cockroach life form was optimal then, and is optimal now. Stable as it may be, its prana is very limited. So, while it has survived, it has not become the "global optima" onto which all phenotypes converged. 

The selfish gene seems to be driven not only by survivability, but also by maximising of the complexity (entropy?) of self expression.

The power of disassociative reification

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 this though, my father made a simple statement, which greatly helped me. He said, "this is what is the characteristic of mobs." 

This one statement suddenly changed the situation from a scary event happening to us, to a fascinating curiosity that we are witness to. I was no longer pushed by people and it was no longer people screaming and fighting at one another. It was a "mob" that was being itself. In front of me was not a harrowing experience to run away from, but a fascinating ring-side seat for observing a mob in action! 

This incident had greatly piqued my curiosity about the cognition of human groups, so much so that, even today, I work on understanding the collective behaviour of groups both in the online and offline worlds. 

What had happened that day, was that my dad taught me the awesome potential of "disassociative reification". When faced by a crisis, suppose we are able to "reify" an abstract entity to describe what is happening, and disassociate ourselves from it, the crisis happening to us, now becomes a curiosity that we can observe. 

I've since applied disassociative reification in several situations to keep myself from getting affected. As a result, I've been able to escape psychological attacks like gaslighting, manipulation, opinion-moulding, groupthink, etc. and keep a sense of independent perspective on the matter.