It's a small world after all...

 While Indian thought has profound fundamentals, like every other hermeneutic framework, there are a number of mistaken notions and delusions that continue to bring untold misery. Reform and rejuvenation is nothing new to Indian thought-- which has seen several reformers over the years including Buddha, Mahavira, Shankara, Ramanuja, Madhwa, etc. Indeed, the resilience of Indian culture is due to its ability to reflect, question and reform itself.  In this series, I'll put forth some delusions that I've encountered, that continue to complicate our lives and brings unnecessary hardship.  One of the most damaging delusions in Indian thought is the idea of "prarabda karma" or the "karmic baggage" (whatever that means), that we start off at the beginning of our lives, based on our actions in our "previous life". This mistaken concept leads to a variety of cognitive fallacies like self-fulfilling prophecies, affirming the consequent, begging the question

In the last couple of years, I have spent a lot of time trying to interpret the notion of dharma and traditional Indian worldview using systems theory. You can check out older posts with the label " Theory of Being " and also my book on Amazon called " Theory of Being ".  In this post, I put forth some more working ideas towards building a more comprehensive theory of systems using Indian thought. The ideas presented here are work in progress-- meant to provoke thought and get feedback. Ideas presented in this blog are subject to future revisions as I get more clarity.  *~*~*~*~*~* When we study systems we are first taught that a system is an ensemble of interacting parts. The interaction  between the parts or the system  dynamics, is what characterises a system-- without which, it would just be a collection of different parts, and not a system.  Systems are everywhere-- in fact, a non-system is much harder to find and/or create, than a system. Even an inanimate p

During the recent election for the next US president, there were a lot of expert opinions, debates and analyses by WhatsApp experts going around.  In one of these recent debates, I witnessed a debate that went something like this. One member of the group criticised one of the candidates in the US election fray, saying that even though the candidate had her roots in India and was wooing Indian-American voters, she would be bad for Indian interests, given her stance on several issues bothering India at the moment. To this, one of the others answered that, the candidate's misadventures with India would be of no interest to them, and that there are several American issues that she would address well, which is enough to get her elected.  The above opinion would have been nothing out of the ordinary, had this been said by an American. But this was said by someone who grew up in India, went to the US a couple of decades ago and became a naturalised US citizen, and who still has a large ex

 Bhaja Govindam (Think of Govinda-- Krishna) was a great composition of Adi Shankara, written in the 9th century CE. This composition was immortalised into music by the famous M S Subbulakshmi, and her renditions are widely played today.  Here is an English translation of the composition by Ramesh Krishnakumar, which I encountered today and thought of sharing through my channels. The translation written in red  is my translation from my understanding. Bhajagovindam bhajagovindam .. O, Worship Govinda, O worship Govinda..... Govindam bhaja muudhamadhe ...Let Govinda be the object of your worship... O ignorant one.... Bhajagovindam bhajagovindam O, Worship Govinda, Worship Govinda ... govindam bhajamuudhamate . ...Let Govinda be the object of your worship... O ignorant one.... sampraapte sannihite kaale ..when the time of death comes.. ... regain real happiness at least at the end of your time (death).... nahi nahi rakshati dukrijnkarane ....your knowledge of grammar (worldly w

In school, one of our first introductions to theorem-proving came from geometry. Sometime in high school, we learnt about Euclid's axioms and several geometric theorems that were proved from the axioms.  One of the main techniques for proving geometric theorems was by the use of a compass and a (uncalibrated) ruler. For instance, we learnt how to bisect a line segment using a compass and marking intersecting arcs from either ends and connecting the arcs together to cross the line.  Every method of inquiry has its own advantages and limitations, and embeds within it some deep assumptions about the underlying worldview. So too it is with the way in which Euclid's methods developed. Geometry literally means "earth measurements"-- and Euclid's geometry is deeply rooted in this application area.  One of the vexing problems with the compass and ruler approach is to make arbitrary divisions of geometric elements. For instance, we used to be challenged by "Maths Olym

Recently I came across an argument that sustainable lifestyles promoted by dharmic thought can be implemented only in "sustainable geography"-- meaning tropical regions where life forms thrives in abundance-- and cannot be implemented in "unsustainable" geography like deserts or colder regions of the earth.  In this post, let me try to deconstruct this argument.  There is definitely an influence pathway between "sustainable geography" and a culture of sustainability. But to say that there is an exclusive causal relationship between the two, would be a great oversimplification.  Worse, this argument also leads to some kind of a fatalism. Other than tropical regions of the world, we cannot sustain anywhere else anyway, therefore either these cultures collapse, or they dominate and consume others (leading to a collapse of the entire world-- but much later).  Such kinds of fatalism are typically only used to justify one's reckless acts-- for instance, a t

Some days ago, I was reading a post on Quora about emigrating to Canada. The person who had posted an answer was saying that she shifted to Canada a few months ago "in order to give a better life for her 2 year old son" and went on to describe the immigration procedures and protocols.  What caught my attention is the underlying justification behind her decision, which formed the basis for effecting an irreversible change in her life and that of her son.  Of course, it is quite possible that the author and her son were subject to oppression, persecution and unspeakable horrors from her family and society back in India, and emigration was the only option. But then, it is also quite unlikely that someone who has fled persecution would be writing so openly, and make no references to their trauma as part of their decision.  The more plausible explanation is that, it was her choice and preference to emigrate to another country in search of a better life. But something was pricking

It is common to see people lashing out against "communal" cultures, and at the same time swear by clubs, communities, farming collectives, open source, (un-)conferences, etc. Not realising, they are one and the same thing. Indian society has predominantly been "communal" in nature. Not casteist. Caste is a feudal construct, and the Indian "caste system" that is considered characteristic of Indian culture is largely a European import. Indian society had different kinds of communities that went with different names-- jati, mata, pangada, kula, gotra, varna, samuha, samaja, balaga, okkuta, sampradaya, etc. Of these, only kula and gotra pertained to blood lineage (dynasty and blood ancestry, respectively), while the rest were based on several other factors. A community is different from a formal organization, or an amorphous crowd. An organization has formal, contractual association of its members to the collective, that comes with a legal binding. A cr

Yesterday, in two different conversations, I got to speak of my misgivings about current day currency markets. In one of them I was asked, if I were able to change something, what would it be? And I responded by saying that I would abolish currency markets in their current form. Currency, which is fundamentally supposed to be about trade, has today become a weapon of power. And at the centre of it is the current form of currency markets, which, rather than help facilitate global free trade, is actually exacerbating power dynamics across countries and civilisations. The current form of inter-currency trade has an interesting history. We will not go into detail into this-- I've explained the history of inter-currency trade, in my 2006 book The Power Law of Information . Currency today is predominantly tightly tied with nations and their sense of national sovereignty. There have been several exceptions to this, but with limited success. Some countries use or accept currencies

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this post are just speculative-- meant to initiate objective and dispassionate discussion. It is not a fatalistic rant, meant to appeal to emotions.  What we are seeing today, it goes without saying, is unprecedented in recent times. Nowhere in living memory was the entire world in a state of lockdown, with no end in sight as to when and how things will come back to how they were. What we are seeing today, is a state of saturation of our existing crisis responses. All our existing responses and strategies to handle epidemics have proven to be inadequate in stopping the Corona, which continues on its rampage worldwide. What we are seeing today is a very imminent discontinuity in the nature of our lives. No longer will our lives be a linear projection of our past, and no amount of past successes of businesses, organisations and even of countries, can guarantee future sustainability. What we are seeing today, as Nassim Taleb would put it--

The nCovid-19 saga really scares me. Yes, the virus and its highly contagious nature, is one part of the scare. The other part of the scare is our response to it. Yes, we need aggressive measures to "flatten the curve" and enforce social distancing, hand washing, etc. But the way we are going about implementing it, has the potential to make the problem worse, with long term collateral damage. Let me explain. One of my primary areas of research is in complex social networks and its emergent properties. What we are seeing today is almost a textbook case of all kinds of network paradoxes in action-- Braess' paradox, Cobra effects, Streisand effects, Prisoners' dilemma, bull-whip effect, etc. Just about all of these, refer to situations where a given policy or norm is adopted towards achieving a particular goal, but the end result would be exactly the opposite. It is somewhat like the popular saying that, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Not sure how many of us can see this-- but from what I can understand about social dynamics in India, the picture is not reassuring at all. In fact, almost on a daily basis, I struggle not to panic about what is happening, and to think calmly about what can we do to counter this. I still have no answer about the latter, but here is what I learned about the former. Indian society today is a deadly combination of  deindividuation and deracination . Deindividuation refers to cultural invalidation of individual agency. The irony of this is that, our cultural roots are deeply anchored in the importance of individual self expression. Enlightenment is seen as self awareness, and our texts recommend several pathways (called margas ) for self realisation. Yet, over the centuries, we have turned 180 degrees in this regard, and have made passive compliance and obedience to the collective will, as virtues. It is not uncommon to see people proudly exclaiming that they are going to "