On interpretations of "self actualization"

In management lessons, we are taught about "Maslow's hierarchy" that details the different layers of human endeavours. Human needs are layered in this model into five layers: physiological needs, security needs, social needs, esteem needs and finally self actualization.

Self actualization is said to be the highest endeavor where the person is concerned with personal growth and with fulfilling one's potential. Self actualized people are less interested in social acceptance or esteem and are more focused towards unleashing their potential.

The theory as a whole is profound and very pertinent. The notion of self actualization as the ultimate endeavour is also a profound thought.

However, the nuances lie in what constitutes "self actualization" and it is here, where I have some issues about how it is interpreted.

Self actualization is often interpreted in a crude sense as the dominance of one's self over the environment. Such an interpretation for instance, glorifies the ego and venerates "strong" leaders who build large empires (of either the social or the capitalist variety) and "commands" a huge following.

Some of my experiences with folks who swear by Ayn Rand and her theory of the "virtues of selfishness" belong to that category (not saying that Ayn Rand herself interpreted self-actualization that way).

At the core of such an interpretation is the paradigm of territoriality, where "liberation" is equated with dominance and ownership. Hence liberation of the self happens only when one's self no longer needs to be driven by other's diktats and instead itself dominates and marks its environment as its property.

In contrast, if one were to read the works of Ramana Maharshi, Adi Shankaracharya and other Indian philosophers, their notion of "liberation" is when the Atman (Self) resonates with the Brahman (Universal self), and discovers that the "seed" that forms the entire universe lies within itself (tat tvam asi).

The self in this model, does not impose itself on the world, but discovers itself and develops itself so that it can resonate with the universal self.

That there is such a thing called universal self or global consciousness is central to this model. Something, which AI theories like superintelligence is coming to terms with. Conjecturing the existence of an entity that is unverified, by itself does not make it fallacious -- string theory and dark matter theory adopt such methods too.

Self-actualized people in this model do not necessarily "do" anything -- but act in a way as though things are done "through" them.

At the core of this latter theory is the paradigm of "harmony". Self-actualization happens only when the self is able to resonate or harmonize with the universal self. It is facilitated not necessarily by accumulation of wealth and/or overcoming the other lower needs in the Maslow hierarchy, but by an inner exploration and obviates the importance of the lower level needs.

This paradigm also has no notion of dominance or ownership. The liberated self does not "realize its true potential" by manifesting itself in the outside world, but "realizes the seeds of the universe within itself". Both look similar, but there are subtle differences. Realizing one's true potential does not need a notion of harmony. One could realize one's strength and resilience in tough times. This is not the same as self actualization of the latter variety. To realize the seeds of the universe within oneself, one needs to think not about oneself, but of the essence of the entire universe. The self needs to explore beyond itself in order to find the essence of the entirety within itself.

For the purposes of argument, let me call the former model as "selfish actualization" and the latter one as "self actualization".

Another recurrent meme, especially among artificial intelligence (AI) researchers is the concept of self-aware robots and machines. And for some reason, there is a popular belief that a self-aware computer program would start dominating or taking over the world. The self aware computer program called VIKI in the movie "I, Robot" is an example.

This is something which I again find strange to accept. Self awareness is an important element for developing a compassionate, empathetic and wise worldview. Why then, would self aware robots want to take over the world when they may as well turn out to be wise and compassionate?

The problem here again is with "selfish actualization" masquerading as "self actualization" driving the thought process. The problem is with the paradigm that assumes that every self necessarily tries to impose and dominate over the world, and that peace in the world exists only in the form of an emergent equilibrium between disparate dominating selves.

Similarly, a lot of what is taught today in business schools and what is practiced by businesses is "selfish actualization" rather than self actualization. Businesses are taught to "capture" a market, rather than "participate" in it. Amazon wants to upstage Flipkart as part of its India strategy, Uber wants to upstage Ola, Starbucks wants to have no place for Cafe Coffee Day (and Cafe Coffee Day ensures that Starbucks face lots of hurdles in entering India), and so on.. Businesses today want to dominate and "own" the market, rather than participate and blend into the market adding to its flavour.

So, all I am saying... is give "harmony" a chance.. in our paradigms.

The algebra of harmony

Recently, we were visiting Malaysia and in our hotel room, we found this magazine talking about local cultural events. One specific entry caught my eye -- the "Mek Bungo" dance. Here is a portrayal of the dance:

The apparently "storyless" dance feature

As one might see, the dance is about a girl and a boy who fall in love. And that's it.

This apparently "storyless" dance feature was familiar to me at a deep level, and it took me back to my childhood, when we were taught something unique in our homes -- celebrating harmony.

We were taught to see systems comprising of multiple, interacting elements, regardless of what abstraction level we were addressing. Be it the human body or societies or the climate or atoms -- they are all systems comprising of multiple interacting elements.

Systems are characterized by states of stability or "harmony" where some aspect(s) of the system is (are) optimal. In traditional Indian thought, such stable states are called "dharma". Dharmic thought sees systems everywhere. Even static objects like a stone for example, are seen as systems that are in an extreme state of apparent inactivity. Ayurveda for example, views our body to be a state of "harmony" or a stable interference pattern, formed by several interacting forces. There are several interference patterns that are stable (primarily three) -- these are called doshas. Illness is seen as disharmony, which needs to be rectified by bringing back the body into its natural state of harmony.

In my high school, I used to have a chronic case of sinusitis. It frequently led to infections and high fever. Several medical interventions gave me only symptomatic relief. It was finally, a course of Ayurvedic treatment that helped me out of chronic sinusitis. The doctor who treated me explained this to me: Allopathy (Western medicine) treats the disease, while Ayurveda treats the patient. His argument was that my stressful lifestyle (because of school and exam worries) had led to a state of systemic imbalance, which manifest as several chronic illnesses, including sinusitis, fibromyalgia, etc. His treatment addressed these imbalances rather than treating the chronic sinus itself (also, primary treatment was not required as there was no infection).

As humans, all we had to do to lead a life, was to realize systems that we are part of, or that affect us -- systems within and systems outside of us and systems that subsume us. We need to then work towards bringing the system to a state of harmony (dharma). In order to keep harmonizing more and more complex systems, we will need to evolve ourselves physically, emotionally, intellectually, philosophically and spiritually. Finally, we liberate ourselves from this task of harmonization to attain a state of detachment (moksha).

This is exemplified by a quote by Krishna to Arjuna in the Bhagwad Gita. Krishna first explains to Arjuna why the war was necessary to bring the system back to a state of dharma (which is why the Mahabharata war is called a dharam-yudh), but then goes on to suggest the following to Arjuna to do after the war (verse 66):

सर्वधर्मान परित्यज्य मामेकं शारणं व्रज ।
अहं त्वाम सर्वपापेभ्यो मोक्षयिष्यामि मा शुचः

"Abdicate all dharma and repose in me, I will wash away your sins and bring you to moksha"

The notion of dharma has been variously translated as religion, ethics, duty, etc. which in turn, gives the above statement several weird meanings. Think of the above getting translated as, "Abdicate all ethics and come to me.." or "Abdicate all religion and come to me.." (like as though, I am the only true religion). Interpreting dharma as harmonization of a system, gives it a much clearer interpretation.

A system may have several states of harmony or stability. Each state of harmony is a state of local optimality. Think of a mountain range like the Himalayas. Each hill top or a plateau or a mountain peak constitutes a state of optimality -- we cannot go any higher from there in any direction. Not all peaks are at the same height, and each state of optimality results in different characteristics of the system.

Hence, upholding harmony is not a simple task at all. When we bring the system to a low state of harmony -- it appears stable, but it may soon get saturated. Establishing harmony at a higher level of fitness requires one to deeply understand the system and its dynamics, as well as face the wrath of forces in the system that want to settle down at a state of harmony that has a lower level of fitness (and may be prone to saturation or is no longer tenable).

When I was suffering from a chronic illness, my body had settled down to a lower level of harmony -- a lower peak if you will. I was intellectually optimal with my schools and exams, but was emotionally sub-optimal. In order to perform well, I had to subdue all questions in my mind that were not in the exam syllabus. As a 14 year old, I had lots of questions that pained me -- including questions about the world in general, and questions about the changes happening in my own body. All these were irrelevant to the board exams and entrance exams coming up and had to be stifled. I was also nutritionally sub-optimal with my daily diet insufficient to keep me working at the desired level of intellect.

My doctor, in addition to offering medicines -- basically diet supplements -- also helped me address these systemic issues within me. Such efforts encountered internal resistance, as trying to find a greater level of harmony required me to give up on what was currently working. This process was hence gradual and deliberate, requiring me to recognize myself and work towards a better state. (Unfortunately, this doctor died in a freak road accident after a few months, and I've not found anyone else since then, who was so clear in his concepts.)

Another element of upholding harmony is to recognize and celebrate it explicitly. By celebrating the harmony we seek, we turn greater attention from ourselves or from the collective to the desired harmony, rather than fret on the current state of disharmony. Larger attention towards a possible harmonious state can help manifest such a state by making it replace the current configuration (especially in an evolutionary setting -- it is always better to convey to the next generation, the desired harmonious state, rather than elucidate them on the details of the current state of disharmony).

This is what characterized several art forms in such a paradigm. Art was pure expression, with no explicit message. Celebrating love, nature, happiness, seasons, rains, relationships, and just about anything. 

Minimalist and Maximalist thinking

This is yet another post in my informal series contrasting between the East and the West, in their ways of thinking. Within the context of India, this informal series tries to clarify my understanding of the oft-cited chasm between (Westernized) India and (indigenous) Bharat.

Before I start, some usual disclaimers:

1. None of my writings are meant to "invalidate" or "illegitimize" either the West or the East. Sure, there will be scholarly and objective criticisms about some world view being applied to solve some problem. But this does not mean that I reject one world view in favour of another. 
2. All these posts are of a scholarly intent (including those where I appear to rant) -- the idea behind these posts is to provoke thought and gain better understanding. These posts do not represent any form of cultural or political activism or agenda. 

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As noted in my previous posts, Western thought is largely reductionist in its approach, and is built upon the concept of a particle as the building block of physical reality. In contrast, Eastern thought (thought processes that are found outside of formal education systems in the East) is holistic in its approach, viewing "systems" as fundamental building blocks. 

This is not to say that the West does not recognize systems, or that the East does not recognize particles. The contrast is in the way the respective epistemological foundations are built -- that is, in our approach towards organization of knowledge and thought. 

Which is why for example, where the West thinks in terms of truth, falsity and the law of excluded middle, the East thinks in terms of systemic fitness (incorrectly interpreted in the West as "fuzzy" notions of truth).

Reductionist thinking is "minimalist" in its approach. It seeks to reduce a complex observation to its bare essentials, and is exemplified by the notion of Occam's razor. Foundations of such thought processes may be found in Plato's philosophy of Essentialism. Although, there are lot of debates around essentialism, the core idea that every entity can be characterized by discovering its latent "true nature" (or -ness), still drives most reductionist approaches to thought. 

As stated before, it is not that essentialist thinking does not exist in the East. The concept of "Tattva" comes close. But by and large, this concept has not been the primary driver for the way the Eastern mind has tried to approach problems and gain understanding. 

Minimalism has a number of interesting properties. A minimalist framework is "exclusive" by design. Here, everything is by default rejected, unless they can be accepted (or entailed by a logical chain) by the ground truths. 

Minimalism is closely related to the "closed-word assumption (CWA)" which can be defined as "ignorance as falsity." Hence, what we do not know to be true, is considered false by default (unless, of course, it can be refuted). 

It is important to note that minimalism is not the same as the CWA. In scientific inquiry for example, an assertion that cannot be proven to be true, is considered an open conjecture. An assertion is considered false only if it can be proven to be false. 

But here, I'm talking about the general, social approach towards thought that is practised by lay persons -- that is driven by minimalism, but which generally fails to acknowledge and respect nuances like the above. This ends up reducing minimalism to closed-world reasoning. 

Minimalist thinking is also called as "least fixed-points" thinking. The ground truths or the "axioms" on which thought progresses need to be minimalist to begin with. If we have to describe a universe of discourse, a minimalist axiomatic framework needs to have a set of axioms that are as less in number as possible, and are mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive to describe the universe of discourse. 

A natural consequence of this when applied to human reasoning is that the "self" is considered the axiomatic basis for all cognition. As Maslow's hierarchy posits, the ultimate goal for man is "self actualization." 

The minimalist world view, begins from the self and its primitive, immediate needs (primary narcissism), and expands to reach out to the universe. 

Holistic thinking on the other hand, is "maximalist" in its approach. It considers a "system" as the building block of thought. A system is characterized by "dynamics." Holistic thinking considers the universe to be built from an fundamental "dynamic" (vibration, consciousness, etc.) and entities as merely end points or extremal states of the dynamics. 

Thus, the Yin and Yang or the Purusha and Prakriti are not disparate entities that are interacting to form the universe. They are merely extremal end points of the fundamental "consciousness" (Brahman) that is the universe. 

In maximalist thought, an individual's self is considered to be just a part of the whole and not as an axiomatic basis from which we look outside into the universe. 

Anything that has a self is an "aware" and "conscious" part of the whole. But consciousness can have different levels of "fitness" or "awareness," which describes the extent to which the self considers itself as part of the whole. A completely non-conscious entity would consider itself (if it can consider itself) completely separated from the whole, while a being at a higher level of "fitness" of consciousness sees itself to be closer -- or even the same -- as the whole. 

While the ultimate aim of the self in minimalist thought is self-actualization, the ultimate aim of the self in maximalist thought is moksha -- or self-awareness and liberation from all forms of ignorance and a state of oneness of the self with the universe. 

One might argue and it might indeed be the case that self-actualization and moksha are one and the same. A person who has reached moksha would likely be observable as a self-actualizing being. The two ideals may indeed be the same -- just that it is approached from different directions, or the paradigmatic perspectives are vastly different.

While minimalist thought seeks solutions to problems (which can be shown to be theoretically the same as "deciding" on an assertion -- or establishing its truth or falsity), maximalist thought seeks to establish harmony among the several variables that form the collective.

Solving a problem and establishing harmony have different characteristics. The former is a "convergent" and reductive process. We need to converge to the one solution that decides our question one way or the other. Establishing harmony on the other hand, is a divergent process. Given a system of variables and interactions, there could be several ways in which harmony can be established -- each with their own "fitness" levels. 

The tool for the minimalist thinker is cogitation, while the tool for the maximalist thinker is meditation.

Cogitation pertains to adopting principles of logical reasoning, and applying them in a systematic fashion starting from the axioms, till a solution is reached. Meditation pertains to letting go of all thought and emotions and become a dispassionate observer, in order to see the holistic big picture emerging from the disparate interactions. 

A minimalist thought process may be considered to be a "linear" chain connecting axioms to conclusions (although the process itself need not be linear). On the other hand, a maximalist intervention into a system usually involves several independent and concurrent entailments happening in different parts of the system, so that they collectively result in a better state of harmony. 

It is sometimes incorrectly stated that the Eastern reasoning is "circular" since it does not follow a single linear chain of entailments. This is a misnomer, and also, "circular reasoning" means something very different. Circular reasoning means to "beg the question" or try to use the assertion itself as an axiom, resulting in a non-wellfounded (but consistent) entailment. 

Holistic or maximalist thinking is not circular -- it is perhaps better characterized as "concurrent". It comprises of following several entailment chains concurrently, looking for an emergent state of harmony.

"The wisdom of crowds" is a practical example of maximalist thought and emergent harmony (or insight, in this case).

Ideas and identities

For a long time now, I have resisted any effort to bring research on topics like language, culture and history into my lab. It is not that I think that these topics are unimportant. But it is because I think that as a society, we do not have the skill to extract ideas from identity for scholarly perusal.

Topics like language, culture, history etc. are teeming with issues and controversies regarding social and cultural identities. Identity driven politics is an intense element that we endure daily.

A research lab is by definition, a battleground. It is a battleground for ideas, where ideas clash and transform and evolve.

But when identities masquerade as ideas, it spells nothing but trouble.

A clash of ideas is invigorating, dispassionate and impersonal. We end up energised and enthusiastic after a successful clash of ideas.

A clash of identities is disspiriting, passionate and deeply personal. We end up feeling battered and bruised after a clash of identities.

Much of the issues in academic environments (including the recent JNU controversy) are because of our collective inability to separate ideas from identity.

A clash of ideas makes no noise and is hardly apparent to anyone other than those involved in the clash. A clash of identities on the other hand, spills over to the streets, gets paraded on news hour, along with a whole lot of other dispiriting elements.

Ideas do not have boundaries, while identities do. Cultures that are supposedly enemies of one another, watch each other so much with trepidation, that they end up exchanging and adopting ideas from one another.

One of the worst things one can do to subjugate others is to impose our idea of their identity on them. And that is what happens quite routinely, in studies of language, culture and history. Sure, there objective elements of language, culture and history; but these things are also deeply personal. Oh, and let us not even talk about religion.

The origin of language and culture is the human mind. The language that we speak is created by us in our minds. We only borrow linguistic constructs like vocabulary, metaphors, etc. from whatever we interact with, to help in reducing the effort in building our language.

Similarly, culture is an emergent characteristic of our values and the way we interact with others when driven by our values. We borrow cultural constructs from the environment, but it is we who create our culture.

If an alien virus were to infect the human race such that, the human mind were to stop functioning and stop interpreting our world, language and culture would cease to exist.

The same is true with history and religion. We all have our personal history and a personal sense of spirituality. The objective elements of history and religion we study are driven by clash of identities to result in some dominant idea.

None of the above arguments imply that we should stop studying subjects like language, culture, history and religion. If anything, these subjects require a lot more discipline than the study of the impersonal physical world or the elegant mathematical world. A discipline that requires one to separate ideas from identities and allow the ideas to clash in a way that is elucidating and empowering, rather than passionate and disspiriting.

Sure, all of us like to believe that we have such a discipline. But allow me to be sceptical of such over confidence.

Invalidation and disqualification

In several of my earlier writings and posts on social media, I have talked about how south India is notorious for its high rates of depression (much of which goes unreported due to social stigma). It is comparable to that of Scandinavian countries, which has the highest depression rates in Europe.

However, there is an important difference. Depression is primarily driven by physical causes in Scandinavia (specifically, lack of adequate sunlight in winters). In south India, it is primarily due to social causes.

For this reason, much of the cases of depression in south India -- severe, as they may be -- are not "clinical" cases.

However, perhaps due to a lack of adequate literature, or perhaps due to the fact that "Science" is still predominantly characterized and driven by the West, most "mainstream" therapists treat these cases as clinical and prescribe medicines -- usually hormone supplements or mood stabilizers.

But then, the patients would not really be suffering from hormonal imbalances, and these supplements often result in side effects like nausea, drowsiness, etc. During my student days (in the 1990s), I have even been subject to Ketamine injections to treat depressive symptoms. While they give instant relief, they usually end up making us feeling much worse over time. They do not address the primary source of depression -- which is social in nature, which is exacerbated by the drug side effects. Not only are social factors driving the patient to a depressed state, the effects of the drug make them even more vulnerable to these social dynamics that made them depressed in the first place!

So what are these invisible social dynamics that are proving so deadly?

For several years, I've searched hard to characterize this. I've trained my focus on distorted notions of "humility" that pervades our culture, which sometimes includes elements of submissiveness and slavery. Submissiveness and "surrender" are often celebrated and venerated as virtues in the name of humility and devotion.

However, while submissiveness and slavery are closely related, submissiveness or a "divine" form of surrender is also an integral element of any deep spiritual quest. It is quite easy to trace the roots of submissiveness in our culture to spirituality rather than slavery.

I have now come to believe that interpreting humility as submissiveness and glorifying it, is not really the source of rampant depression in our society.

There is I believe, something even more insidious than submissiveness.

This is the characteristic of invalidation and disqualification, which are again distorted notions of humility, but much more harmful than submissiveness.

Invalidation is the process of illegitimizing someone as a person. It is different from skepticism, disagreement or rejection. Invalidation does not reject a person's ideas or their values or their worldview. It is a judgement on the person and rejects the person itself.

Persons subject to repeated spells of invalidation ends up "disqualifying" themselves psychologically. They end up believing that they are illegitimate as a person and they don't deserve to exist. Routine life becomes an intensely painful experience for them, as they are continuously fighting a deep-rooted battle to retain their sense of an integral self. This deep-rooted battle is not visible outside, but it nevertheless has its impact on the person's persona and social life.

An invalidating environment is self-perpetuating, in that, a people who invalidate others are often struggling to validate their own selves. Hence, a self-disqualifying person would receive little or no support from others in an invalidating environment. Worse, they would probably be subject to even more judgement and invalidation due to their sub par social skills.

Invalidation does not need any kind of physical or sexual abuse. It does not leave behind any physical scars or hormonal imbalances. A sense of self-disqualification can set in by repeated exposure to invalidating stimuli. If a child is brought up hearing "No", "Don't", etc. or is lectured and chided at every step at home or at school or in the outside world in general, they end up disqualifying themselves. Similarly, if children are repeatedly ridiculed for their emotions, are ignored when they express an emotional need, or are told with the best of intent to "cheer up and be strong" or urged to be not so "selfish" and  "think about others" when they need emotional support, they end up disqualifying themselves.

Even worse, invalidation is often a self-fulfilling prophecy. When children are repeatedly invalidated, they end up treating the invalidating behaviour as normal and start acting in a manner that elicits such a behaviour. Hence, the more the elders and teachers worry and fuss about their children's inability (to perform well in school, for example) the more their children will act in a manner that will elicit such a worry.

And finally, self-disqualification is an intensely distorted form of humility. Self-disqualification is even more intense than self-deprecation, which is again treated as a virtue. Self-deprecation is superficial, while self-disqualification operates at much deeper levels. Self-disqualification is often masked in layers of denial or defense by rationalizing it away as being humble, or even promoted and advocated as a virtue.

After long years of suffering and even longer years of searching, I think I've finally got a handle on what is the source of depression that has brought much suffering to our society.

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 "what is firm and durable, what sustains and maintains.."

In current day approaches to systems theory, such definitions point to concepts like invariance, optimality, equilibrium and stability. The concept of Dharma is applied to human (and animal) societies, but it is derived from an even more fundamental concept called Rta, which is the postulated fundamental element of invariance across all matter and physical phenomena.

In the Western world, an important milestone in the 20th century is the emergence of the mathematics of rational choice and correlated rational choice. This pertains to modeling the dynamics of systems of rational, autonomous agents (like humans or animals) that operating in a situated environment. This field of study is popularly called Game Theory.

While Game Theory had its beginnings in the analysis of parlour games, it quickly grew in scope to encompass the analysis of any form of situated, correlated rational choice across disparate autonomous agents. Some key results like the "Nash equilibrium" are now the stuff of popular artistic imagination.

Game Theory quickly expanded beyond questions concerning situated rational choice, with the introduction of "iterated" and "evolutionary" games. In these games, agents interact with one another over several iterations, giving them the luxury of "memory". Hence, if one player betrayed another player in one iteration, future actions by the other player would likely change in order to account for the betrayal. A strategy for an iterated game needs to keep this in mind before committing an action.

Evolutionary games bring in yet another dimension by introducing the notion of "generations". In evolutionary games, over time, players may change their beliefs about other players or the system in general, and in turn, their strategies. Evolutionary games are characteristic of not just human societies, but of life in general. The dynamics of genetic coding and crossover to create offspring, are often driven by evolutionary prospects.

Hence, animals that live in cold climates tend to evolve furs and other mechanisms to protect from the cold, while animals living in topical climates tend to evolve higher sensitivity towards predators and other creatures.

In evolutionary games, occasionally there are strategic configurations that are not only very robust in their environments, but are also robust against other contending strategies. Such strategic configurations have no incentive to evolve further, as from a strategic standpoint, they are infallible.

Such configurations are called "Evolutionarily Stable Strategies" or ESS for short. They represent strategic configurations that cannot be easily "invaded" and dominated by a new (also called "mutant") incumbent strategy that was initially rare.

For instance, a business idea that is an ESS tends to prevail not only across economic or social upheavals, but also prevails when confronted with other, contending business ideas that may be more powerful. The ESS is also called the evolutionary "best response" function to the specifics of the game. In other words, regardless of how others evolve, an ESS provides the best strategic response to the challenges posed by others' choices. And when others adopt ESS, the ESS is still the best strategic prospect.

The above description of an ESS is precisely the notion of Dharma! A dharmic act is one that is robust and that which prevails across upheavals. Its significance does not get eroded when confronted with other, more powerful thoughts. And when faced with uncertainty, following the path of Dharma gives one the best strategic prospects.

While the concept of Dharma and that of ESS, is profound, there is no simple way by which we can arrive at an ESS, given any system. An ESS may be discovered after centuries of evolution, and what appears like an ESS, may give way when some fundamentals of the underlying system changes.

A well known book called "The Evolution of Cooperation" by Robert Axelrod shows how a strategy called "Tit for Tat" (or reflecting cooperation for cooperation and non-cooperation for non-cooperation) is an ESS for an evolutionary version of the Iterated Prisoners' Dilemma (IPD) game. However, later results have shown that when the game is played with imperfect information (which is a more realistic possibility), "Tit for Tat" collapses from its evolutionarily stable position.

The quest for Dharma hence is potentially unbounded in terms of depth and sophistication. The need to evolve better and more robust strategies is a never ending quest. However, as part of the quest, we may encounter ideas and worldviews that are stable enough to cater to several generations.

This has been the story of dharmic cultures over time. Dharmic cultures have explored several models and directions in their quest for social dharma. These included organizing the society (the varna system), organizing a person's life (Brahmacharya to Sanyasa), organizing spiritual quests (the marga system), etc. Many of the advocated practices were "local minima" or stable strategies for those times, but which collapsed with changing conditions.

The above kind of thinking and quest was already about 2500 years old (and in a state of disarray) at the time of the Buddha (who rejected several of the memes around that time to forge a new direction in the quest for Dharma). And such thinking still continues to persist and thrive in about a sixth of the world's population.

Modern mathematics like Game Theory, Synergetics, Optimization and Prospect Theory are some of the best possible tools for the Western mind to understand and interpret Eastern thought..

How the twain shall meet -- II: Truth and fitness

Staying on the topic of (the false dilemma between) East vs West, here is another common misconception: "Understanding Eastern (dharmic) thought needs one to suspend the use of logic."

Even in my previous post, one of the comments asked whether I'm implying that we need axioms without logic to understand Eastern thought. I'm not sure that means though, but I guess it means something like the above stated belief.

Suspending the use of logic means speaking nonsense or committing a logical fallacy. For instance, if I argued that, "All fish swim, I too swim, therefore I am a fish." Now that is an example of suspension of logic.

Speaking about emotions or proposing a model comprising of abstract, intangible elements (like chakras for example) or even proposing the existence of something that cannot be proved by logic, does not make something illogical.

Science is full of models built on intangible axioms. Newtonian physics for example, is built upon the absolute and objective nature of time, which is questioned and relaxed in Einsteinian physics. While Einsteinian physics itself is based on the postulated absolute nature of the speed of light.

Whether East or West, our worldviews are based on certain axiomatic assumptions and postulates and computing logical implications from the same.

The only difference perhaps is in the way logical systems and proof methods that have been prevalent in the East in contrast to the West.

To elaborate on this, we need to contend with yet another common misconception about "truth" in the Eastern mind. Apparently in the East, truth is subjective, relative and non-crisp, while Western thought is based on the crisp "law of excluded middle" -- that is, something cannot be true and false at the same time. Apparently in Eastern thought (Buddhism is the target for such assertions), truth has "shades of gray" and it is possible for something to be true and false at the same time.

The above misconception only serves to reiterate an exotic and quaint image of Eastern thought, something that which can only be understood if we suspend logic. (It can also serve to reiterate the utility of probability and fuzzy sets when building models under uncertainty -- but that is science!)

The unfortunate fallout of such a flawed view is that several important results from the East gets clubbed into a bucket called "alternative, pseudo-scientific drivel." Ayurveda for example, was the mainstream system of medicine in India for at least 2500 years before current-day Western medicine became mainstream some 150 years ago, and dumped Auyrveda into the trash can called "alternative medicine."

Firstly, "qualified" truth is not uncommon in Western thought either. A variety of  "modal" logics exist, which contend with qualifiers over truth like "necessarily true", "possibly true", "ought to be true", and so on. Modal logics are useful when we are dealing with composite objects rather than atomic elements. For instance, if someone were to be visiting India, it is "necessarily true" that they cannot bring some banned substances (like satellite phones) with them. However, it is "possibly true" that they cannot consume alcohol in India -- it depends on where they are going to be in India. The need for such qualifiers are because of the fact that "India" is not an atomic element of interest. It is a composite object, which has several components with differing values for a given proposition.

It becomes easier to understand Eastern thought, once we understand composites. In Eastern thought, logical systems were not built from assertions over atomic objects, but from assertions over systems. Eastern thought is based on recognizing systems at every level, whether it is in the outside physical world or in our inner psychological or spiritual worlds.

A system is more than a composite object -- it not only comprises of several components, these components also actively interact with one another. To make matters even more complex, these components may be autonomous, each pursuing their own intentions and goals. Hence components need not just interact with one another, they may also interfere and conflict with one another.

Given this, the kind of logics that are required are also different.

In the Western worldview, the notion of "problem-solving" is fundamentally seen as a function -- or a transformation or mapping from a problem to a solution. The "truth" about problem solving is hence a binary question: is a given mapping valid or invalid? This kind of scrutiny is primarily applicable when we are dealing with atomic objects. For instance, is it valid or invalid to bucket 1729 as a prime number? It has a crisp true/false answer.

However, when dealing with systems, scrutinizing a solution in the form of a crisp true or false question, is inadequate. Systemic problems often have several solutions with different levels of "fitness." A solution to a problem is situated in a systemic context and comes with its own resource requirements and cost, and has its own set of side effects or impact on the system. For instance, can we reduce air pollution in a city by imposing an odd-even rule (that is, only odd numbered vehicles can drive on odd days and vice versa)? This question does not have a crisp true/false answer. Air pollution needs to be minimized yes -- but this question is not posed in an isolated, water-tight compartment. We need to reduce air pollution and yet keep the city alive and cater to the livelihood of its citizens. So the odd-even rule may be a "qualified" solution -- it has its own set of side effects, implications and costs. There could be several other solutions with different levels of fitness.

This is the nature of "shades of gray" of truth in Eastern thought -- it is not illogical. It is just a logical assertion about a property on a system, keeping in mind its impact on the rest of the system.

One might argue that every such assertion resulting in qualified truth can be theoretically rephrased to convert it to a crisp assertion by providing for all the impact and cost into the question itself. This is possible, provided we make a this small, limiting assumption called the "closed world assumption."

For example, we can ask, "Is the odd-even rule the best solution to reduce air pollution, taking into account its impact on people's livelihood and its costs of implementation?" This can be answered in a crisp fashion, only if we assume that people's livelihood and costs of implementation are the only dimensions to this problem that matter. But if we were to pose this question in an open-world scenario (that is, there could be other systemic dimensions that could matter, which we are not aware of), then a crisp answer is inadequate.

The above are characteristic of the nature of debates and dilemma in Eastern dharmic thought.

Dharma is a characteristic of sustainability or stability of a system. In modern parlance -- it is a property of optimality. Anyone who is familiar with optimization would realize that, optimality exists at different levels with different scores of fitness. Indeed, a "local optima" can sometimes make things worse as it appears to be a stable configuration, but is not really so. Also, our understanding of what is optimal may change in open-worlds, when confronted with new pertinent information about the system.

Which is why for instance, it is said that even thieves have their own dharma, but it is a social adharma to encourage thieving. Substitute dharma with "sustainable" and the above sentence makes sense. There can be "sustainable" methods of thieving, but encouraging thieving may make a society unsustainable.

Once we understand this way of reasoning, it is easy to see why Eastern thought is wary of providing crisp and confident answers about any large question. This is different from saying that Eastern thought requires suspension of logic, or that in the Eastern mind truth is subjective and relative or has several shades of gray.