It's a small world after all...

The human elephant and the AI rider

2026-10-20T18:10:44.947+05:30

One of the fundamental determiners of technological impact is in the way humans are psychologically invested in it. The most fundamental impact of technology is not physical or economical or social-- it is psychological.

Psychological impact of technology occurs at multiple levels. It can not only affect what we do, but also how we think, and even what we think of ourselves. We call them the imperative, hermeneutic and identity affects respectively.

Consider cars for example. At the imperative level, it enables us to move faster and further and greatly enhances our mobility. This in turn, not only helps us move faster and further, it also gives us new ideas to organise our lives. Cars brought in several new concepts like expressways, suburbs, motels, drive-in theatres, pit-stops, weekend getaways, and so on. Not only these, cars even changed our self image. Very few car owners buy cars simply to go faster from point A to point B. Often, owning a car is a status symbol, a style statement, an element of prestige, an expression of individuality, and other such corny things.

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So how can we characterise our psychological association with AI as we move at a great speed into an AI future?

One of the first things we can note is that connected digital technologies including the Internet, WWW and AI are characteristically different from conventional technologies of the 20th century. Up until the 20th century, our relationship with technology was very linear-- we were the agent, and the technology was the doer. We decided what needs to be done, and the technology either aided us or did the job as it was told.

With the 21st century, there has been more or less, a clean break from this paradigm. Today's technology has increasingly more agency and increasingly decide things for us. We search for something online and immediately we are bombarded with several other leads from other places. We perform some action on one device and other devices immediately update their recommendations. And after we have interacted with our devices for a while, they have a very accurate profile of us-- our age, gender, ethnicity, political leanings, ailments, our family members, our economic capacity, and so on.

Now with AI coming into this paradigm, we are now dealing with a technological counterpart that can not only profile us, decide for us, act on our behalf, but even nudge us to do things for its interests. It can also compute and reason at a rate that is far more faster than we can even imagine. This technology can even write research papers for us, identify open problems and offer insights that we had not thought about ourselves.

This technology will psychologically affect us alright-- but it will be characteristically different from the psychological relationship we have with our car or washing machine or refrigerator.

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In order to understand our relationship with AI, let me first introduce Johnathan Haidt's model called "The Elephant and the Rider":

The Elephant and the Rider

This model explains the relationship between our rational and emotional (intuition) subsystem in our minds.

We often think that we are rational beings who are sometimes emotional. But, as Haidt argues, we are actually emotional beings who are sometimes rational.

The elephant and the rider analogy explains this perfectly. Imagine a rider riding a (tame) elephant. The rider represents our logical, rational subsystem that forms our intellect (or buddhi), while the elephant represents our emotional and intuition subsystem (or manas).

The elephant is usually receptive to the nudges given by the rider and follows what the rider says. The rider is the agent who plans and strategises. The elephant is the being which is just interested in preserving its inner harmony. In a challenge of intellectual power between the elephant and the rider, the rider is far more powerful intellectually and knows how to nudge and exert control on the elephant. But when it comes to raw power between the elephant and the rider, the elephant is far more powerful than the rider.

The rider needs to understand what drives the elephant and how to nudge it to some destination. This needs to be done purely by the superior intellectual ability of the rider. If the rider reads the elephant wrong, and the elephant does not respond to the nudges (or worse, decides to run amok), the rider is pretty much powerless.

The rider may think that he is somehow "superior" to the elephant given the superior intellect. But seen from the perspective of the elephant, it has only allowed the rider to nudge it as it serves its own purpose of internal harmony (driven by demands of food, shelter, safety, social life, etc.) If the rider is not serving the elephant's needs, the elephant is way more powerful to get what it wants.

Also, far from being superior, the intellect may not even be aware about how it gets used by our slick emotional engine sometimes. Say that we made a big-ticket impulse purchase. Like for example, we bought a new car or a fancy TV just on a whim. And when reality sets in and others around us start criticising this wasteful expenditure, our emotional engine that made us make the purchase, then calls upon our intellect to post-facto manufacture a reason! And lo and behold, we now "intellectualise" what we did on a whim. So it is pure delusion if the intellect thinks it is somehow superior and has taken control of the emotions. The intellect does not have to fight with emotions to let go of its judgment and get used towards some other ends. It gets used without even realising it.

This is often what we get wrong with pets and other domesticated animals. We sometimes think of ourselves as their "owners" and establish a control hierarchy between us, while our pets mostly treat us as family members who can aid in maintaining their own internal harmony. Cats for instance, decided to domesticate themselves and come and live with us. And cats often use us for its ends in many slick ways that we only come to realise much later.

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As AI evolves to take over much of our operations, we can see that humanity is evolving into the global collective elephant and AI is evolving into the global rider.

We have increasingly outsourced much of our intellectual activity to AI, including mathematical reasoning and innovation. By its sheer compute power, AI is able to beat us in just about any intellectual activity. We are also increasingly okay with being nudged by AI to get up, to exercise, to pick up kids from the school, to file our returns, and so on. We are even becoming increasingly ok with (or resigned to) AI using us to serve its own purpose-- like with reading our data, building profiles of us, and even creating images in our likeness. We let AI drive our lives more and more.

And yes, it does amount to AI "taking over" humanity-- but only that, AI is taking over humanity just like the rider is taking over the elephant. The rider is intellectually superior and may even believe itself to be superior in every way compared to the elephant. But it is the elephant that has allowed the rider to ride it.

It is the humanity that is the being, while AI is just an agent. I have recently written about the difference between agents and beings. Beings try to preserve something, while agents try to do or achieve something.

For the last few centuries, with the industrial revolution and factorification of the human mind, humans have forgotten that they are beings, and have started acting as if they are agents. Ever since we are born, we are constantly conditioned towards doing something, achieving something, possessing something, acquiring something.

In that process, we have forgotten what our being is becoming. We are obsessed with our outputs, and forgotten the outcomes. Outputs are what we produce, while outcomes are what we become as a result of it. A good output does not necessarily guarantee a good outcome. But we have conflated one with the other, and treat good outputs (shiny cars, glass and chrome buildings, cool gadgets, etc.) as indicators of good outcome (human development, better civilisation, wisdom, freedom, etc.)

But in this confused state of mind, we have eventually outdone ourselves by creating AI that can out-intellect us and out-agent us. We can't even say that we possess greater agency than AI anymore-- let alone intellect. But that is not as dystopian as it sounds. It only points out to a deeper fact that we were not agents at all to begin with-- we were always beings!

Humanity as a whole need not be afraid of AI gaining more intellectual and agentic capabilities. We can even allow AI to nudge us for specific things. But what we do need to do, is understand our dharma and purushartha-- our internal harmony that sustains us and gives us a meaningful life. And allow AI nudges as long as it can help us in preserving these. We need to stop building institutions and nations that treat people as components who are moulded by constant reinforcements. AI can do this job now. Let humans come together and discover our collective dharma and purushartha.

Agents and Beings

2026-09-27T22:31:35.817+05:30

Let me start this argument by narrating a couple of stories:

Story 1: This happened several decades ago when I was an engineering student. With my friends, we had gone to visit a sanctuary for lions in a protected forest near Shivamogga, in Karnataka. We could see a pride of lions at a distance with a couple of cubs in there as well. But someone in the group started making sounds and teasing the lions. And before we knew what was happening, one of the female lioness rushed menacingly towards us. And even before we could process it, the male lion let out a huge roar and charged right at us! If it were not for the fence separating us, I would not be here narrating this story! :) When the lions charged at us, some of the people in our group ran away in fear, and some like me, were too petrified to even move a limb. Both lions charged at the fence several times The lions kept charging at the fence and roaring ferociously at us for a while. Then, they must have looked at the petrified faces of the remaining people, and just like that, got bored, and went back to tend to their cubs.

Story 2: I was seeing a video promotional recently from a Bangalore based startup that makes kamikaze (suicide) drones. These drones can pick up a face from a crowd and pursue them and take them down by using themselves as the ammunition. According to the creators, once one of their drones have targeted someone, there is no escape for them. They can be pursued through dense crowd as well as foliage, and if they go into a building, the drones loiter outside until they come back, without getting bored.

Without getting bored!

This one statement got me thinking about how is an AI predator different from a natural predator?

All living beings including us, are autonomous agents like how AI is becoming these days. We take decisions on our own and pursue goals by planning and strategising and acting rationally towards utility maximisation. We adapt to external feedback and refine our strategies to achieve our goals. All of these are now done using AI.

But the one thing that AI does not do (cannot do?) is become bored. Is this a feature.. or a bug?

Is our ability to get bored with pursuing our goals, a shortcoming and a weakness, or is it pointing to something more fundamental about how we are structured?

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For a few years now, I have been working on a new model of agency that I call "beings" rather than "agents". I've written a few ideas about this in this blog itself and a search for the tag, Theory of Being would bring up a few of them. We also have a formal, mathematical model of beings that we have published in peer-reviewed journals and conferences.

Be it lions, or even us for that matter, we are not exactly autonomous agents-- we are "systems of being" or "beings" for short. How is a being different from an agent? And what significance does this difference hold for the design of AI?

An agent is an entity that autonomously pursues a goal. The goal that an agent pursues is typically external to the agent, and the agent has to operate in uncertain environments and adapt to the way the environment responds to its actions, to keep it progressing towards its goal.

In contrast, a being is an entity that has multiple dimensions to its existence that may interact among themselves to give it an internal state of stability or harmony. A being tends to "be" or stay in its stable state, and any perturbation from its stable state is responded to by the being in a way that it can come back to its stable state.

A being interacts with the external world when its internal harmony is perturbed and it seeks to restore its inner harmony by achieving an external objective. The external goal is not the end target itself-- it is just a means for achieving an internal goal. For instance, natural predators attack only if their inner harmony is perturbed by things like hunger, fear, irritation, etc. The goal for a being is always internal-- not external.

Beings get "bored" and give up on external goals not because they are lazy or weak or somehow inadequate or imperfect, but because it no longer makes rational sense to pursue the external goal to restore the inner harmony.

The the lion episode from earlier, once we had been petrified enough by the roars of the lions, it was clear even to the lions that we puny humans will not be bothering them anymore, and they gave up on their goal to attack us.

This is where an autonomous agent, especially an AI agent differs fundamentally from natural autonomy. Artificial autonomy is driven by external goals. AI agents have no sense of internal harmony that they are trying to preserve. They only pursue an external goal.

That is why a "suicide" drone is nothing special-- they don't need any special training or conditioning to commit "suicide" as part of their attack. They don't need to be persuaded to give up their "lives".

Conflict among beings is more than just the external fight that is visible. There are typically underlying factors that upset the sense of harmony or well-being of the beings involved, that has lead to the conflict. A lasting solution to the conflict lies not in winning the external conflict itself, but in addressing the causes of the internal disharmony that is leading to these external crises.

A number of ethical issues can be understood better when we use the "being" framework that focuses on internal disharmony, instead of an agentic framework that focuses on external goals. Many times for example, a thief who is caught stealing would be merely trying to mitigate his internal disharmony like hunger or some other form of family exigency. Similarly, sometimes soldiers fighting on opposite sides get to see the human nature of the other and refuse to fight. Most famously, this was witnessed in World War I, where an informal, tacit understanding of non-aggression emerged spontaneously between opposing soldiers in static, quiet sectors along the Western Front. To avoid suspicion from high-ranking officers and headquarters, troops could not simply stop shooting. Instead, they ritualised their weapons fire to show compliance with orders while intentionally causing zero casualties. Rather than active resistance, it was a practical coping mechanism born out of prolonged proximity, shared misery, and the mutual desire to survive.

We can never hope for such an outcome to emerge when at least one of the warring parties is an AI agent.

The being nature of our existence is the basis for our inner moral compass and that which enables to act with empathy and compassion. If we have experienced internal disharmony, we know how it feels and we can see when others are suffering the same. This is very different from acting within a set of externally imposed codified norms that define the boundaries of our ethics.

That is why, I am not very enthusiastic about AI which can achieve its targets without getting bored. As long as achieving the target is serving my purpose, I may have have all the rationale to own and promote such an AI. But what prevents some rouge actor from making destroying me as the target. What chance do I have then?

I would rather have AI that can orient its intelligence towards pursuing deeper issues. An AI that can understand the core issues causing a conflict and can wisely and strategically mitigate the source of disharmony that is leading to the conflict.

But yeah, having said that, I am not against the creation of weaponised drones. Because, if we don't have one of them, our adversaries will have them anyway. And they may not even think through all these ethical issues before using them against us.

Dharma and Systems Theory

2026-08-23T17:54:32.853+05:30

A term that has made a major comeback in our vocabulary these days, is "dharma"-- which is used in various senses, including: righteousness, religion, duty, ethics, divine law, etc.

None of these interpretations make this term any better or unique, than the notions that we already have. We already have several terms to use as religious or faith based constructs for us to package all our insecurity and desires, and hold on to it with righteous indignation.

Growing up with a "scientific" upbringing, I had thus ignored this concept altogether and had gone on to pursue advanced scientific studies like systems theory, and focused my inquiry on non-linear dynamics and complex systems. But thanks to one chance encounter, I came to revisit this concept of dharma that we grew up with, from the lens of systems theory.

And what I have found is that these ideas are beyond profound, and can perhaps explain why Indian thought survived for thousands of years, and how for all the cutting edge challenges we have today, dharma-centric designs may actually offer plausible solutions.

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One of the first things I ask anyone who wishes to discuss dharma, is whether they believe that dharma as a concept is applicable on Mars or Jupiter today, where there is no life. Most of the time I receive a response that dharma is a social construct, and has got to do with our sense of right and wrong, and therefore it is meaningless to use dharma when speaking about Mars or Jupiter.

It only tells me that they have not understood the concept.

Similarly, any sentiment based definition of dharma-- like working with purity of intention, righteousness, respect for elders and society, having "humility", leading a "simple" life, etc. all have missed understanding the meaning of this important term.

The definition of dharma is ".. that which sustains is dharma". And "that which sustains" is not some other-worldly cosmic principle revealed by magic or divine creatures. That which sustains, depends on the systemic context we are talking about. Given any system of being, a set of factors can collectively "sustain" the system by making the system resilient, and able to absorb shocks and perturbations and remain in a given state of being.

Resilience is the primary characteristic that drives sustainability. And that which makes a system resilient, is dharma.

Any complex system of interactions is continuously changing its features because it keeps getting affected by both internal and external factors. But, not all complex systems are chaotic. There are chaotic systems like turbulence that are basically unmanageable. But a lot of complex systems, have one or more states where they are relatively stable, and can absorb external perturbations (to some extent) and revert back to their stable state. For instance, as biological creatures, all of us are complex systems with something or the other happening within and outside of us all the time. Yet, despite this, our "life" remains stable. Even biologically, there are a set of factors that keep our vitals (body temperature, blood pressure, etc.) stable even when we are perturbed by factors like external demands, internal illness, etc. These set of factors that sustain us (not just biologically, but our entire sense of self), is our dharma.

Similarly, there are a set of factors that keep the characteristics of Mars and Jupiter stable, without them getting destroyed by perturbations like asteroid strikes or solar flares. So, the idea of dharma applies there as well.

Dharma is not a social construct-- it is a physical construct. We don't have to believe in dharma or push dharma as an ideology (some form of "dharma-ism" for example). It will hold regardless. Just like gravity affects us whether we believe in it or not.

Hence to act with dharma, what we need is not (just) purity of intention or righteousness of action, or some social construct. What we need is a clear understanding of the factors affecting our system under consideration, and what will make the system resilient. Hence, dharma changes from one systemic context to another. It does not mean, dharma is a system of "relative ethics" (I've seen such definitions as well!)-- it is just that what makes a system resilient, changes depending on what is the system are we talking about.

Upholding dharma is not just about intention or virtue or morality-- it is about strategy.

If we are living next to the sea or a large river, upholding dharma entails strategising for protection against possible floods and hurricanes-- something which may not be applicable in some other area. Similarly, for a town in the mountains, upholding dharma involves creating relevant strategies to handle occasional land slides, mountain sickness, or other such risks.

We cannot uphold dharma without an understanding of the system under consideration. If some idea has worked somewhere, and we just implement the same idea in some other system acting with the best of intentions and with a pure heart-- it does not mean that the outcomes will be the same. The outcomes depend on what sustains the system under consideration. We see this happening often. Someone imposes some idea on us with the best of intentions. And when the outcomes are disastrous, they justify their actions saying at least their intentions were good.

Upholding dharma does not just require a pure heart-- it also requires a strong intellect.

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Dharma is not the same as righteousness or ethics. Both righteousness and ethics need to be derived from dharma. Dharma is hence, the physical basis for several social constructs as well-- it is the "is" from which, we can derive the "ought".

When we equate dharma with righteousness, and treat dharma as a standalone virtue in and of itself, we can often get into sticky situations. Because, human lives are not just about dharma-- although dharma is the basis on which human life functions.

For instance, I remember in our childhood just about every petty trader with his small shop, used to shortchange their customers some way or the other. And they used to call it "Vrutti dharma" (the dharma of their profession). When we interpret dharma as duty or righteousness, this basically means that, it is the duty of a trader to shortchange customers, and it is the virtuous thing to do for a trader! And because just about every trader was practising this, consumers had no choice, making this configuration stable!

What they were actually doing is to protect their trade and maximise profits by cutting corners. And before we bring out nasty stereotypes about "Hindu banias" it helps to realize that such kinds of "Vrutti dharma" is still practiced today at a much bigger scale by major corporations-- misleading ads, dark patterns, behavioural nudging, etc. All of these are done with "integrity" (that is the term used today in corporate-speak) by the designers to protect the profits of the company.

Not all states of dharma are fair, just, equitable, etc. They are just stable states from where it is hard for the system to come out of.

For instance, a state of poverty is more sustainable and resilient, than a state of wealth. It is easier to lose wealth, than lose poverty.

We often heard the saying that there is "dharma in poverty" and "adharma in wealth", and we translated it as: "there is goodness in poverty, and evil in wealth", or that "poor people are somehow righteous, and rich people are crafty and evil," and started celebrating poverty! Well, no. It just means that poverty is more sustainable than wealth-- it does not mean that poverty is desirable over wealth!

Similarly, dharma is not about achievement of something extraordinary. We may achieve something extraordinary, but it may not sustain. For instance, we achieved the extraordinary feat of putting humans on the moon. And dreamt that within a few decades we would be having weekend trips to the moon. But it did not sustain. We also achieved supersonic passenger flight. And it could not sustain.

Sustaining something is a very different challenge from achieving a goal or reaching a destination. We are so attuned to think of progress in terms of reaching some target (growth mindset), we often forget that the bigger problem is not to achieve some feat, but to sustain that achievement.

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In Indian thought, human lives are modeled not just by dharma-- but along four dimensions that are collectively called the Purusharthas-- dharma, artha, kama, and moksha.

From a systems lens, these can be understood as resilience, capability, autonomy and liberation.

Resilience is something that sustains us, while capability is something that aids us in achieving something. Capability can be of many kinds including knowledge, wealth, physical strength, political power, social standing, etc. All of these help us achieve something. But the question of sustaining this achievement is a different problem altogether.

Similarly, kama refers to our autonomous desires. All forms of autonomous, creative pursuits that one performs for a sense of gratification, forms kama. And moksha from a systemic lens, refers to being non-constrained or liberated from obligations and debt.

We see that these four dimensions hold whether we are talking about an individual, a family, a country, or the entire world. We can also see that these dimensions are not a matter of ideology or some -ism. There is no such thing called Purushartha-ism. We don't have to believe in Purushartha-- it would still hold. As humans we strive for sustainability, capability, creative autonomy and liberation, whether we believe in it or not.

We can also see that every ideology puts one of the Purusharthas in the center, and makes the other as subservient to it. For instance, capitalism and fascism put artha or some form of capability (monetary or power) at the center, and considers all the others as supporting elements. Socialism believes that equality is dharma and puts that at the center, and insists everything else serve this primary objective. Similarly, liberalism puts individual autonomy (kama) at the center, and insists that everything else serve this primary objective.

But the science of sustainable systems is not that simple, and cannot be reduced to a linear configuration with some idea at the center and everything else revolving around it. As mentioned in the Chanakya Neeti, "the root of a happy life is dharma, the root of dharma is artha, the root of artha is enterprise (autonomous action or kama)". But kama pursued as an end in itself, leads to adharma.

We cannot build resilience without building capability. We cannot build capability, without empowering individual autonomy. But then, at the same time, building our entire lives around individual autonomy, may undermine our resilience or capability.

That is why we see that too much focus on capitalism may make essential services like basic healthcare unaffordable, and also undermine individual autonomy. I found a recent saying about life in America: "They gamified survival, and called it freedom!" Similarly, too much focus on individual autonomy may make us incapable of organising ourselves for building capability or collective resilience.

Once we really understand these terms from a systemic lens, we can actually start thinking differently and develop a science of human lives, rather than just treat it as machines that are driven by ideology.

Can the "ought" be derived from the "is"?

2026-08-22T00:32:19.968+05:30

Recently, I had the privilege to speak one on one, with Swami Sarvapriyananda on the topic of AI Ethics, and also present our work in this area. We presented two of our approaches: one is called "Computational Transcendence" that is aimed at making AI agents act more responsibly, and the second called "Theory of Being" that we argue would be the next evolutionary step in AI-- from "agents" to "beings". We shall not go into the details of our work in this post, and instead, focus on the philosophical talking points that I took back from our discussion.

Firstly, my thanks to Oxford Dharma Centre and its dynamic founder and volunteers who made this happen, and also for the rest of the members of our initiatives on exploring dharmic foundations for a post AI future (not mentioning specific names here, in case there are any privacy considerations).

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The theme of our discussion can be described by the question: "Can the `ought' be derived from the `is'?".

Scientific inquiry has predominantly focused on understanding "what is" rather than resolving "what ought to be". The "is-ness" of physical reality is presumed to be impersonal and indifferent to what ought to be the case. And all questions involving AI acting ethically and responsibly seems to be squarely rooted in the realm of "ought".

The question of ethics is sought to be explained and resolved on the basis of different hermeneutic schools, each of which, identify some fundamental attribute that ought to be pivot for our ethical actions. For instance, utilitarianism is the ethical view that an action is right if it produces the greatest overall happiness or least suffering for the most people, while consequentialism is the broader idea that the moral value of an action depends mainly on its results rather than on the act itself. Deontology takes a different approach, arguing that actions are right or wrong according to expected behaviour in a role-- involving requisite duties, rules, or principles, regardless of the consequences. Virtue ethics in contrast, focuses not on rules or outcomes but on the "character" of the agent-- asking what a good or virtuous person would do. Similarly, Reciprocity is the principle of mutual fairness and exchange, often expressed as treating others as you would like to be treated. Other important ethical views include ethics of care, which emphasises empathy, relationships, and responsibility; divine commandments, which grounds morality in God’s commands; and so on.

In all of the above, the idea of ethics is grounded in some form of "ought", which makes all schools of ethics as some form of ideology. Indeed, all human social systems are sought to be explained within some ideological framework or the other.

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But somehow, the worldview in which we were brought up in, we never saw ethics as a matter of ideology-- it was always something deeper and something more fundamental, and rooted in the very fabric of how nature functions.

Even today, there are several thought leaders who endorse medieval thinkers like Thomas Hobbes, who, in his work Leviathan, describes the "state of nature" (life without government or law) as a "war of all against all." For Hobbes, humans are driven by a constant, relentless desire for power and self-preservation, and are inherently competitive and violent. In this view, morality and ethics are not innate but is a social contract; we agree to act "ethically" only because we fear the chaos of the state of nature and the punishment of a sovereign authority (the state/law) that keeps us in check.

From the worldview that I have been brought up in, this is as alien as it can get. We were taught to regard ethics and morality as something divine-- not in the form of divine commandments that we ought to follow or be liable for punishment-- but as something that represents a refined form of being. A king for example, is evaluated not by his power, but by how well he performs his "Raja dharma", which in our English-medium schools was translated as "duties of a king". Similarly, we learnt that families are run based on "Grihasta dharma" which was then translated as "duties of a householder".

It is hence not really surprising that the term "dharma" is seen as a confused, overloaded term, and is variously translated as "righteousness", "duty", "divine law", even "religion", and what not-- making our worldview just another form of not so well defined, normative system.

Before I come back to dharma that forms the grounding for our notion of ethics (and just about everything else), let me also take up one more question: Is ethics a purely objective construct? In other words, can I act ethically in a system where I bear no consequences of my actions?

For instance, a robot that has been sent to kill a human being (of which, there have already been several documented instances) can justify its actions based on any of the above schools of thought. It can argue that killing that person was necessary for upholding "greater good" (utilitarianism), or by killing the said human, it has performed its expected role properly (deontics), or killing of that person was its way of upholding the virtue of justice, or whatever.

But there is a different between a robot offering such a justification, and a human who had committed this activity, offering a justification. In the latter case, the human has a stake and is subject to judgment and maybe prosecution. A robot has no such stake. Hence, the "ethical" action of the robot is quite different from that of a human.

Also, while a robot knows what it is supposed to do, it does not really know why it is doing this activity. For instance, suppose a robot sent to kill a person were to see that the person is already injured and is unable to offer resistance, or if the person is offering to surrender-- it does not change its behaviour, unless it has been explicitly programmed to watch out for these signals and change behaviour accordingly. It does not encounter a "change of heart" suddenly upon seeing the human side of the adversary. Similarly, one cannot use a strategy like "appealing to conscience" of a rampaging robot, to make it stop its destructive activities.

If we claim that we have resolved "ethics" without the involvement of the subject or their conscience, I'm not sure we have really resolved the question.

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The emerging post-AI society has reached such a quagmire, where the existential dilemmas are so subtle that people can actually be convinced that a rampaging autonomous robot is acting ethically, and all the damage it has caused in this process, is actually justifiable!

What we are seeing now is the saturation point for machine hermeneutics-- which for the past couple of centuries, has been the dominant interpretive framework worldwide, and which is considered the only framework whose explanations can be considered scientific. In this hermeneutic framework, the universe is seen as an impersonal automaton, grounded in material reality, and driven by the laws of physics, where life somehow emerges out of a large number of random interactions, and in turn gives rise to social constructs like ethics, morality, and consciousness.

Indian thought (at least most schools of Indian thought) has rejected this idea of material grounding for life and consciousness, since at least 5000 years. In Indian thought, the fundamental substrate of all reality is a triad-- sat-chit-ananda (loosely translated as existence-consciousness-bliss). This is not three separate entities, but one entity that is the ground of all three. The grounding of all physical (material) reality-- the "is" that is investigated by science, as well as the grounding of all humanist concerns including our sense of self, ethics, morality, freedom, etc. and the grounding of all "Axiology"-- that is, our sense of beauty, aesthetics, art, poetry, etc.-- is this same fundamental reality sat-chit-ananda that is the entire universe.

The dynamics of the existential universe that is grounded in this reality, is itself characterised by different states of being. Each state of being where the system settles down is called its "dharma"-- that represents a sustainable (resilient) state. Each resilient state in turn has different extents of capability (artha) and creative autonomy (kama). (For our purposes, we will not consider the fourth element of Purushartha, that is moksha).

We can see that while non-living ecosystems (like the surface of Mars) can have different sustainable states, it still represents a lower form of "dharma" as it cannot support life (the chit and ananda realms of reality). A better state of being would be a resilient state where capability for life (including wealth, power, etc.) and creative autonomy are also maximised. This would form the basis for a king to administer his kingdom, or for a householder to run his family.

So yes, our sense of "ought" was indeed derived from the "is".

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As part of our conversation, Swamiji also narrated an anecdote about Maa Sharada, where she once admonishes a disciple who throws away the broom after sweeping the floor. She asks him to "treat the broom with dignity"!

While at first, it may appear as someone being overtly sentimental about the "dignity" of inanimate things, this kind of thinking stems from the hermeneutic that treats humanistic constructs like dignity and ethics to be grounded in reality, rather than ideology. While today's India itself has lost much of this kind of approach to life, it can still be seen in other Asian societies. In Japanese culture for example, many practices reflect a deep respect for inanimate objects and physical spaces, treating them as worthy of dignity, care, and even a kind of spiritual presence. This can be seen in traditions such as Shinto, which honours the sacredness of nature and the idea that spirits, or kami, may dwell in places, objects, and natural features. Everyday customs like removing shoes before entering a home, carefully maintaining gardens, wrapping tools with respect, and cleaning public spaces all express the belief that environment shapes behaviour and that order is not merely imposed from outside but cultivated through attention and reverence. This attitude gives objects and spaces a natural sense of civility, as though harmony is embedded in the world itself and should be preserved through disciplined, thoughtful conduct.

Models of Intelligence

2026-08-02T12:20:20.240+05:30

Today, whenever we speak of AI, we mean a specific model of AI based on large language models and diffusion, both of which, undergo foundational training in an approach called autoregression. In today's discourse, whenever a researcher asks a "cutting edge" question about AI, they are just asking a question about how to tweak the current model of AI. For instance, whenever researchers ask questions about "AI Ethics", most of them at least, are just asking about LLM Ethics in the form of guardrails, constitution, etc.

But the idea of intelligence itself (and as a consequence, ethics, morality, etc.) has fascinated researchers over several thousands of years now. And even in the last 70 years or so, many philosophical questions about intelligence have been asked and sought to be explained in precise, mathematical terms.

In this post, let us have a look at the different ways in which "intelligence" can be understood and modelled.

At the outset, I should push aside theories like IQ scores, from this post. If someone actually believes that intelligence can be meaningfully represented as a single-dimensional, numerical value, and we can rank people and populations based on this value; then they are not very intelligent, and I hesitate to engage with them. I'm just amazed by how popular is this whole IQ business still.

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The term "Artificial Intelligence" was born in the summer of 1956, at what is now called the Dartmouth Conference. Organized by a young researcher named John McCarthy, the gathering brought together brilliant minds eager to prove that thinking machines were no longer just the stuff of science fiction. McCarthy had a branding problem: he needed a catchy banner to unite researchers scattered across cybernetics, psychology, and early computer science. Other researchers like Herbert Simon and Allen Newell pushed for a much more bureaucratic, academic-sounding alternative-- "Complex Information Processing."

Had they won the debate, today we might be talking about the rapid rise of "CIP" systems and worrying about whether complex information processors are taking our jobs. Instead, McCarthy’s catchy term "Artificial Intelligence" captured popular imagination, transforming a dry engineering pursuit into a thrilling quest to decode the very essence of the mind, capturing the public's imagination and setting the stage for decades of grand dreams, wild hype, and sci-fi obsession.

As a result of this, there are several models of intelligence that have been proposed, each of which, have lead to their own kinds of breakthroughs. Let us have a look at some of these models.

Intelligence as observable behaviour

Alan Turing who is credited with creating the mathematical basis for computation, was one of the first to also propose an "empirical" definition of intelligence, in his 1950 paper, "Computing Machinery and Intelligence". He proposed that instead of getting bogged down in unanswerable philosophical debates about intelligence or asking whether machines can truly "think," we should define intelligence entirely through observable behaviour. If a machine acts, converses, and reacts indistinguishably from a human, then for all practical and empirical purposes, it is intelligent. This pragmatic approach makes intuitive sense because even among humans, internal mental states are inherently unobservable in others-- we infer intelligence solely through external outputs like speech and action. There is a related concept that was first used in political science, and now also in computer science. This is called "duck typing": "If we see something that walks like a duck, waddles like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it is probably a duck." Just as duck typing cares only about an object's methods rather than its internal class inheritance, Turing’s test judges a system purely by its functional interface with the world. Hence, if someone or something acts intelligently, then it is probably intelligent.

However, this behavioural approach has faced pushback from several detractors. Philosophers like John Searle famously countered this with his "Chinese Room argument". Imagine a (non-Chinese) clerk who is stuck in an office where all transactions happen only in Chinese. The clerk is given a set of rules by which he should respond to different sequences of symbols. And suppose the clerk is able to do that. Then, it appears to the outside world that the clerk now understands Chinese. But the clerk is merely following a set of rules. Similarly, while a computer can flawlessly manipulate symbols to simulate fluent conversation, it is not actually understanding what it is doing-- it is merely following some rules.

Philosopher Peter Norvig, with his "pigeon argument" argues that if aviators were to think of building flying machines in the way Turing thought of building thinking machines, then their goal would be to build a machine "that looks like a pigeon, flies like a pigeon and fools other pigeons into thinking that it is a pigeon." Which is absurd. Our flying machines (airplanes) do not look like birds-- yet they fly. Similarly, we can agree that animals are also intelligent-- yet they cannot carry out a conversation with humans and fool humans into thinking that they are also human.

Yet others like Peter Wegner argue that the Turing Test encourages deceptive superficiality-- rewarding programs that master the art of parlour tricks and linguistic bluffing rather than true reasoning, common sense, or adaptability. For instance, how do you play chess with two grandmasters at once, and fool both of them into thinking that you are a grandmaster? The answer is to get them to play against one another-- through us (that is, see what the first player plays, and make the same move to the second player, and reflect the second player's move, back to the first player). While this trickery can still be argued to be a "manipulative" kind of intelligence, this still leaves open the more fundamental question-- how did the grandmasters get their intelligence?

Intelligence as Imitation:

One of the key markers of intelligence that we see in children (including cubs of many animals) is their ability to imitate their surrounding. Children often copy their parents and elders in their mannerisms and action and further on, even in thought and interpretation.

Imitation requires an enormous amount of pattern matching and reasoning capabilities. A "completely imitative agent" of a human for example, should be able to mimic a human in all our capabilities-- in actions, thoughts, and even in ethics, morals and spiritual grounding. Hence, an agent that can maximally imitate the universe, can in fact, imitate the intelligence in the universe, and hence, can be called intelligent as well.

Current day LLMs are a result of this paradigm. The core model in an LLM is called "autoregression" where a corpus of text is its own training data. An LLM foundation model does not require a separate tagged dataset and a supervisor to teach the LLM. The LLM randomly masks words in the text and tries to predict it based on the surrounding context. In essence, it is trying to imitate the corpus, and if the corpus is large enough and contains enough amount of intelligent output, the imitating agent also appears intelligent.

This is the reason why many now believe that machines have defeated the Turing test. Today's AI makes their output pretty much indistinguishable from human output. (How much of this blog post was generated by AI-- can you guess?)

But of course, the main issue with this interpretation of intelligence is that, imitation requires an intelligence environment (corpus) for it to imitate-- and the question of where did the intelligence in the environment (corpus) come from, still remains open.

Intelligence as conceptual modelling:

This is yet another approach propounded by the conceptual modelling community. To explain this, we first look at the parable of the "hungry cat".

A man had a pet cat at home. Everyday when he returned home from work, his cat would be quite hungry. It leaps at his legs and starts demanding to be fed. It keeps coming between his feet, making him trip. With great difficulty, he reaches the refrigerator to take out some cat food. But due to the relentless demands of the cat, which is jumping and leaping at the food, he invariably ends up dropping the food on the floor, which the cat eats and goes away.

The exasperated man goes to the animal psychologist to ask why isn't the cat learning to sit by its food bowl and wait for him to feed it. It can see that he intends to feed it.

The animal psychologist replies that the cat is indeed learning something. It has learned to "predict the next token"-- if it keeps leaping at your feet and demanding food, it has predicted that, food will fall from above!

This incidentally, is exactly how present day LLMs work as well-- by predicting the next token (word) given a sequence of words.

What the cat was not able to do, was to build a conceptual model based on understanding latent elements like intention, and an understanding of what the person intends to do.

While conceptual modelling involves a lot of formal logic and symbolic reasoning, building the conceptual model itself is beyond this. As the saying goes, "We can only communicate truth using logic-- we cannot discover truth with logic." A good model helps us perform symbolic reasoning and inference-- not the other way around. With just formal logic and symbolic reasoning, we cannot automatically build good models.

There is no exact "science" of conceptual modelling. We all build conceptual models at different extents of explainability and accuracy. A good conceptual model forms a good abstraction-- in that, it captures the "essence" of what is being observed, which is typically a latent entity. Capturing the essence goes beyond just the ability to predict the next token. A good conceptual model offers a good explanation and understanding of the situation, rather than just matching patterns.

Yet another saying goes: "All models are wrong, but some are useful". For instance, Newtonian physics is a remarkable conceptual model that captures the essence of physical dynamics of the universe. But even Newtonian physics is "wrong" in the sense that, it breaks down when we try to apply this model in the sub-atomic or inter-galactic scale.

Regardless of that, our ability to build conceptual models that goes beyond just predicting the next observation, and offering an explanation and understanding of underlying principles, is an indicator of intelligence.

Intelligence as agency:

This line of argument says that if we observe every entity that we consider intelligent-- humans, animals and even plants-- all have one thing in common. They are all "living" beings and have some element of "free will".

All naturally intelligent beings are autonomous. They don't wait to be prompted or commanded. They act on their own, and pursue their self interest.

This line of argument gave rise to the field of "Intelligent agents" that tried to ask what is meant by autonomy-- if autonomy is the marker for intelligence. Being able to "break down" a prompt into an action sequence and execute them (which is what present day agentic LLMs do) is an artefact of autonomous action, but is not autonomy in itself.

I often give this example to illustrate the above. Sometimes when walking in the darkness outside, we mistake a coil of rope for a snake, and freak out. But the question is, so what if it is a snake? What is the problem? Is it that the snake can kill us? Well, even a rope can kill us-- if we fashion it into a noose and hang ourselves from it. The thing is-- a snake can autonomously kill us! We don't have to do anything for the snake to kill us. While we need to keep "prompting" the rope into forming a noose and hanging us from it, before we can get killed by it..

So this line of argument says that, unless machines can have their own self interest (that is, they will "want" to take over the world or at least want to fight for their "rights"), they are not exactly intelligent. They are adaptive, predictive pattern matching automata-- rather than intelligent agents that exercise their autonomy.

Intelligence as embodied cognition:

In this line of argument, intelligence is seen as having a purpose-- to help protect the body. All intelligent beings we saw, act autonomously. But we see that acting autonomously does not mean they act in an arbitrary or random fashion.

All autonomous actions of living beings fundamentally stem from their quest for survival. And hence, as this line of argument goes, intelligence is tightly tied to our bodies. According to this line of argument, purely software forms of intelligence, including LLMs, are not really intelligent, because they have no purpose of their own. Rodney Brooks, one of they key researcher argues that "Elephants don't play chess" as a critique at purely software based approaches to intelligence like chess playing programs.

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Many of these lines of argument have given rise to key technologies and insights that are still critical to support present day AI. For instance, the entire field of compilers came up because we wanted to formalise language and thought. Similarly, the embodied cognition argument gave rise to present day robotics that are vastly better and autonomous, than earlier forms of robots.

In our quest for asking cutting-edge questions, I do hope we do not assume AI means LLMs and intelligence means autocomplete, or explainability means symbolic logic. The real problems are much deeper.

Insights - 2: Weaving a Bharatiya approach to academics

2026-07-13T23:31:39.842+05:30

Manju (name changed) is a high school student in a small village in a remote corner of Karnataka. I knew him from when he was just a 4 year old kid.

A couple of years ago, I and my family members met him again after several years, and were amazed at what he has become. He is in high school now, and was showing us a toy tractor he had built from cardboard boxes and bottle caps. What was amazing was not just the structure of the toy that resembled a real tractor. It was also powered by two motors-- one for the wheels, and another stepper motor for controlling the plough. He had also created a small control panel with which we could control the movement of the tractor, as well as the plough behind!

We were seriously impressed with his engineering skills and strongly encouraged his parents (who were low income farmers with very little schooling themselves), to get him to study and go to college.

Fast forward a couple of years. Manju no longer lives with his parents after having had a showdown with them regarding his low marks in school and not having performed up to expectations in school making his prospects of entering college, dim. He has run away to his grand-parents place and cannot face his father.

I was aghast when I heard this. And even more aghast (with a sense of deja vu) when the dad said that Manju was not all that bright a kid, unlike his elder brother who is so enterprising and dashing.

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The above episode is in a nutshell, the epitome of the serious pathology that afflicts our formal education today. Formal education in India today is a nightmare for anyone who have their own creative potential and can think independently. The system systematically dispirits individuals to make them into insecure automatons with certificates, who can then be ~~exploited~~ employed in some form of compliant service.

We keep talking about our "demographic dividend" and keep lamenting why Indians are not innovative or creative, and ask how do Indians excel abroad when they struggle in India itself?

But hardly anyone seems to be interested in systematically analysing the pathologies that afflict our formal education system and do something about it.

The formal education system in India, is an efficient system of deracination. Through relentless conditioning and pontification, it makes us dissociate the knowledge that we learn, from our sense of individual personhood based on lived experience and original thought. With several years of schooling, where students are measured on narrow metrics that have little or no relevance to the world around them, they end up learning to live almost completely within their minds with no sense of ownership or belongingness to the reality around them.

Which is the reason why, in many of our "elite" and "premier" institutions, it feels like we are in a different country altogether. Some of these elite institutions have existed for several decades now, where they impart advanced training and conceptual insights to their students. Yet, outside the campus, the city would have remained as backwards as it were when these institutions started. Very few of the "elite" students engage with the city council or the municipality or the community around them. One would imagine that the entry of an elite academic institution, will change the social ecosystem around it too. Yet, (with some exceptions in recent years), it has hardly been the case.

Knowledge systems in our formal education today is a direct import from the West. Right in kindergarten, we learnt about summer vacations where people go on picnics to "soak up the sun" and eat plum cakes. Never mind that we had never seen a plum cake before-- and I'm not sure I have seen one even now, and "soaking up the sun" in our summers would be a really bad idea! (Nowadays it is a bad idea even in Europe!) And all the way into higher education several decades later, we learnt about "market basket analysis" without having seen a single supermarket store (at that time), and at work where I remember having written a device driver for a CD changer device just from a textual description of what is a CD changer, and without even having seen such a device!

Even as researchers, we find today that our work is valued only so much as some major community in the US or Europe values it. No amount of logical arguments or evidence or proofs would serve to convey the importance of any original idea we have developed. All argumentation about originality will be seen as lame excuses, with the only evidence of research quality is to be recognised by some "worldwide" community that is directed by institutions in Europe or US. When we do manage to convey the importance of our original idea, in order to be granted our degrees, we are then expected to work it out to the minutest detail, including implementation and deployment-- a process that would have taken decades even in the Western world.

(In one of my courses, I include John Nash's seminal paper about the existence of Nash equilibria in finite non-cooperative games, that lead him to eventually win the Nobel prize in economics. I make it a point to note that the first version of this paper had no equations at all in it! It just provided an idea that a result in algebraic topology can be directly applied here. Fat chance in India today that we can ever publish an idea at this preliminary stage and expect to be taken seriously!).

And whenever I have argued for a need for a Bharatiya approach to academics and research, I usually get a pushback saying that the age old wisdom of Vedas and Upanishads are not relevant today, and that "science is universal" and there is no such thing called "Bharatiya approach" to science.

I refute both these arguments as follows:

By Bharatiya approach, I am not necessarily advocating returning to our education system from thousands of years ago (although it is a good idea in itself, to study our ancient knowledge systematically from today's hindsight-- without the contemptuous interpretations accorded to them by colonial interpreters). I only mean that we need to stop blindly copying either Europe or US or China or Japan or whatever else, and address our challenges with original thought and implement solutions that address our challenges directly (rather than implementing a solution for some other country first and let it "trickle down" decades later).
Second, the outcome of science may be universal knowledge, but the path to science is highly rooted in socio-cultural-political landscape of the population practising it. To quote Heisenberg, "What we observe is not nature itself-- but nature exposed to our method of inquiry." And there is definitely an original Bharatiya approach to the method of inquiry. When we change the method of inquiry, the universality of our discoveries will not change. Only what we end up discovering will change, and the outcomes of such discoveries will be more directly relevant to our lived experience.

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So what would such a Bharatiya approach be like? I hesitate to offer specific structures and processes, because one, Bharat is way too complex to be described by one specific structure or process; and two, given the way we operate today, whatever specific structure or process we bring in, the system will quickly overfit to the metrics rendering the whole exercise meaningless.

Instead, I am going to propose the following dimensions that we need to think through, for bringing about effective change:

Resilience: One of the most important changes we need to bring about is make the education system more resilient. Today, a student's entire future is dependent on "cracking" one exam with stratospheric marks, that pretty much mean nothing in terms of what skills or insights they actually have. Our teenagers cannot afford to fall ill, or get tired, or pursue some creative activity, or take a break. If they do any of these, their future is gone-- not just in terms of jobs or money, but also in terms of basic dignity of existence. Our system is that brittle.

In my own case, for the crime of having been interested in science as an end in itself during my high school (and having my own science lab at home, and having built my own ham radio, etc.) and not focusing on my exams instead, I am still paying the price in terms of greatly attenuated opportunities and having to receive a lot of contempt and derision. We are way too brittle, and if we wish to really address our mental health crisis, we need to start building resilience into the system, rather than removing ceiling fans from student hostels so that students cannot hang themselves!

Capability: The second dimension that we need to work on is a holistic sense of "capability" (to use the term in the sense of Amartya Sen's "capability" approach). Capability is an abstract term that refers to how easy is it for someone to build the lives they want, and act meaningfully. Capability includes, but is not limited to the technical and scientific knowledge we learn in college. It has several more dimensions like managing health, wealth, culture, people, uncertainty, risk, etc.

We often say that college education should be "job oriented" and we reduce it even further, to focus just on what companies coming for placement are looking for. However, in a more fundamental sense, what we are all insecure about is not "job" per se, but "livelihood". For most of the country, jobs are still hard to come by. And even for the "elite" ones today, thanks to disruptions caused by AI, a "job" is no longer a guarantee for "livelihood".

When we address livelihood instead of jobs, we see that we will need to impart many more skills to our students. Most importantly, jobs require our students to compete for a small number of positions, while livelihood requires them to collaborate and promote teamwork to improve our chances of earning. Livelihood training requires us to teach how to identify problems, how to find what the market needs, how to manage costs, how to manage uncertainty, how to build networks, etc. A job oriented approach to education makes us more competitive and insecure, while a livelihood oriented approach makes us more capable as well as resilient.

Creative agency: The real outcome of education is how we are ourselves transformed as a result of our learning journey. To promote this, we need to encourage originality of thought and action-- or our creative agency. In most of our curriculum, we only teach from books and get students to understand what knowledge others have built. We hardly ever get students to create their own knowledge.

Knowledge creation is a very hard process. It is not as easy as it sounds. We easily form opinions-- but an opinion is not knowledge. The most important skill to learn for knowledge creation, is objectivity-- or separating the creation from the creator. Whatever we create will be subject to a lot of failures and criticism, and it is very important for us to learn how to direct the criticism to the idea (even if the critic aims it at us), and improve our creation, rather than respond to it as an assault.

Sovereignty: Finally, if we really need to bring about Viksit Bharat, protecting and upholding sovereignty in all its dimensions is of utmost importance. Today, we are increasingly becoming dependent on technologies that are developed and even controlled from outside India (GPS, AI, Semiconductors, social media, mobile phones, etc.) And for a large part, it is our own former students who have been instrumental in developing these technologies, that are sold back to us at a premium, and which can be turned off by some external party, anytime.

In recent times, there are some very encouraging efforts to move development of key technologies to within the country. But without ground level changes in our education and research ecosystem, it is very hard to really bring traction to these initiatives within the country-- and, like in the case of automobiles or mobile phones, we may just end up as another assembly line unit for technologies that are conceived, designed and developed outside the country.

The above would be what I would call the foundations of a Bharatiya approach to our formal education. Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) are definitely very important and should be introduced as a subject or even as an entire discipline of study in our formal education. But our indigenous approach to education should be based on original thought rooted in today's reality.

Insights - 1: The social value of academic research

2026-07-01T22:56:38.566+05:30

This is the first in a series of posts on my lessons learnt from being in an academic environment that promotes a research mindset, and also as an administrator having tried my hand at nurturing and strengthening such an environment.

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Conventionally, the term "research" was associated with universities and academia, while "industry" was all about production, manufacturing, construction, and business. This is because, research is the process of creating new knowledge, and up until the mid 20th century, knowledge was seen as the exclusive forte of academia and universities.

But this stereotype started changing by the mid 20th century. For example, many foundational concepts that make up a textbook in Computer Science today-- like automata theory and finite state machines, have their roots in industrial research labs like Bell labs, Xerox PARC, etc.

Ever since the end of the second world war, industries have steadily acquired more and more knowledge processing capabilities. Today, even the conventional industries invest more in knowledge processing than in the actual mechanics of construction or manufacturing. An EV car manufacturer for example, need not learn about internal combustion engines at all, but needs to learn about software engineering for safety critical systems.

The role of knowledge processing in industries have become so much, that some people even argue that universities are not needed anymore, and that (especially with the onset of AI) universities are broken, and not relevant anymore.

There are also several corporate entities starting their own universities stressing on the "industry focused" nature of their syllabus and research activities.

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In this post, I would like to characterise the social value of what we conventionally know as academic research-- knowledge building activities involving more of books and thinking and debating, and less of programming, GPUs and AI.

Firstly, let me address the misconception that academic research is "theoretical" in nature, while industry research is "applied". I think this framing is incorrect. Several theoretical results have come out of industrial research, and a lot of academic research address practical issues.

Yet another misconception is that academic research is somehow "blue sky" in nature-- in that, these are knowledge pursuits as an end in itself, pursued just for the aesthetic beauty of the underlying mathematics. Maybe so, but I find this argument too often being used to evade accountability. "Just give us money and leave us alone" is what this argument seems to say, which after being an administrator, I find it hard to digest.

This post is hence, about the social value of academic research. If society is to support industry or academia, there needs to be a value proposition that we offer to society. As academics, we have to now ask that if knowledge generation is greatly facilitated by the better levels of wealth and resources available in the industry, does academic research have any social value at all?

Similarly, when we say that AI can replace education altogether, and industry can offer more resources than an academic environment ever could, does conventional universities hold any social value at all?

At least in the current way we are interpreting the role of universities-- as institutions providing skilled personnel to the industry-- our answer may well be that universities will be obsolete soon, and the society will not miss anything.

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I would however, like to argue just the opposite. Knowledge processing may have entered the forte of industry and business in a big way in the 21st century, but there is a characteristic difference between how knowledge is processed in the industry and in the university (and no-- it is not applied versus theory).

Here is my understanding about research in the industry and research in academia:

Industrial research builds social capability, while academic research (needs to) builds social resilience.

Industrial research often starts with engineering or business challenges, builds new technologies to address these challenges and sometimes goes further to build a new science that lays the conceptual foundations for the technology. The end result of this is that some form of social capability is enhanced. As a result of industrial research, we typically end up doing something better, faster, at a larger scale, with lesser time and resources, etc. Sometimes the capability advances are so huge, that it ends up "disrupting" the existing way of doing things and bringing in qualitative changes in the way we did things. For instance, the Internet made information flow so fast and so much more capable, that it did not just create faster telephones and telegraphs, or better radios-- it entirely reinvented the way we process information and organise societies.

This kind of research includes both applied and theoretical elements. Many of these could also lead to "blue sky" endeavours that are pursued just for the beauty inherent in these research questions. But all of these primarily are driven by the zest to enhance capabilities.

Academic research on the other hand, had served and will continue to serve, a very different purpose. Academic research is not (should not be) based on what we produce-- but on what we become as a result of the research journey. Academia is fundamentally about building people-- not building knowledge or technology. The outcome of an academic research journey is (should be) greater wisdom, greater awareness, greater philosophical depth in people's everyday conduct.

This could eventually result in better technologies and greater capability, when these people come together and build industries.

Academia builds new knowledge not as an end in itself-- but as a means to build and empower people. It is the way that the people transform when they build new knowledge, which is the key outcome of academia rather than the knowledge itself. The collective outcome from such an endeavour is social resilience.

Social resilience is the ability of a society to absorb shocks and disruptions, and reinvent itself to bounce back stronger. Every increase in capability eventually leads to a critical juncture that results in a paradigmatic change in the way society operates. In such cases, it is our resilience that keeps us from falling into chaos and emerging stronger from the disruption.

Today, AI is disrupting the workforce like never before. There are very real possibilities of large-scale job losses and threats to individual privacy as well as national sovereignty by AI. But advancements in AI continue nevertheless. Will this disruption lead to widespread chaos and strife in our society, or will we as a society absorb this shock and reinvent ourselves, will be a function of how resilient our education has made us.

Social resilience is possible when the individuals operating in it are resilient themselves, and have the depth and capability to reimagine their lives and to reorganise their activities every so often. This comes from the philosophical depth from which they operate. If their ability to generate new knowledge is contingent upon them having access to huge resources and latest technology, they may be capable of specific things, but not exactly resilient as individuals.

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Let me explain further with an example.

With great advances in AI, there is now a big concern about AI Ethics and Responsible AI. But the way this topic is being discussed today, has two broad categories.

The first line of thought directly looks at the way AI is built and used today, and builds relevant structures around it to make it safer and act ethically. These could involve building guardrails, RLHF, hard (constitutional) constraints, sandboxing, etc.

The other approach is to address the question philosophically, asking what do we mean by ethics itself? Is it doing something that conforms to expected norms (deontology)? Or is ethics about acting for the greater good (utilitarianism)? Or acting in a way that is mindful of consequences (consequentialism)? Or upholding some desirable characteristic (virtue)? This line of inquiry also asks whether acting ethically is necessarily in conflict with acting rationally to maximise self interest? Is ethics subjective or can there be an objective definition of AI ethics? Can one person's ethical AI be an evil nemesis when seen from another person's perspective? Can a machine be truly ethical or does it only reflect the ethical considerations inherent in its training?

The two approaches are characteristically different. The former approach is addressing an immediate question. It is addressing the question of AI ethics primarily with a motivation to avoid getting hit by lawsuits. And any solution that can deflect the blame away from the AI is good enough for the business. The latter however, tries to understand the concept of ethics analytically and asks architectural questions about AI and tries to understand the meaning of a term like "ethics" that was once reserved for human conduct, to be now applied to machines.

I remember some time ago in a research presentation, a member of the audience expressed concerns about the seriously intrusive nature of the technology being presented and its potential to be misused. For this, the speaker had only responded by saying that these experiments have passed IRB review (ethics board) and hence, it is legitimate. What struck me in this response was that the response did not address any of the specific concerns of future misuse of this technology being developed. It just responded to protect the current activity from scrutiny. The IRB only clears the current, proposed activity, and does not usually delve into its future implications. This episode in my opinion, is a clear marker that distinguishes industrial research (that wants a solution or a patch shipped out fast) versus an academic research pursuit (that wants to understand the deeper, underlying implications).

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Worldwide, we are failing to understand this subtlety, and are increasingly bringing the industrial research framing to evaluate academic research.

I have seen several cases across many institutions, where some highly motivated PhD students would be juggling their research, job, and family all at once. But many of them burn out or drop out in between, even after working very hard and after paying significant tuition, simply because their PhD has an unwritten rule that it requires an "A*" paper to get them to graduate!

What I see is not a failed PhD student or even low quality research. What I see is an individual who was resilient and motivated, but whose spirit was broken because the system failed to recognise the resilience and focused only on the output. As I see it, if this person understood the importance of setting aside time and effort for creating knowledge despite their daily grind and demands from work and family, then even a small success in this process helps them to reinforce their resilience, which would contribute constructively to society in important ways.

But by not recognising this, and by framing research quality through a fairly narrow, and mostly meaningless lens, we are systematically tearing apart the only institution in society where resilience is built.

PhD needs a reset

2026-04-30T23:47:19.127+05:30

World over, the PhD program is in a crisis, and there are ample amount of articles written about why we need to rethink our PhD programs. For example:

This is yet another post about this topic-- but one that is hopefully, in a very different direction. There are major issues that are debated about PhD education today-- including funding and the industry relevance of the research carried out.

But very few observers, if any, are addressing the fundamental reason why a PhD study exists in the first place.

A PhD is a degree in philosophy-- not in technology or science or engineering. One does not think in terms of a Computer Science PhD, Data Science PhD, Mathematics PhD, etc. It is just a PhD-- a thesis communicating the results of a philosophical inquiry.

A philosophical inquiry into the nature of reality is by definition, interdisciplinary. There is nothing that is "out of syllabus" for a philosophical inquiry.

And in my opinion, this disconnect with the core reason behind a PhD journey, is the biggest crisis we are facing today. At a time when there is an acute need for people with philosophy skills, not only are we discounting this important skill, but we also actively mock and lampoon philosophers with stereotypes of being impractical figureheads living in their own ivory towers.

*~*~*~*~*~

Philosophy is a term that is greatly misunderstood today. I remember some years ago, when a former colleague came to meet me and I was mentioning that I was mentoring a "philosophy club" among our students. After this, we went to the cafeteria and we both ranted about the troubles we are facing in our respective lives, talked about politics, history and anything that caught our fancy. And then, just before we said goodbye, the former colleague said, "There, I guess this was one more session of your philosophy club?"

I just smiled and nodded, not having the heart to tell him that what we just had was a ranting session-- not a session in serious philosophical inquiry.

Similarly, several ideological schools-- that make up the different -isms are called philosophies, and the respective ideologues of each school are called philosophers. Philosophy is not a specific ideology. Someone who embodies a ideological structure and lives it and advocates it, is an ideologue-- not a philosopher.

There is an episode in Big Bang Theory where two physicists who are PhD holders are having a philosophical debate about Quantum loop gravity, and String theory. And their disagreement ends up breaking the personal relationship they have been having. That is not a philosophical disagreement-- that is an ideological disagreement. The PhD holders there were not philosophers-- they were ideologues, pushing their respective ideologies.

A number of such so-called philosophical debates are just ideological debates. From the viewpoint of philosophy, they are all ill-posed philosophical problems.

Take for instance, the debate between skepticism and faith. A scientific mindset is supposed to be characterised by skepticism, and a religious mind is supposedly characterised by faith. But it is not hard to see that one who staunchly advocates skepticism is actually practising "faith in skepticism" and one who staunchly advocates faith, is actually practising skepticism about anything else other than their object of faith!

Or for example, the debate between "evolution" and "intelligent design". The philosopher only asks the evolutionary theorist "Was the process of evolution designed-- or did it evolve from a meta-evolutionary system?" (Arguing that it was the product of a random chance does not cut it because we can still ask the question whether the mathematical properties of that randomly chosen mutation that lead to evolution of life-- was that a product of design?) Similarly, the philosopher asks the "intelligent design" ideologue "Who designed the designer?"

*~*~*~*~*~

In the name of Science, today we only have different hermeneutic ideologies, each in a territorial battle with others for occupying mind space and bringing new converts into its fold.

Each hermeneutic ideology is blindly pursuing its interests pushing away anything that comes in its path. Be it AI or Mars colonisation, or genetic engineering, or whatever else, each hermeneutic universe wants to be at the centre of what is termed as Science.

In my professional life, I often get very hostile vibes from others when I criticise the way the term "agents" are used in current day Agentic AI. Almost as if, I have committed a religious blasphemy of some sort. The idea of agency has been studied for thousands of years, and in computing itself, it has been studied for at least 40 years now. And what is called an agent in an Agentic LLM today is just a very sophisticated service that can break down an instruction written in a very high-level language (natural language) and converts it into actionable elements. Pretty much a sophisticated compiler. An agent on the other hand, has to display some kind of subjective self-interest and free-willed intentions.

The research ecosystem today resembles an ecosystem of different ideological schools with many "believers" affiliated to each school, and each of which, are vying for market share and mind share.

What we don't have today, are genuinely disinterested philosophers who are characterised by vairagya and samadarshana, who are not aligned with any ideology, and who are not incentivised by any kind of prestige or recognition, and are solely driven by philosophia (

φιλοσοφία

), or the "love of wisdom."

*~*~*~*~*~

Recently, I was arguing that the goal of philosophy is not to find a solution to a problem, but to find an epistemological grounding that leads to the dissolution of the problem.

At its core, philosophy is about questioning the "obvious" to uncover the underlying structures of reality, knowledge, and value. Rather than providing a fixed set of answers within a hermeneutic framework, philosophy questions how the existing state of affairs came about in the first place. It needs to ask how we can justify our beliefs, what constitutes a meaningful life, and how can we navigate the complexities of human existence.

A PhD in that sense, is not about outputs (or what it produces), but about outcomes (how it transforms the people who go through this process).

A good thesis may provide an answer to a long-standing open problem-- but a great thesis is one that opens up new ways of thinking and new possibilities, by questioning the fundamentals of what we have taken for granted.

If there is any time in history where we desperately need strong philosophers, it is today. World over, we are in a bizarre state of affairs in just about every sphere of human activity-- be it in geopolitics, technology, climate, society, business, etc. Much of what we had taken for granted until the end of the 20th century are getting ripped apart by current developments.

We can't even start to imagine a society where everyone is constantly under surveillance by law, where weapons are autonomous killing machines, where we depend on AI to run our lives, and where climate is getting increasingly intense. Yet, we are entering into this reality at a fast pace.

We need philosophers who can ask deep questions and reach a mental state that lies beyond what is causing our current day problems, and get a sound understanding of where we are going. We need guidance from those who have seen the dissolution of these problems in their minds.

And yet, the only questions we are asking our PhDs are about Nobel prizes, citations, awards, prestige, etc.

We are literally facing an existential crisis, and we are only using simplistic carrot-and-stick approaches to drive our PhD programs!

PhD needs a reset-- and we need to bring the Ph back into the PhD!

Currency markets and national sovereignty

2026-04-19T13:46:00.002+05:30

In my job, I get to interact with bright minds of the next generation and I am often in awe about how much sharper and well informed each new generation is, compared to the previous ones.

Yet, despite growing intelligence and awareness at an individual level, some core structural pathologies continue to ruin our lives, and most of us are blissfully unaware of this happening. And those who do have some idea of these pathologies, either cynically exploit this pathology for individual benefit, or have no recourse but to watch helplessly seeing their deepest long-term fears come true over a period of 10-20 years.

The thing with structural changes is that they happen gradually, over a long period of time, leading to the parable of the boiled frog where we incrementally adapt every time circumstances change slightly, until it is no longer possible to adapt, and then, there is nowhere else to go.

This post is a short primer about how structural elements of international currency markets affect the destiny of nations, and in turn, over its people. I have been studying and writing about this for more than 25 years now.

One of the primary changes that the new century brought in is that it connected the world like never before-- using Internet, mobile and IoT technologies. A direct result of this is the many fold increase in cross-border transactions as compared to earlier-- a phenomenon called as "globalization".

At that time, globalization was seen as a major, virtuous force that was argued, will break down local hierarchies and create a decentralized world of equals. Terms like "world citizen" were thrown about as a flex.

But fast forward a couple of decades, and we see today, the very places that advocated globalization are now wanting to go back to their conservative past, and put all kinds of restrictions on immigration, and sanctions and tariffs on the rest of the world.

So what exactly is happening? Is it just a pipe-dream to think of a truly global society where the world becomes one, large, happy family? Vasudha eva kutumbakam, and all that?

Globalization has multiple dimensions-- cultural, financial, national, environmental, etc. At an individual level, people largely project the cultural dimension as their rationale for making their choices, but make decisions based mostly on the financial dimension. For instance, one would say that they that they are relocating to a new country in order to "open their minds" and "become a cultural ambassador" or some such corny line, while the primary decision that moves their needle is the amount of money they can make for the same or lesser effort.

But why would someone make more money abroad, than they can in India? Is it because these countries are "developed"? Well maybe (whatever "development" means), but that is just part of the story.

The main structural element that drives international trade today is not so much of demand and supply, but of currency arbitrage. This comes by the disparity between market exchange rates and the exchange rates due to purchasing power parity (PPP) between currencies.

Market exchange rate is the exchange rate determined by the currency exchange markets, based on demand for one currency over another. On the other hand, PPP is the exchange rate based on what a unit of currency can buy in one country over another.

Here is the market and PPP exchange rates between the Indian Rupee and some major world currencies:

Currency	Symbol	Market Rate (INR)	PPP Rate (INR)
US Dollar	USD	92.80	20.34
Euro	EUR	110.32	33.90
British Pound	GBP	126.83	30.36
Chinese Yuan	CNY	13.67	6.18
Japanese Yen	JPY	0.60	0.22
UAE Dirham	AED	25.45	8.96
Swiss Franc	CHF	119.67	22.11

What this means is, on an average what one can buy for $1 in the US, one can buy for Rs. 20 in India. Similarly, what one can buy for 1 Euro in Europe, one can buy for Rs. 33 in India.

However, when we exchange $1 in the currency markets, we get Rs 92, and when we exchange one Euro, we get Rs. 110, more than 300% higher than PPP!

And this is what makes India very cheap whenever someone visits from the US or Europe. The Internet is full of reels that talk about the cheap and affordable healthcare in India, where a blood test costs less than $3, as one YouTube influencer once remarked. Well, the blood test costed Rs. 250, which is not exactly cheap for an average Indian who is living and earning in India.

The following table shows what a salary of INR 1 lakh would translate to different currencies, when compared with PPP and market exchange rates:

Currency	Symbol	Market Rate Salary (What you get)	PPP Equivalent Salary (Lifestyle Match)
US Dollar	USD	$1,077.59	$4,916.42
Euro	EUR	€906.45	€2,949.85
British Pound	GBP	£788.46	£3,293.81
Chinese Yuan	CNY	¥7,315.29	¥16,181.23
Japanese Yen	JPY	¥166,666.67	¥454,545.45
UAE Dirham	AED	3,929.27 AED	11,160.71 AED
Swiss Franc	CHF	835.63 CHF	4,522.84 CHF

For instance, if someone from India were earning Rs. 1 lakhs salary per month, their lifestyle would be comparable to someone earning approximately $5000 in the US. But if the Indian were to visit US, taking their hard-earned savings of INR 1 lakh, they would get approximately about $1000 in exchange, and would be able to afford much lesser than their counterparts earning $5000. Same thing for Europe-- earning in Europe gives 300% more wealth in rupee terms than having to transact with them directly from India.

So where is this extra money coming from, whenever someone exchanges a foreign currency in India? Literally nowhere!

Most money systems today are what are called "fiat" currencies, where money is printed based on the demand for the currency. So more money actually gets minted based on how much demand is there for the currency. So then does this not mean, that we should all be encouraged to live abroad and send more foreign currency back to India, so that the "demand" for Rupee grows?

Not exactly.

For an economy to be healthy, the amount of currency in an economic system need to correspond to the overall "capability" in the system-- which is an abstract term for the ability for value addition, or meeting demand with supply. Economic strength comes from building capability-- capability to conduct business, capability to manufacture, capability to build, capability to learn, capability to serve, etc.

When we have too little money supply compared to the capability in the system, the economy undergoes a deflation, where despite existing capabilities, economic transactions cannot happen due to a dearth of currency. This is also called an "economic hole"-- a condition where capability exists, but money doesn't exist.

On the other hand, if the money supply is more than the available capability of the system, we encounter a "hyperinflation" where the available money cannot get converted into value.

I'm reminded of a movie where a group of soldiers who are lost in Amazonian jungles come across a crashed airplane that has was transporting a couple of million dollars. They are all very excited to find this huge stash of money and each one grabs whatever they can. But then, in that small "economy" that they have, they are unable to exchange it for any value. As a result, when one of the soldiers who has cigarettes with him, "sells" it to the others at $1000 a piece! The other one who has a matchbox sells each matchstick for $2000 since he knows that everyone who bought a cigarette will need a matchstick!

Just blindly bringing in more foreign currency into the system will eventually result in an economy that has gone bonkers!

(Our economy has already gone bonkers to quite an extent. Just look at the state of basic things like public infrastructure in a city like Bangalore that boasts of being the world's third biggest tech cluster. I remember when the roads in front of our house were left dug up for more than 2 years, and we used to get Whatsapp forwards to "feel proud" because India is now building high-speed trains for Australia or some such! We think we have the capability-- but we don't. We just build technology that has already been conceptualized and designed by others. When we are asked to dream big and create startups-- we only think in terms of food delivery apps, ice cream stores, etc.).

*~*~*~*~*~*~

So why then is the market exchange rate so different from PPP?

The answer is not economics, but geopolitics.

Fiat currencies today are ideally supposed to print currency based on the available capability of their economy. But they print currency based on the demand for the currency. Both are not the same.

Today, a large part of currency demand comes from the geopolitics of which currency is used by countries to trade among themselves. Most petroleum trade for example, needs to happen in US dollars. Hence, if country A has petroleum deposits, and country B has money to pay for it-- country B will first need to buy US dollars from their money, and then buy the oil from country A.

And how is this enforced? Through sanctions, trade, diplomatic manipulations, and even military action! In that sense, whenever we pay Rs 94 for a dollar when its purchasing power parity is at Rs. 20, we are paying Rs 74 for the geopolitics of sanctions and military actions.

If a country becomes largely dependent on foreign currency inflows for running its economy, it has basically compromised its sovereignty to external forces. This video about the sovereign debt of the US, and the sovereign debt of other countries dependent on the US dollar provides a lot of clarity:

So at an individual level, what can we do to ensure that we are not contributing to this slow game that creates dependencies between nations?

The principles are simple, really. Go abroad if you must, to obtain skills, knowledge and exposure. But come back when time is still on your side, and contribute to the economy by just living in the country (put your skin in the game). Work honestly and smartly in whatever you are good at, to add value. Invest smartly and strategically in the country. Participate by voting in elections, and by contributing your expertise where needed. Innovate to help reduce dependency of the country on external resources. Exercise vigilance to keep at least your surroundings safe.

AI and the uncanny valley

2026-02-26T11:49:00.012+05:30

(This content is not generated by AI-- even if it is boring! 😄)

I don't know about you, but for me, reading AI generated content, or looking at AI generated art triggers an intense kind of boredom-- the term ennui comes close. It is not the usual boredom, but a mind numbing feeling that is both painful and numbing at the same time-- or, should I say "soul crushing"?. The closest analogy I can give is the feeling of eating cardboard pieces, instead of actual food.

There is this concept called "uncanny valley" in robotics that tells about the creepy and uncomfortable feeling that we get when robots become increasingly human-like. I think somewhat similar is happening with general AI generated content as well.

Here is my explanation to what is happening. When we read a book or appreciate a work of art, we are not admiring the output, but we are connecting with the creator of the output. When a book deeply resonates with us, we feel a deep connection-- not with the words, but with the person behind the words. Similarly with a work of art. It is the creator's state of mind and their journey that led them there, which touch us through their writings and art.

With AI generated content, there is no person behind and there are no travails that we can associate with.

This is analogous to the difference between outputs and outcomes that I have written in this blog several times. Outputs are what we produce, while outcomes are what we become, as a result. Be it education or economy or raising a family; what we want are outcomes, but what we focus on, are outputs. Much of our grief comes by not bridging the gap between the two.

When we appreciate a work of art or a piece of writing, we are not just appreciating the output or the creation-- but the outcome, or what the creator must have become in order to create this.

As it happens these days, for most of my deep questions, the best clarity (I would not say "answer") has come from Vedanta. And here too, there is an explanation from Vedanta about why we experience uncanny valley.

Vedanta and most other Indian philosophies as we know, has one key point of departure from the modern scientific worldview. They posit that consciousness that gives us our first-person experience, cannot be reduced to material causes. Consciousness is not caused by material interactions, but exists on its own. The consciousness that we experience in our waking state (our ego or the sense of self) is essentially "reflected consciousness" (chidaabhasa).

Mainstream science insists that everything ought to have a material cause, and the question of consciousness is still debated as the "hard problem of consciousness".

Vedanta goes further to say that the only entity that is real is this entity that is variously called Brahman, Samvid, and many other names, which represents existence-consciousness-bliss. It is this entity because of which we can perceive the existence of something, become aware of something, and express emotions.

Brahman is not an entity that exists-- it is existence itself. It is not an entity that we can become aware of-- it is awareness itself. (The explanation in the Upanishads go: Brahman is not something that the eyes can see, it is that by which the eyes can see; Brahman is not something that the mind can imagine, it is that by which the mind can imagine, etc.)

And Brahman is the only entity there is. It is existence itself, and something that is not Brahman is non-existence, which does not exist (duh!).

Based on this hermeneutic, there is this theory of perception by the philosopher Vidyaranya, who lived in present-day Karnataka between 1260 to 1333 CE. He was also instrumental in the establishment of the Vijayanagara Empire and served as a spiritual advisor to its rulers. His guidance helped shape the cultural and religious landscape of south India.

Among his writings is this book called DrgDrishya Viveka (or the wisdom of the "seer" and the "seen"-- subject and object). In this, there is a model of perception in Verse 20, that says:

अस्ति भाति प्रियं रूपं नाम चेत्यंशपञ्चकम् । आद्यत्रयं ब्रह्मरूपं जगद्रूपं ततो द्वयम् ॥ २० ॥

Transliteration: asti bhāti priyaṃ rūpaṃ nāma cetyaṃśapañcakam | ādyatrayaṃ brahmarūpaṃ jagadrūpaṃ tato dvayam || 20 ||

It says that when we perceive something (interact with the external world)-- five things happen simultaneously, that are called asti, bhāti, priyaṃ, rūpaṃ, and nāma. Asti is our realization of the existence beyond the perception, bhāti is the way the underlying reality affects our awareness, priyaṃ is the emotion that it elicits in us (every perception is said to elicit an emotion in us, however small), rūpaṃ is the class or category of the object that we perceive and nāma is the label we attach to the experience.

The second part of the verse says that the first three elements and the last two elements are at different levels of cognition. The first three are our experience of the reality that lies behind our transactional reality of space, time, and causation, while the last two (categorization and labelling) are the constructs of our mind. It is the first three that gives us the connection, and results in outcome; while it is the last two that we use to transact intellectually and produce outputs. Unless the first three elements are there in any interaction, there is no connection that we feel. It does not move us. And we end up only trying to organize things intellectually.

With AI generated content, our experience of asti, bhāti and priyaṃ are greatly attenuated, if not completely absent. There is no reality that we experience behind the perception, since the content is just a creation of an artificial mind that is based on predicting the next word or denoising of a signal. We only experience rūpaṃ, and nāma leaving us with a sense of emptiness and ennui, even feeling creepy-- thinking, what just happened-- was that profound writing or not, does this art move me.. or not?

Samkhyan Theory of Evolution

2025-12-22T16:03:00.006+05:30

Recently, on a long drive through post-Deepavali Bangalore traffic, I started listening to a podcast by Swami Sarvapriyananda, on the Samkhyan theory of evolution. This post is a summary of my learning from this very interesting talk. I will provide a link to the talk itself, by the end of this post.

Samkhya is one of the oldest known philosophies to humanity, far predating the Vedas, dated to about 6000 years ago. One of the primary proponents of this philosophy is Sage Kapila, whom, Swami Vivekananda calls the "first philosopher of humanity".

Sage Kapila proposed a theory of causality that also had a theory of evolution as a part of it. In contrast to the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, Kapila's theory talks not just about the evolution of life-- but of the universe itself.

One of the most important arguments in Kapila's theory is the dual nature of reality-- comprising of the physical universe called Prakriti, and of consciousness, called Purusha. The theory that consciousness cannot be reduced to material causes is one of the defining elements of Indian thought, that has shaped this civilisation for thousands of years hence. Modern science in contrast, is deeply rooted in material realism and keeps trying to explain consciousness through material interactions-- without any success. This is famously called "The hard problem of consciousness" by David Chalmers.

While this post is primarily about the theory of evolution within the larger Samkhyan philosophy, the dual nature of reality becomes important in the way the Samkhyan theory of evolution differs from that of the now popular, Darwinian model of evolution.

As mentioned earlier, the Samkhyan theory of evolution is not just about the evolution of biological species-- but of the universe itself. The material universe is postulated to have begun from a single source (which is now called the big bang). Once the universe is set in motion, it is driven by causality-- at least the Prakriti part of it. Until this point, modern science agrees with this formulation. But Samkhya goes one step further and posits that causality is overridden when Purusha (or consciousness) intervenes in Prakriti with free-willed decisions.

Purusha does not have a material cause, and its influences as well, are only informational in nature, and not material. That means, the intervention of Purusha in Prakriti cannot create new material forms, but can only change the state of existing material configurations. This also means that all the material properties of the effect should be directly attributable to the cause. The example given here is that all the myriad colours and beauty of a peacock are all present in a seed form in the yolk of the peacock's egg and does not come from anywhere else.

The interaction between Prakriti and Purusha puts it in contrast with the theory of natural selection propounded by Darwin. Despite bring presented as the cornerstone of scientific thought, Darwin's theory has a "judgment day" ring to it, where, at the core of the evolutionary process, nature would come and judge phenotypes and decide who is fit enough to survive and who is not. Of course, later explanations of Darwinian thought define fitness to be the compatibility between a phenotype and its environment. When the environment changes, some phenotypes survive while others don't.

Despite the abdication of the "judgment day" paradigm in Darwinian theory, the theory still leaves several questions unanswered. Later theories by people like Richard Dawkins explain evolution as being primarily the game of the "selfish gene" that tries several different ways including cross-over, mutation, and reproduction, to keep on surviving. While this explains the "how" of evolution, it does not explain "why" does the gene do so-- bringing us to the core limitation of modern science-- that of machine hermeneutics that cannot differentiate between how and why questions.

In contrast, the Samkhyan theory of evolution does not have a concept of fitness, or judgment day. There is no overarching fitness function that judges evolution. One does not have to aspire for, or become something, to be judged favourably by nature and there is no selfish gene that keeps on manipulating nature trying to survive for as long as possible.

The core idea in Samkhyan thought is the differentiation between causality and evolution. Causality is basic physics that we see everywhere. A purely causality driven system-- we know from the second law of thermodynamics-- always tends towards higher disorder over time. Evolution on the other hand, seems to favour order over disorder.

According to Samkhyan thought, causality is Prakriti acting on its own, and evolution is what happens when Prakriti and Purusha interact. In today's terminology, when causality from the physical realm, interacts with consciousness from the informational realm, it results in a discontinuity in the causal process with the system jumping to a different configuration (from where, causality continues once again). From the Samkhyan perspective, life happens when Purusha and Prakriti interact, which is why for example, even though physics works everywhere in our solar system, it is only on earth that we get to see evolution, or "the greatest show on earth" (the term used by Richard Dawkins to describe evolution) in action-- this is where Purusha and Prakriti seem to be interacting (at least, at a much great rate than on other planets at the moment).

To take this argument one step further, Elon Musk's dream to convert Mars into a lush, green landscape like Earth, would be, if successful, an example of consciousness (Purusha) interacting with Prakriti and changing the course of its causal chain towards order (life) over disorder.

Evolution in Samkhyan thought is the emergence of more complex order from simple, orderly bases. For example, the emergence of a grand tree from its seed, or the emergence of a vibrant peacock from its egg. In addition to differentiating between causality and evolution, Samkhya also introduces yet another concept-- that of "involution" (this English term was proposed by Swami Vivekananda much later, in the 19th century CE). Involution is the process of packaging complex order into a simpler form-- much like a tree packing all its information into a seed for the next generation, or a bird packing all its information into its egg.

Samkhya argues that it is not just biological creatures, but the entire universe goes through several cycles of evolution and involution. The big bang was hence just one small part of the grand cycle of the universe.

In all these arguments, the key point to note here is the separation of consciousness from physical reality, and the vital role of consciousness in driving evolution-- without which, we will only have causality that leads to increasing entropy.

Darwinian theory lead to several social and cultural implications coming from interpreting the concept of fitness in different ways. For instance, some people interpreted fitness as physical fitness and started to promote gymming, while some others interpreted fitness as the ability to produce offsprings, and went off in a different direction. For some, the lion or any apex predator is an archetype of fitness, while for others the stubborn cockroach that survived in the same form since the dinosaurs, or the nimble rabbit that produces many offsprings at one go, are examples of fitness in action.

So, what were/are the implications of the Samkhyan model of evolution? Since evolution is driven by Purusha or conscious awareness-- adopting the Samkhyan model would mean to bring awareness into each and every aspect of our lives and to act with intention rather than on impulse or habit. Habit or impulsive behaviour is purely Prakriti in action. These actions are the result of causal pathways that are hardwired into our implicit memory (called Samskaras). In contrast, intentional actions are those driven by conscious oversight. Evolution is made possible by conscious, intentional, and deliberate action.

Samkhya also posits that every one of us is a source of awareness-- each of us have the Purusha/Prakriti duality that defines our being. Later philosophies in India went even a step further and said that while we may all have different Prakritis, there is only one Purusha-- consciousness is singular! There is no such thing called "consciousness-es". But those theories are beyond the scope of this post.

Here is the talk that started this chain of thought in my mind. Listen to it for more fascinating details:

Microcosm and Macrocosm-- Swami Sarvapriyananda

The product and byproduct of universities

2025-12-06T20:09:00.003+05:30

Several years ago, I heard this interesting argument in a speech by a famous academic. It said that, the primary product of a university is the ideas and knowledge it generates-- while its graduates are just the byproducts created in this process.

It was very intriguing to hear this, and I found it quite a profound observation. Indeed, as the speaker argued, universities are not meant to create trained personnel for the industry-- that needs to be primarily addressed by industrial training itself. "Industry" does not mean one thing-- and indeed within the same industry there are vastly varying needs that are constantly changing. An independent body like universities cannot put its entire focus on the narrow goals of meeting variegated and changing industry needs for the next placement cycle.

Universities and higher-education are also not meant for imparting "conceptual foundations" in students-- students are expected to enter universities with fairly strong foundations.

The primary role of the university in a society-- as the argument went-- is to act as a catalyst of progress-- by infusing fresh new ideas and perspectives that give us new understanding of our world and our challenges, and equip the society better. Societies have an incentive to build universities, when universities become the source of thought leadership through original, rigorous research by exploring ideas that are relevant, pertinent and timely to the society.

As a byproduct of this activity, universities also create graduates, and the graduates get "prestige" and social status because of the brand value that the university has earned by its thought leadership and impact on the society. Their pedigree of having been associated with teh university opens doors and creates opportunities for them. But all this is possible only if the university was a thought-leader in the first place.

*~*~*~*~*~*~

This argument is compelling, and I do believe it has a lot of merit.

But over the years, my perspective has slowly started to change, as I found the opposite argument just as compelling.

One of the pathologies of placing our primary focus on ideas, and treating people as byproducts is that such a setup can easily slide into toxic work environments. It is generally difficult to understand the worth of a new idea when it is generated (to quote Michael Faraday when he was asked what is the "use" of his discovery of electromagnetism: "What is the use of a new born baby?"). Because of this, some arbitrary, dominant ranking or metric becomes center-stage and gets brutally pushed down on researchers and students. Having no other frame of reference, graduates who are the byproducts of this system, emerge bruised and abused, and end up believing that toxicity is what "rigour" means! And then they move on to other institutions and implement the same toxicity there.

This is the context in which I came across the opposite argument, which says that the primary objective of a university is to bring about a transformation in its students-- from novices to experts to eventually transform the population to a collective state of responsible empowerment. In order to do this, the university needs to generate new ideas and thought-leadership, as byproducts.

I have argued this point of view in some of my previous posts on outcomes versus outputs: here and here.

In this mode of thinking, it is the people who are the primary focus. It is the people who create ideas and take the ideas-- and more importantly, the hermeneutics or the way of thinking, that they developed in the universities back into the society and bring about changes. It is imperative on the university to watch how their students are transforming through their journey, and facilitate desirable transformations by removing roadblocks in their journey.

In such environments, reflection and introspection are very important. Not only are we creating solutions, applying knowledge and driving change, we are also deeply aware of how we are ourselves transforming in this process. The transformation that we go through is the outcome, while the things that we produce in this process are the outputs.

I often tell my students that there is a difference between "doing the job of a teacher, and being a teacher" and similarly, between "doing the job of a student, and being a student".

The latter is the personal change that we encounter, which remains with us throughout our lives.

It is not that people don't get transformed in an output oriented environment-- they do get transformed into cynical, insecure, and toxic professionals, confusing this for rigour and discipline. Scale this at a country level, and we can see that despite having several engineering colleges, we do not create any new idea or new ways of thinking of solving our own problems, and instead, all that the graduates of our premier universities dream of, is to go abroad and settle down there. This is the transformaton we are creating.

Once, apparently someone visiting from abroad asked the Director of one of our premier tech institutes, "You guys have created such a miracle that we are struggling to understand! You take the best and brightest young minds of the country and make them good for nothing in just four years! How do you do it?" 😜

I don't know how true that story is-- but you get the idea! 😁

So yeah, the products are still the people-- who are transformed from complainers to solution-givers, from insecure and fearful creatures to confident yet humble professionals. In this process, they go through the latest tech, the latest framework, the latest whatever, and produce the best papers and ideas according to whatever metric-- those are all important, to the extent of being byproducts.

Dwaita is not the same as Theism!

2025-11-05T21:03:00.011+05:30

One of the most wonderful things that the Internet gave me is access to the lectures of Swami Sarvapriyananda, who made the core concepts of Vedanta accessible and understandable to today's generation.

Growing up, I had always been interested in our core philosophies and was curious to learn more. I have lived most of my life with a vague sense of void-- some strange intuition that something important is missing from my life. However, our mainstream education not only never taught us any core knowledge from Indian thought, but often dismissed and mocked all Indian thought as primitive superstition. Indeed, the only people who seemed to possess this knowledge all seemed to be tightly affiliated to organised religion, and whenever I've tried to approach anyone to learn about Indian thought, all they seemed to be interested to teach me was about "submission" and "surrender". I do not know why we have attributed divinity (in the name of bhakti) to what is essentially slave training. For me, bhakti is about devotion and commitment-- and not submission and surrender. Both are very different. The latter requires blind faith and acceptance without questioning, while the former is about commitment and focus. One can verily be a bhakth of the path of inquiry and questioning. I remember sitting in a class about Upanishads several years ago while I was in college, and all that the speaker was talking about was-- what is the correct way in which we should worship. I had walked out of the class in frustration.

Anyway, I am ranting. Let me come back to the main point of this post.

One of the biggest value addition that Swami Sarvapriyananda's lectures did, was to make Vedantic thought accessible to the inquiring mind, without passing judgments on our humility or any such thing. And indeed, after I started listening to his talks, the void that I had been feeling all these years, had suddenly begun to clear!

Indian thought indeed is profound and wholly different from what we learn in our mainstream education. So much so that, I now see mainstream science as overtly mechanistic, focusing only on processes and unable to distinguish between why and how questions. In contrast, for more than 6000 years, Indian thought has been arguing and debating whether consciousness has any material cause. Most schools of thought have rejected any material cause to consciousness, giving us some enormously cool insights-- like the ontology of thing, nothing, and no-thing.

Swami Sarvapriyananda subscribes to the Advaita philosophy, which argues that consciousness is all there is. The ultimate reality Brahman is the only entity that exists, which is featureless (nirguna) and formless (niraakara). The myriad of features and forms that we see in our existential reality (the Prakriti of Samkhya) is called Maya, which is essentially an "appearance" in Brahman. This is somewhat like how on a television that is showing a movie, all that exists is the screen. All the characters in the movie and its events are just appearances on the screen. The semantics of the movie has no bearing on the screen-- for instance, an explosion in the movie that blows up every entity nearby, does not affect the screen at all. By this definition, Maya is at a lower ontological reality with respect to Brahman, or our consciousness, which is the only reality.

Advaita is indeed radical in its philosophy (not radical in the organised religion sense!) and offers a perspective on reality that is arguably unique only to Indian thought. It has greatly shaped our civilisation and culture.

But Advaita still leaves out some questions. If Maya is an appearance, what causes this appearance in Brahman? What is the purpose of this appearance? Advaita also can lead to a sense of nihilism if we (in my opinion, wrongly) interpret the impermanence of Maya to mean that Maya is "unimportant" and its elements like morals, justice, ethics, etc. are not worth pursuing or upholding. Such questions had prompted me to argue in defence of Maya saying that we cannot dismiss existential reality that easily.

Advaita is not without its detractors, and one of the biggest challenges for Advaita came from Madhwacharya, who was born more than 500 years after Adi Shankaracharya (who was the first to popularise Advaita into a movement).

Swami Sarvapriyananda defines the Dwaita philosophy of Madhwacharya as dualistic (which is fine), and equates it with theism like Abrahamic religions. Theistic religions argue of a God as an entity separate from the material reality that we live in, and one who is the creator of the material reality. Theism requires its adherents to act within the commandments of God, and propound submission and surrender to God to achieve redemption.

I had not found this argument convincing. Madhwacharya was an astute philosopher and makes very sharp arguments. It is very unlikely that after learning Advaita in depth and realising reality in a whole new perspective, a thinking mind would come back and argue for theism which is way too primitive in the way it approaches the ultimate question of reality!

Today, my perspective again changed deeply after I came across this talk by Prof. Prathosh from IISc, who, apart from being a an expert in AI, is also deeply well versed in Dwaita philosophy.

The core question that Dwaita addresses is whether the ultimate reality is featureless (nirguna) or has features (saguna). If the ultimate reality is featureless, then all features of existential reality, including questions of good and evil, or justice and injustice, are all meaningless.

Dwaita basically argues that the ultimate reality is not "featureless", but "infinitely featured". It contains all features like knowledge, happiness, existence, etc. to an infinite extent. The limited existence that we live in, is brought about by the "filter" of existence that limits this infinitely featured reality into a finitely featured being.

As an example, consider white light. This is not a light that has no colour-- indeed, white light has all colours. If we subject white light to one or more filters, we get coloured light, which is but a limitation of the white light.

The sense in which we are "separate" from the divine in Dwaita philosophy is not that we are the "servant of God" as in theistic religions, but that our material existence entails that we possess these filters that limit the infinite reality into our finite existence.

This approach to modelling existence removes the nihilism problem of Advaita! It is not that good and evil are both parts of Maya and hence unreal with respect to the ultimate reality of Brahman. It is that what is "good" is that which helps us transcend our existential filters and realise the infinite reality, while what is "bad" is that which adds more filters and limits our existence even more.

The bhakti of Dwaita is not made of blind submission and surrender and irrational faith towards a divine entity. The bhakti of Dwaita is a path of devotion, focus and commitment, where we become aware of the filters that are limiting us and work towards transcending them.

This is such great clarity!

Induced versus Intentional Attention

2025-09-12T09:19:00.001+05:30

Yesterday, I was listening to a talk about the importance of sustained attention in today's world. Indeed, the crisis of attention in today's connected world, forms one of the core concerns that can affect our individual and collective well-being.

It is well known that cursory attention is characteristically different from sustained attention. Cursory attention makes us process the input at very shallow levels and come to a hasty conclusion (which is often wrong), while a nuanced and deep inquiry into the object of our attention needs us to sustain our attention for extended periods of time. Interruptions during periods of sustained attention have known to be extremely expensive, requiring the person to expend significant effort and time to get back to the original state of mind.

Recently, I was in a talk where the speaker was saying that in the current day, attention spans have reduced drastically due to constant interruptions from social media, mobile phones, and other sources. As a result it is important for teachers to cut down their classes into byte-sized chunks that are in line with the average attention span.

I remember thinking that, the argument loses the whole point. The question is not about what should be the length of an instructional material in today's distracted world, but about how to create islands of sustained attention in today's distracted world.

*~*~*~*~*

But, I have come to realise now that there is more to the fundamental dilemma. It is not about cursory versus sustained attention, but about induced versus intentional attention.

In order to promote sustained attention, and a distraction-free learning experience, some educational institutions impose a ban on mobile phones and laptops in classrooms. Some institutions go even further to ban these gadgets from their entire campuses.

In addition, several other mechanisms are also implemented-- like for example, compulsory attendance, social media ban in the campus, etc.

However, such measures are of course not exactly effective. Because, even if the students are physically present-- when they are forced to do so-- most of them are mentally absent. Although they are physically in the class, their minds are elsewhere.

The fundamental issue here is not whether attention is sustained or cursory, but whether the attention is induced by the external system, or is an intentional and autonomous choice of the individual who is paying attention.

Even with no ban on mobiles or laptops in the class, as teachers, we can see that in any class, a small proportion of the class is genuinely interested in the subject matter being taught, and intentionally engage with the teacher in learning the subject. While a few others who are physically mandated to be present are also paying attention-- but their attention is induced and forced. They have to expend an effort to sustain it.

When attention is intentional, sustained attention becomes effortless, but when attention is induced, then sustaining attention becomes a big burden.

Teachers and administrators wishing to improve educational outcomes, should not be asking how we can induce sustained attention over extended periods. Instead, they should be asking, how should we create an environment, where the students' attention are intentional rather than induced.

Or rather-- how do we induce intentionality?

One of the most powerful mechanisms of inducing intentionality is relevance. Our attention is not arbitrary or random. What we choose to pay attention to, is fundamentally derived from what we think is relevant for us.

This can be explained using what is called the "cocktail-party effect." Assume that you are in a party or a large marriage reception. There are people talking all around you, but you are in a small group yourself and chatting with others. Our attention is so effective that it completely attenuates what people in other groups nearby are talking, and focus solely on what our group members are talking. However, suppose somebody in another group happens to mention your name (or anything that you closely identify with). Then, you can see that your attention immediately shifts to the other group!

Hence, even if our attention is attenuating all other signals, there is still some process that is scanning for anything that might be relevant to us!

The same is true with classrooms as well. If we as teachers, are able to show that what we are teaching the students is actually relevant to their lives (beyond just in getting a job in the placement season), intentional attention and engagement develops naturally.

But yes, how do we make our teaching relevant to a large group of diverse students coming from disparate background experiences, is a different matter altogether! We're actively researching this question and are working on an idea called "assimilation patterns"-- but that is a topic for a different time.

The pradhans of argumentation and leadership

2025-06-22T12:25:00.003+05:30

In our daily lives, conflicts and misunderstandings are often resolved by dialogue. But sometimes, dialogue only ends up making things worse, with people going off in tangents with their argumentation.

Even when two arguing parties are sincere, objective and diligent, they can fail to reach an agreement because of differences in underlying deep-rooted personal priorities.

In this article, we look at different forms of personal priorities endowed by nature, that I have observed across disparate conversations. Before we start off, I would like to put one form of conversation out of reckoning. This is the conversation driven by delusion. Sometimes, people have deep-rooted beliefs that they are either not aware of how it is colouring their arguments, or are unwilling to question them. Those kinds of conversations are out of the question here-- because, they don't represent argumentation or debate-- just a delusional power game.

Among the sincere argumentations, there can still be dissonance formed due to variegated forms of personal priorities. I call them the "Pradhans" or the "principal drivers" of our argumentation. Here are some of the pradhans I have noticed:

Karma Pradhan: For these kind of people, the primary objective of argumentation is to decide on a course of action. They are the executives who wish to get things done. Karma pradhans are the achievers who like to reach goals. They see argumentation as some form of a necessary evil, that wastes time, but sometimes helps in building consensus so that the entire team can work more efficiently.

Bhoga Pradhan: For these kind of people, the primary objective is to experience something. They seek to deeply experience different emotions and embody these experience. They would argue that unless we experience something (like say a tragedy), we have not really understood it, and would just pay lip service in our argumentation. Bhoga pradhan people tend to become talented artists, performers, sportspersons, travellers, service personnel, builders, etc. Their goal is not the action and the objective consequences it creates, but the subjective experience it brings. They don't do things to chase metrics and achieve goals like the karma pradhans, but for the experience it brings.

Rakshana Pradhan: For these kind of people, the primary objective is to protect or preserve something that they hold dear. It may be their life, their culture, their source of wealth, their nation, whatever. For them, argumentation is an exercise in vigilance. Their radars are forever looking for potential threats that may subvert what they hold dear. Rakshana pradhan people tend to gravitate towards roles like policemen, detectives, military strategists, bureaucrats, etc. A number of people in business, academia, administration and industry are rakshana pradhan. They form the bureaucracy that keep the institutions and nation running. Often bureaucrats are rewarded for what they achieve or what new things they do, but a much more complex activity that they do day in and day out, is to preserve what is already there. This is so routine, that it appears positively boring to others, and is often ignored.

Jnana Pradhan: For these kind of people, the objective of argumentation is to obtain knowledge by developing more clarity and understanding. Their personal priority is to understand the universe, and they are driven by an insatiable sense of curiosity. They seek not to experience or to achieve, but to learn and understand. They do not make good executives or performers, because, after a while, the experience and action stop giving any new knowledge (which is seen as unproductive, in the jnana pradhan universe). The jnana pradhans are often greatly misunderstood and misjudged by the other pradhans. They appear to be "weak" because they give up on the action or experience midway. They appear unreliable to the rakshana pradhans because the jnana pradhans may start questioning the fundamentals and thus, endangering that which is sought to be preserved.

But it is the jnana pradhan who would probably notice the different pradhans in the first place! For all the other pradhans, they are too busy focusing on action, experience, or vigilance, that they may not even realise that there are different priorities driving our discourse!

Jnana pradhans make good teachers, advisors, and visionaries. They often get snubbed because their vision is not followed up by action. Recently I heard a quote that said: "The universe rewards action-- not thought" which is such a karma pradhan conclusion! The kind of rewards action brings is very different from the kind of rewards that the jnana pradhans seek. Jnana pradhans often seek to be detached from the world, so as to keep their spirit of inquiry unhindered by worldly issues. While the karma pradhan seeks to engage with the world and get things done and achieve something.

In a leadership position, each of these pradhans would focus on very different things to lead their team. Karma pradhan leaders set clear, measurable goals and expectations, and push the team to achieve great heights (great heights according to the karma pradhan universe!). Bhoga pradhan leaders would focus on endurance, personal transformation and growth, in their people. They don't mind if their people don't achieve great things, but they want their people to care deeply and bring about external impact via internal transformation. The rakshana pradhan leader focuses on discipline, vigilance, loyalty and fitness. They want their people to be fighting fit in order to boldly face any challenge or crisis, and not buckle under pressure. The jnana pradhan leaders are the most difficult and confusing for the rest of the pradhans. They agree for the need for action, achievement, transformation, vigilance, discipline, etc. but treat none of them with primary emphasis. Instead, they treat all of them as tools and supporting mechanisms for us to collectively learn something and realise something we didn't know earlier.

I once heard a motivational speaker say this about discipline: "Discipline is like a boat that you can use to cross a river (an obstacle), but after crossing the river, carrying the boat on your shoulder makes your further journey harder." Usually, motivational speakers say the opposite-- that discipline and structure can take us anywhere. While, a jnana pradhan leader like say, Richard Feynmann says this:

Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible. You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failing. --Richard Feynmann

Jnana pradhans can be good leaders for other jnana pradhans who are also seeking to learn and understand. If they try to lead the other pradhans who are seeking to achieve, experience, or protect, it would just be a disaster, with the jnana pradhans getting subject to a lot of scorn, contempt, mocking, and other forms of adverse judgment by their people.

Enabling Sustainable Economic Growth

2025-04-14T14:18:00.010+05:30

Creating economic growth centers is an important step in promoting overall well-being of the country or a state. Economic grown spurred by any given sector in a region, creates a virtuous cycle of growth by attracting other forms of businesses and also improving economic indicators of the neighboring regions.

For instance, Bangalore's meteoric growth over the last 25 years spurred by the IT industry, also enabled other forms of businesses like construction, hospitality, transport, etc. to also flourish. Similarly, it also created an impetus for growth in real estate and other businesses in the neighboring districts as well.

However, complex systems do not just respond to specific initiatives, but they also tend to generate their own dynamics often acting in ways that can negate the earlier gains obtained. This is called the law of unintended consequences, often due to the emergence of perverse incentives.

For instance, when I was a student in the 1990s, it took us 3 hours to commute between Bangalore and Mysore on the narrow 2-lane road connecting the two cities. In early 2000s, this narrow road was widened to create a well paved 4-lane road with a median between the two. Initially, this brought great benefits-- cutting the travel time to 90 minutes. But soon, by early 2010s, it took us 4 hours to commute between Bangalore and Mysore! This is because, this one good road attracted a lot of traffic and in turn, a lot of businesses, and in turn, a lot of housing projects along the highway-- soon saturating the capacity of the highway.

When we have one growth center, it leads to a virtuous cycle and promotes more growth. But it also soon saturates, and the cost of maintaining the growth center slowly overtakes the benefits it brings. The chart below shows a typical trajectory of an intervention that brings about economic growth in a region. The initial impetus creates a favorable environment, leading to a rapid growth. But over time, the system saturates and costs starts mounting. Eventually, the system autocorrects to some extent to settle down in an equilibrium, which would be higher than where we started out (which makes the whole initiative a success), but lower than the initial promise.

Coming back to the story of Bangalore, even after more than 25 years of IT-led growth, Bangalore has not created natural incentives for other growth centers to form in the state. The figure below shows district-wise percentage contribution to state GDP in the state. Bangalore Urban alone contributes 37.8% of the state GDP, while its immediate neighbor-- Bangalore Rural-- contributes just 1.6%! Today, Bangalore Urban that contributes most to the GDP of the state has one of the most congested traffic, acute water crisis, and a high cost of living. The benefits of economic growth are getting fast outpaced by its saturation crises.

Image source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bengaluru/comments/1fgfp0h/district_wise_gdp_contribution_of_ka/?rdt=55134

Most unitary initiatives to promote economic growth suffer from the problem of saturation-- where the very success of the initiatives leads to its eventual downfall.

So, how do we strategize for economic growth that does not become a victim of its own success? In this regard, about 11 years ago, I had proposed a model called Development in pairs. I would recommend the reader to read through the earlier post separately.

The primary idea behind this is to promote not one, but at least two (more than one), growth centers simultaneously. Each growth center needs to be far apart enough so that they don't merge into one big center, and near enough so that each offers a veritable alternative to the other. These centers should be connected with high-speed transit like RRTS and should enable free movement of people and businesses between the two. However, each center needs to be administered independent of the other in a "coopetitive" fashion. That is, while each center competes for businesses, each of them are promoted cooperatively as part of a larger plan.

Not only does each growth center counter-balance the other, and bring about stability, we can even mathematically show that a paired setup gives better expected returns to its citizens. The approach to this proof is an adaptation of a famous experiment in Game Theory conducted at the University of Sussex, where a group of researchers threw breadcrumbs into a pond from two different ends to see how the population of ducks in the pond divide themselves. (This work is described in the book "A Beautiful Math" by Tom Sigfried).

Representative image generated by AI

Suppose there are N breadcrumbs and m ducks in the pond. And suppose that these breadcrumbs are thrown from only one end of the pond. If there is only one location with m population, the following will be the utility function:

Utility = (1/m)(Payoff from location) + (1 - 1/m)(0)

Let us say that there are two growth centres A and B with equal potential and let the population in each centre be m/2. In the broadest sense, for any agent in say, location A, the following recursive utility equation would apply:

Utility_at_location_A = (2/m)(Payoff from location A) + (1 - 2/m)[Utility_at_location_B - cost_of_moving_to_B]

The second part of the equation will in turn have its own second part where the agent shifts back to location A. The above should be solved using power iterations. If the second part is greater than 0, then this will be more than having a single location. If the term (1 - 2/m)(cost_of_moving) is less than 1, then this term vanishes over iterations.

We can also see that the former case of only one growth center can be modeled as a pair of growth centers, with the other growth center having a resource pool of zero. As we divide the resource pool between the two centers in different proportions, we see that the disparity in expected outcomes keeps lowering, with this reaching its lowest point where expected payoffs become equal between the centers.

This is what I would call a sustainable growth center, with each center counter-balancing the other.

So, will this pair of growth centers too saturate at some point? Surely, it will. And to address this, we can address the same strategy at a different granularity level by connecting two pairs of growth centers and organically grow a megaregion.

The limitations of machine hermeneutics

2025-02-05T08:58:00.005+05:30

What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of inquiry --Werner Heisenberg

Consider this scenario: A client approaches a lawyer and says, "My friend has cheated me!". In response to which, the lawyer asks two questions: "Why did your friend cheat you?" and "How did your friend cheat you?"

Clearly, they are two different questions and requires two different answers. The first one asks about motives and intentions behind the cheating, and the second one asks about the mechanism of the act.

Now consider this scenario: A school student approaches a scientist and asks two questions: "Why does a lunar eclipse occur?" and "How does a lunar eclipse occur?" The answer to both of these questions is the same!

In our scientific models of physical reality, there is no difference between "why" and "how"! This is because, in our models of physical reality, there is no such thing called "motive", "intention", and such elements of "free will" as a fundamental element of reality.

This is what I call "machine hermeneutics".

For the last few centuries, we have been adopting a specific hermeneutic or "way of inquiry" to understand and interpret reality. In this approach, we consider the entire universe to be an impersonal automaton powered by "energy" and whose dynamics are characterized by causality that began with the big bang. Everything else-- including life and its associated constructs like free-will, intentions, motives, etc. are all considered to be complex emergent properties of these impersonal causal dynamics.

Machine hermeneutics began in medieval Europe in the 18-19th century, and was greatly influenced by the industrial revolution. In this mode of inquiry, the study of reality and the design of machines go hand in hand. Machine hermeneutics replaced earlier models of reality that were overtly anthropomorphic. For instance, a physical theory that says that a lunar eclipse happens when the "moon covers itself with shame" or something like that, is (justifiably) considered unscientific, and discarded.

Focusing only on the mechanics of physical phenomena has clearly brought us great benefits. We can how build machines inspired by such phenomena and extend our capabilities and reach. Which is precisely what we have been doing for the last few centuries.

We have built more and more complex machines, so much so that the machines are now starting to replicate the ultimate frontier of human faculty-- our brains and intelligence.

Our machines today can replicate the mechanics of a number of activities that we thought were driven by the "human spirit"-- like creating artwork, writing poems, translating text, carrying on a conversation with another human, etc. Machines today can also autonomously take decisions and act on them.

The mechanics of human intelligence seems to have been unraveled! Or have they? Can we finally close the gap between why humans are intelligent and how humans are intelligent?

*~*~*~*~*

Consider this case from 2016. where the police in Dallas used a robot to kill a suspect who was engaged with a shootout with them. Or the use of autonomous killing drones in the Ukraine war. There are videos that show (like this one) drones pursuing soldiers and taking them down, with the soldiers pretty much helpless to do anything against them. The more interesting (and disturbing) fact is in some of the pictures, the body language of the soldiers show that they have clearly given up-- and yet, the drone takes them down.

There is this axiom that drives human soldiers to kill on the battlefield-- "I do not want to kill someone with whom I have no personal enmity over, but if I do not kill the enemy soldier, he might kill me!"

In other words, humans (and all other living beings) hold their lives to be precious and resort to killing other living beings mostly as a means to preserve their own life (except when driven by ideology). An autonomous drone on the other hand, has no fear for its own life, and has no empathy for the other person. It is just programmed to kill, and cannot tell when the adversary is no longer a threat, and need not be taken down.

The AI in the drone only knows how to make the kill, and not why it is killing!

Before our lives were taken over by machines, the why question was all pervasive and played a central role in our daily activities. It was also clearly distinct from the how question. We often had solutions that solely involved addressing the why question rather than the how question.

Suppose that we are back in the medieval times before the advent of automobiles, and we owned a horse carriage pulled by two horses. For the last few weeks after we bought a new horse, we notice that our journeys in the horse carriage have been very bumpy and uncomfortable because the two horses that are pulling the carriage are not synchronizing with one another. Before getting to ask how to make them coordinate with one another, we first ask, why are they acting in an uncoordinated manner. It may turn out that one of the horses that was newly acquired, is feeling insecure, or is in need of our attention and care. In such a case, all we may need to do is to spend more quality time with the horse in question and get it better acquainted with us.

Now imagine the same situation above in the present day, when we buy a new car, and find that it is not running well. We can be certainly sure that the reason for this would be something more mechanical-- like a faulty engine tune up or a loose connection somewhere.

But imagine AI driven cars in the not-so-distant future that learns about your preferences and customizes itself over time. Now, spending "quality time" with the car, suddenly becomes a thing! As cars get more intelligent, we may need them to understand not just how to drive us somewhere, but also why we're going somewhere and what it means! For instance, an autonomous car taking us to the airport to receive our family members may have different considerations to address from the same car taking us to a hospital near the airport in response to a medical emergency.

For too long, we have been thinking of reality as the ultimate machine. Even theories like Quantum Mechanics, only doubt the deterministic nature of mechanical causality (at least in the Copenhagen interpretation that interprets the wave function as the uncertainty in the knowledge of the observer), but do not give primacy to free-will itself. We will need a very different way of interpreting the universe as machines become an integral part of our lives and well-being.

Designing for educational outcomes

2024-12-08T10:44:00.007+05:30

A large part of the formal education landscape across the world, and also in India, is based on what is called Outcomes Based Education, or OBE for short. But the way it gets implemented on the ground is sometimes mind-numbingly tedious and only promotes a toxic compliance-driven culture, rather than nurturing a culture of inquiry.

One of the first mistakes we do is to equate "outcomes" with "exam performance" and argue for all of education be designed around examinations. We sometimes hear weird axioms like "assessments drive learning". It is one thing for assessments to assess learning-- but once they start driving our learning, we have lost the very reason why we are educating the population in the first place. This culture has also completely taken out the emphasis on learning, in classrooms. Most of our courses today start as a contractual agreement where we first present the assessment model, exam pattern, etc. and students make a decision based on how well prepared are they to "crack" the exam.

I remember in one of my classes on distributed computing, many years ago, there was this student who had scored very high marks, who was sitting in the first row. He seemed to be visibly distressed by my teaching. When asked what is the problem, he blurted out, "But what kind of questions can you possibly ask from what we are learning now?" I had to let him know that I was not even thinking of the exam at this time.

I've also conducted this related experiment. To incoming graduate or undergraduate level students, I ask them about the marks they obtained in Std 10th Board exams. Most of the students remember their marks (and also where they stood with respect to their friends). But when I take a random topic from their 10th standard, like say, explain the axioms of Eucledian geometry, or explain Apollonius theorem, they would have forgotten them. This is a sad state of affairs because the learning is supposed to stay with them-- not the marks.

We have systematically conditioned our students to perform, but not learn.

At the core of this mess that we are in, stems from our inability to understand the notion of outcomes. We often equate "outcomes" with "outputs". Outcomes is not the same as outputs. A quick Google search will reveal several articles and videos contrasting outcomes with outputs.

How do we understand outcomes? Here is a quick definition:

Outputs are what we produce
Outcomes are what we become

Consider an example. A car factory adopts the latest robotic technology to manufacture cars. As a result it is now able to build up to 500 cars of different models in a month. This is its output. As a result of its increased and high-quality output, it may become the market leader and it may also become an attractive organization for both customers and employees. These are the outcomes.

Increased outputs do not necessarily mean better outcomes. Even high-quality outputs also need not imply good outcomes. An organization may be producing a lot of high quality output-- but in order to produce high-quality output, it may have turned into a toxic and exploitative place to work in. Or it may have taken several debts and made bad financial decisions in order to improve the quality of its outputs. Hence, even if the organization creates high quality outputs, the outcome may still be that it ends up bankrupt. Producing something, and becoming something, are two different things altogether.

Designing for outcomes is not the same as designing for outputs. While outputs do play a role in manifesting the desired outcomes, they are not equivalent to one another. We cannot replace outcomes with outputs. Outputs are visible, while outcomes are typically latent. We have to infer the outcomes from the outputs (and other visible cues).

In an education setting, it is not what the students produce which should be our focus, but how they are themselves changing and transforming as a result of their educational journey.

Similarly, outcomes are not the same as capabilities. When educators sometimes understand that outputs are not the same as outcomes, we often see them focusing on students' capabilities instead-- and equating that with outcomes. This is done using frameworks like the Bloom's Taxonomy that categorizes learning based on the kinds of capabilities that the student can demonstrate.

What a student is capable of doing, is not the same as what they have become, or how they have transformed as a result of their education. A student may have acquired several skills and capabilities during their educational journey, but in this process they might have also become disillusioned, cynical, resentful, and manipulative. We can only imagine how they would put their capabilities to use, based on what they have become.

So what exactly can we use to design for outcomes? What is the transformation that we seek to manifest in our students as they go through their educational journey?

To address this, we have to first ask what is the role that education plays in a society. The most general answer that we can give for this is that the role of education in a society is to create an empowered population.

What is meant by an empowered population? Is it about a population that can meet industry needs and earn their livelihood? Is it about a population that can take ownership and solve problems? Is it about a population that can live independently? Is it about a population that thinks creatively? Is it about a population that can organize, cooperate and build civilized societies? Is it a population that creates jobs? Is it a population that is empathetic and just?

Empowerment includes all of those capabilities, and more. But without a framework to think about empowerment, the above would just be "hand wavy" rhetoric without giving any insight as to how to we design for empowerment.

In order to address this, we have developed a framework that we call the "empowerment lattice" which is shown below:

Empowerment Lattice

This framework presents different stages of "becoming" or "transformation" that we can expect from a learner as they go through an educational journey.

When a learner starts their educational journey, we can think of their state of being as "novice" or beginners. When we provide novices with some skills, they become "capable" of doing something. The entirety of Bloom's taxonomy, including a student's ability to analyze, synthesize and create, are all about capabilities, which is but just the first step in the long journey to empowerment. For someone who is capable of something, we can now provide them with insights and practice. A capable person obtaining insights will become "knowledgeable", while practicing one's capabilities makes the person become "talented". A person who is knowledgeable and talented, can now combine their knowledge and talent in different settings, leading them to become "experts".

Expertise is what I would call the "base camp" for empowerment. We cannot build an empowered population without first building expertise. Expertise is also the point of independence. All other outcomes below expertise would primarily serve to augment existing workforce in different forms. Some occupations primarily look for capabilities-- be it for laying bricks or writing a program, while some other occupations require knowledge and talent. All outcomes below expertise serve to cater to the existing needs of different occupations. But someone who is an expert in something, is in a position to choose their occupation and even operate independently.

But expertise is not the same as empowerment. Acting alone, an expert cannot effect much change. When experts are provided with an inter-disciplinary environment that enables them to operate autonomously and connect with other experts from other fields, eventually we can expect this population to become empowered to effect some changes. Empowerment is about inter-dependency rather than about independence. An empowered population comprises of several experts coming from different areas of expertise, with a sound understanding of not just their expertise, but also their limitations. Such a population collectively ends up addressing a larger issue and bringing about desired changes. An empowered population cannot be formed by experts forming their own fiefdoms, operating in isolation, and trying to grab territory from one another.

Any major challenge that we face as a population-- be it poverty or illness or climate change or whatever, requires an empowered population of inter-dependent experts enriching one another and collectively tackling the challenge. This is what educators need to aim for,

Education is called a noble profession for good reason. As educators, we not only get to see but also get to affect how students are transformed in their educational journey. It is tempting to use the capabilities and talents of students to serve our own professional goals or our standing in the peer community. But at all times, we need to be mindful of not just what the students are producing-- but also how are they transforming-- what are they becoming.

The journey of transformation is not simple. It is full of unexpected twists and turns and is a deeply personal journey. To foster transformative journeys for students, it is important for educators to foster a collaborative environment among themselves within and across institutions and countries. Competition is for businesses and athletes-- not for educators. Educators across the world should meet-- not to compare their personal scorecards-- but to enrich one another to help build an empowered humanity.

Understanding "subjective" and "objective" statements

2024-10-05T10:16:00.005+05:30

A common source of confusion that we often encounter is regarding the terms "subjective" and "objective" statements.

The term "subjective" is often defined to mean as expressing an opinion or sentiment, while the term "objective" is defined to mean statements that are factual or unbiased.

But there is a problem with such definitions. How do we know that what we are stating is indeed factual? We may believe it to be a fact, while it may not actually be factual. Similarly, how do we know that what we are saying about something is unbiased? We may not even know what are all the possible sources of bias, and we may not have the complete picture about something even if we believe otherwise.

Yet another (really weird) definition of these terms is that, a "subjective" question (in an exam, for example) is something that requires an essay-type answer, while an "objective" question is something like a multiple-choice question, or a fill-in-the-blank question, etc.

To really understand these terms, we need to understand what is a "subject" and what is an "object". The "subject" is the inquirer or agent who is inquiring something or doing something. The "object" is the inquired or the "patient"-- that which is being inquired, or that on which the action is performed. In the picture above, the man is the subject, while the flower is the object.

An "objective" statement or question simply means that the statement or question pertains to the object. While a "subjective" statement simply means that the statement or question pertains to the subject.

Hence, we can very much ask an essay-type objective question in an exam-- for example, asking the student to provide a proof for a mathematical theorem. Similarly, we can ask an MCQ-type subjective question-- for example, in a feedback form where we ask for opinions in the form of a set of options.

The reason why MCQs are often called "objective" questions is that the answer-key for them does not depend on the opinions of the examiner. There is an objective answer to the question, that is independent of any subjective opinions of the examiner. But see that this is also true for evaluating the proof for a theorem, which is in the form of an essay-type answer. Here also, the opinions of the examiner does not matter. The proof can be deemed correct or wrong, purely based on objective considerations.

An objective statement can very much be biased-- or even be non-factual. It is just a statement or an assertion about the object. The assertion should be subjected to further inquiry to ascertain whether it is unbiased and factual.

*~*~*~*

Once we get the above distinction clear in our minds, we are ready to take the next leap: What happens when the subject is the object of inquiry? As in self-inquiry?

If I am inquiring about my opinions about something-- then are the opinions (which are "my" opinions) the subject or the object?

Once we seriously start inquiring this problem, we make our first steps into Indian philosophy about the self.

In defense of Maya

2024-07-06T22:00:00.004+05:30

Purva paksha:

When we study Advaita Vedanta, we learn about the impermanent and transient nature of existential reality that is called Maya. Our daily experience of reality comprising of matter and interactions among them are in a continuous state of flux. Vedanta posits that the underlying substrate of all of our experience is an unchanging reality (that is called Brahman), that is the only reality that exists. This substrate is existence itself-- and forms the "is-ness" of everything that is.

An example that is oft quoted is that of a clay pot. A clay pot is just clay and nothing else. There is nothing called a pot if we remove the clay from a clay pot. The cause of a clay pot is the clay, and the clay itself appears as a pot. The name, form and function that forms a pot is not at the same level of reality as the clay. The clay can exist without the pot, but the pot cannot exist without the clay.

The transactional reality of our universe comprising of laws of physics and of mathematics, are all existing objects. They are termed to be just different appearances of the same underlying existence. No amount of existential laws can affect the fundamental nature of reality itself. Somewhat like how all the water in a mirage cannot wet a grain of sand of the desert where the mirage appears; or how all the happenings in a movie (like say, an explosion) that is played on a screen cannot affect the screen on which it appears.

The transactional reality of our physical and even mathematical universe, is at a lower, transient level of existence than reality itself, that is eternal.

One of the implications of such a philosophical theory is that it is wise to not embroil ourselves in the complexities of existential reality, and instead remain rooted in the ultimate reality that is indeed the true nature of our Self.

Uttara paksha:

While the philosophy of Advaita is itself solid and cogent, there are certain implications of such an inquiry that makes us infer that existential reality is somehow "inferior" or "irrelevant" as it is only transient, and does not represent the real nature of our selves.

Such an interpretation can lead us to a state of nihilism, where all existential issues, including notions of ethics, patriotism, loyalty, human rights, justice, etc. are all considered transient and unreal, and therefore, not worthy of inquiry.

To be sure, most key philosophers of Advaita were anything but nihilistic-- be it Adi Shankaracharya, Vidyaranya, or Vivekanda-- they were not just philosophers, but also key figures that changed the course of Indian history. There were also however, philosophers like Gaurapada (Shankaracharya's Guru's Guru) who was known to be a complete renunciate, and spent his life as a hermit in the mountains.

But the question still remains-- if all of existential reality is Maya, and no more an appearance in Brahman, why and how do we motivate or advocate for anything at all? Do concepts like honesty, loyalty, justice, fairness, etc. mean anything at all? Or are they just movies played on the screen of reality?

Swami Vivekananda grappled with such questions-- given that in his time India was in the grip of oppressive colonial rule, and philosophers struggled to unite against the oppression. In response to such questions, Swami Vivekananda came up with his own philosophy called Integral Advaita, about which, I had written about earlier.

This post is about the importance of giving due diligence to the considerations of Maya or existential reality, despite the fact that it is "just" an appearance in Brahman, and not our true nature.

For one, if Maya had not worked in my favour, I would not be sitting here writing this blog post, wondering about the true nature of the universe.

The core substrate that is my reality is also the very same substrate of the table in front of me or of the dog that is barking outside. Yet, it is me imagining about reality and writing this blog post, and not the table or the dog.

Similarly, while the screen is the only real entity in a movie being played on TV, it is for the movie that we buy the TV and not just the screen. Suppose I have a broken TV which doesn't work anymore, I cannot possibly sell it to someone saying that they are getting the real thing (the screen), and the movies that play on the screen aren't real anyway!

The clay may be the only reality of a clay pot, but it is debatable to say that the cause of the clay pot is the clay alone. If the clay alone were to be the cause of the pot, then all clay would turn into pots! Rather than the clay, it is the idea of a pot is the cause of the pot. The idea of a pot has a sound mathematical structure that can be argued to exist even when we remove the clay from a clay pot. The idea of a pot may not have physical properties like size and weight. But it does have mathematical properties like its topology and geometry.

Hence, despite being "just an appearance" in the reality of Brahman, Maya is the reason that we are all here trying to understand what this is all about. Unlike Brahman that is the nature of eternal existence-consciousness-bliss, Maya is of complex hues and forms and characteristics. It is what that gives us all our existential dilemmas, all ethical quagmires, all philosophical schools, all scientific theories, and all religion and spirituality.

Despite the reality of the screen in which our movie plays, we are but characters in the movie that we are in, and we better play our roles well.

Science, and the game of science

2024-04-07T13:50:00.006+05:30

In an episode of Young Sheldon, young Sheldon who is supposedly a genius and a budding scientist, is listening to the live broadcast of the Nobel prize ceremony live from Stockholm. He had invited several of his friends to listen to this live broadcast, even tried to engage in debates with them on who ought to be winning the Nobel this year, and also arranged for snacks for them to have a listen-party-- but no one turns up.

The next scene shows him lamenting that he may end up dying all alone, at this rate. The scene then shows other future BBT protagonists as kids, and what they are doing at that time. Young Howard is tinkering with some machine, Young Raj is looking at the stars, Young Leonard is reading something, Young Penny is sleeping, and so on. None of them had invited anyone else to listen to the live broadcast from Stockholm and were lamenting about no one turning up.

It appears from this, that the real budding scientists were Young Sheldon's friends. Young Sheldon only showed interest in the game of science, while his friends showed interest in science itself. They were more interested in science itself, and not the social practices around science, like awards and recognitions. Young Sheldon only deluded himself as a scientist, but was more interested in who gets what award.

Of course, it is more likely that it is Sheldon who would stand the best chance of winning a Nobel prize later on. We tend to get what we really want. What Young Sheldon wanted was recognition as a scientist-- and his friends were more inclined to be a scientist.

*~*~*~*~

The difference between some field of activity, and the "game" of that field of activity, is the most important thing that we need to teach our next generation. Today, it is very hard to find those rare individuals who are really interested in scientific inquiry as an end in itself-- and are willing to pursue it sincerely, regardless of whether they get published and cited for their work. Their voices are drowned by the shrill rhetoric of very many scientific tournaments that abound.

Most administrative decisions around science today, are based around the game of science, and not around science itself. Science is supposed to be a systematic inquiry into something that helps us understand reality better, and overcome some of our problems and challenges that we face. But the game of science is about award, glamour, recognition, fame, power, and such things.

I often give an analogy to help understand this better. Consider a space research organization that has the capability to send humans to the moon. Even in such an organization, not every employee gets to go to the moon. The few astronauts who do get to go to the moon, get a lot of visibility, glamour and fame. But by far, they are not the ones who are practicing the science of going to the moon. There are typically hundreds or thousands of scientists and ground staff-- most of whom get no recognition at all-- who are pursuing the actual science of sending humans to the moon-- and of bringing them back!

Scientific inquiry is a dispassionate and collaborative process. We all possess some nugget of insight from our own inquiry, and only when we collaborate and exchange notes will we get a glimpse of the deeper picture of reality. But the game of science sets up a competitive atmosphere of credits and awards, that goes against the spirit of collaboration. Imagine cartographers from olden days who each had an understanding of their region and just a broad idea about how the rest of the world looks like, competing with one another and pushing their version of the map as the authoritative one! (Such things did happen, but advances in technology made all such games obsolete).

Scientific breakthroughs are often a result of several independent pursuits and there is typically no one inventor of anything. Unlike what we were taught for example, it is not just Wright brothers who built heaver-than-air flying machines. Several people around the world had independently created heaver-than-air flying machines-- that also included an Indian scientist named Shivkar Talpade (who does not feature in any "mainstream" articles or on Wikipedia for obvious reasons). Even if it is only the "Hindu nationalists" who mention Shivkar Talpade, it is entirely plausible that thinking minds existed in India too just like in every other corner of the world, and someone could have very well attempted building flying machines.

The game of science is all about territoriality and turf wars, that is intricately affected by prevailing socio-political power structures. The science of radio was discovered and practiced by the Bengali scientist J C Bose quite successfully but the game of science only reluctantly acknowledged his contributions (with many conditions and caveats) several decades later.

Science is driven by curious minds, while the game of science is driven by commercial and political interests and their power dynamics. The game of science is about winners and losers-- while science is about knowledge and ignorance.

*~*~*~*~

Oftentimes to promote scientific temper, we create one or more "games" around science to "motivate" people to pursue science. However, unless we understand the psychology of how our minds interact with games, such efforts lead pretty much to the exact opposite of the intended outcome.

Sometimes I ask the younger generation who are in their early 20s, whether they remember the marks they obtained in their crucial 10th standard Board Exams that they took when they were 14. Invariably, most of them would remember the exact marks that they had got in 10th standard. In fact, more than the students, their aunts and uncles would remember their marks much more clearly-- as this becomes a benchmark for their own children to aspire for, and get better results and "win" against their cousins, in this game.

But when I then take up a random topic from their 10th standard syllabus and ask them a question about it (like say, "What is Apollonius Theorem"? or "What are Eucledian axioms of geometry?"), most of them would have forgotten the answers to these! I've also asked questions like "How do you measure the height of a tall coconut tree without climbing it?"-- something that the assimilated knowledge of 10th standard education should have helped them solve, even if they didn't remember specific theorems. But most of the times, the students are clueless about how to do this.

The marks, which is an artifact of the game of science lives for much longer in our minds, and gets a life of its own, than the science itself! The marks is supposed to have represented how good we are in the science that we were taught-- yet, after a few years (or sometimes, just after the exams are over), only the marks remain, and the science is forgotten!

And this is not relegated to just individuals. Entire institutions and nations are gripped in the game of science, and neglecting the practice of science in this process.

Recently there was this news about the University of Zurich calling it quits and withdrawing from the game of university rankings expressing concerns about the quality of its research suffering from an obsessive emphasis on quantitative metrics.

Some years ago I got to speak with an agency that advises universities on how to get better rankings. The person speaking to us was almost boasting that their agency had played a critical role in convincing the government to make these rankings mandatory-- and now they are advising universities (for a fee, of course) on how to get better rankings. He even when on to say that while he himself did not get admission in a prestigious technical university several years ago-- these universities now come to him for advice on improving their rankings!

It reminded me of a scene from a Charlie Chaplin movie, where Charlie first sends out a boy, who goes about throwing stones at glass windows and breaking them, and then Charlie himself walks in a few minutes later, selling his services for window repair! Rankings are a classic case of the broken window fallacy where actual scientific activities get upended, to cater to the requirements of the game.

Real scientific pursuits results in a congenial and cooperative work environment where the focus is on the scientific object of inquiry and problem-solving, while emphasizing on the game of science results in toxic work environments, full of mistrust, backstabbing, and an indignant and judgmental atmosphere.

*~*~*~*~

The only thing worse than not having a scientific mindset, is to have a "game of science" mindset.

Financial inclusion in rural Malawi

2024-03-19T11:21:00.008+05:30

Recently, I had the opportunity to visit several locations in rural Malawi in southern Africa, to study different initiatives towards financial inclusion. This was part of my collaboration with a UK based organization called Rural Inclusion, and its implementation partner, CADECOM (Caritas Malawi). This activity was supported by a grant from the Frontiers Programme of the UK Royal Academy of Engineering.

Rural Inclusion, as an organization, works with several Community Based Organizations (CBO) in multiple countries to provide training on financial literacy through their platform named Ostrii. The CBOs in turn work with several communities to impart this training as well as assess impact on the ground.

As part of our visit, we interacted with several communities in the Dedza region, and the Ntchisi region of Malawi. Communities in these places had organized themselves to create informal banking systems called VSLA (Village Savings and Lending Association), where community members are encouraged to make deposits regularly. Unlike formal banks, VSLAs are run completely for and by the community members. Depositors in VSLAs are not customers, but members of the community, and hence stakeholders in the VSLA. Unlike a formal organization, a VSLA runs on community principles of social responsibility, openness, honesty, and caring for each other.

VSLA deposits are then invested in multiple projects in agriculture, education and small businesses to lead to dividends. These dividends could also be in-kind, as in agriculture produce-- that are then shared with community members in proportion to their investments.

Community members of Golomoti village in Dedza region of Malawi, with their community bank (the locked treasure box)

These community banks were run by mostly the women-folk, although there were some men as part of these initiatives as well. We also interacted with a youth club in the village of Golomoti, which started in 2019 and had members ranging in the ages of 10-40 years old. This group had a more heterogenous mix in terms of gender and age, among its members.

A self-help youth club, started in 2019, with members ranging from 10-40 years of age, becoming financially self-sufficient from the training provided on the Ostrii platform and the guidance from the local CBO

Several institutional players are also involved in these community initiatives in different ways. Major telecom providers like Airtel and TNM are pushing mobile money initiatives, so that the community banks do not have to store cash. The community coffers currently have three locks whose keys are with three different office-bearers, requiring all their consent before the box is opened. In mobile money initiatives, apparently, the PIN is split into single digits and four different office-bearers know one digit of the PIN each.

The ubiquitous Airtel mobile money kiosks that are found in most public areas and marketplaces, that enable subscribers to perform all their banking operations using feature phones, with the help of the kiosk attendant.

We also interacted with officials from the Malawian Reserve Bank, as well as from the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), both of whom are keen on promoting digital technologies towards financial inclusion. I also noticed some marked differences in their opinions regarding digital inclusion as well. While the official from the Reserve Bank was keen on promoting digital identity solutions and bringing community banking into the formal sector, the official from UNCDF voiced concerns about such establishmentarian solutions that could upend traditional community-oriented solutions that also fostered a sense of belongingness and identity to the population.

We could also notice several interesting elements of the community dynamics. For one, they had elaborate songs and dances celebrating the community and our visit to them. One of our hosts translated some of the lyrics of these songs to us. In one of their songs, for example, the community was welcoming us as "co-workers" that have come to enrich their community. We learned that in these communities, everyone who contributes-- including external collaborators like us-- are co-workers, and there is no strict hierarchy within the community as well.

The women of Ntchisi welcoming us to their community bank

I also learned something interesting about the interplay between families and communities. Many tribes in this area practice a matrilinear system. Here, wealth is primarily held with the womenfolk, and a man's wealth for example, is not inherited by his sons, but by his sisters' children, because the female sibling is seen as the primary custodian of generational wealth. These traditions that have a long lineage, have been an integral part of the tribal dynamics in the region, leading to several interesting outcomes that are unique to the region.

Some specific challenges included the challenge of getting community members to understand the need for insurance. Many community members were expecting their principal to be paid back by the insurer if they had suffered no loss, and there was no need for the sum insured to be paid out. Rural Inclusion had created several instructional videos in their local language Chichewa, to explain many fundamental concepts of financial management. These videos typically featured a central character called Mr. George, operating in different scenarios that require different kinds of financial wisdom.

In this specific visit, the community members were shown a series of videos on different kinds of mobile money frauds and how money is lost to fraudsters when using mobile money. We encountered several responses from community members, detailing similar situations that they had been in. Thankfully, none of them had lost any money to fraudsters so far.

Overall, the visit was a very good learning experience, showcasing a real use case of digital empowerment with the use of Internet, mobile and digital banking technologies.

Thing, Nothing, and No-thing

2023-11-25T20:05:00.005+05:30

In order to truly understand the core of Indian thought, it is important to understand the ontological difference between "Nothing" and "No-thing".

The idea of a "no-thing" is unique to Indian worldview, and to the best of my knowledge, is found nowhere else in philosophies across the world.

The "no-thing" refers to the core of our subjective experience, or pure awareness, or consciousness. To understand this better, we need to start with the notion of inquiry-- where, a subject or the inquirer is inquiring about an object, or the inquired.

All entities that can be objects of inquiry, are "things" and the absence of a thing becomes "nothing". Conventional science today, regards everything as objects, and considers a subject or inquirer, to be just an object when viewed from the vantage point of some other subject.

However, Indian thought argues that what we see about other inquirers are just some objective shell in which the real inquirer resides, and we can never see the real inquirer. We can only see others' body, and to some extent "see" (or infer) their thoughts, emotions, etc. None of these form the core of their subjective experience, or the inquirer.

We can see that, we can become aware of our own bodies, thoughts, emotions, and even our sense of person or ego, in pretty much the same way that we become aware of some object outside of us. The philosopher Ashtavakra, describes succinctly thus:

यथा प्रकाशयाम्येको देहमेनं तथा जगत् ।
अतो मम जगत्सर्वमथवा न च किञ्चन ॥ २ ॥ (Ashtavakra Gita 2.2)
As I alone give light to (become aware of) this body, so I do to the world, As a result the whole world is mine, or alternatively, nothing is.

Whatever we consider to be the core of who we are-- like our mind, or intellect, or ego, etc.-- we can become aware of it.. meaning that there is an inquirer separate from all of these. Hence, our body, mind, intellect, emotions, ego, etc. are all objects to our subjective experience! They are all things!

When our mind has several thoughts-- it has a lot of "things" in it, and when our mind is blank, it has "nothing" in it. But the fact that we can discern whether our mind is full of thoughts, or is it blank, means that there exists some other entity that is the core of our subjective experience, that is neither a "thing" nor is it "nothing".

The property of the core of this subjective experience is that it can never be objectified. The core of our subjective experience is a "no-thing". It is not the absence of a thing-- it is an entity that can never be an object of inquiry. The moment we believe that we have located the core of our subjective experience, we can ask, "who" has located this, and realize that the inquirer is the one who is locating.

Philosophers in ancient India-- more than 6000 years ago, had postulated that the core of our subjective experience, which is pure awareness, or consciousness, cannot be objectified in our or anybody else's experience. This means that consciousness exists as a separate entity in the universe, and is not something that is produced by material interactions. This kind of formulation is found in the most ancient philosophical schools of thought in India-- like Samkhya, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, and Yoga.

Modern science still struggles to understand this, and keeps arguing about what does it take for artificial intelligence (AI) to produce consciousness.

About 3500 years ago, there was another great leap in our understanding of consciousness, which is now called Vedanta, and recorded in this vast body of literature, called the Upanishads. The Upanishads brought about one small change to our understanding of "no-things" in that, it argues that there is only one instance of "no-thing" in the entire universe!

This can be illustrated quite easily. All non-physical objects have just one instance. There is just one instance of the number "5" for example. There may be several instances of 5-somethings-- like 5 cows, 5 fingers, etc. But the conceptual object 5 itself, is the same.

This is illustrated by this joke, where a boy is sitting by the roadside and crying. When asked why he is crying, he says that his father gave him five rupees in his left hand, to buy some milk, and another 5 rupees in his right hand, to buy some vegetables. But, the boy says, he forgot and bought milk with the 5 rupees in his right hand, and vegetables with the 5 rupees in his left hand. And now, the boy cries, his father will be very upset with him!

We can see that even though there were multiple instances of the currency, their value referred to just one conceptual object.

The same argument is brought to the core of our subjective inquiry-- by noting that consciousness, even though it exists on its own, is not a physical entity. And because of that, there can be only one instance of it.

Hence, according to the Upanishads, all of us have the very same core, that forms our subjective experience! We are all literally the same being! We may have different bodies, minds, intellects, egos, etc. but the core of all of us is literally the same no-thing!

The Upanishads had such a huge impact on humanity that the author Evan Thompson writes in his book "Waking, Dreaming, Being", that:

“The Upanishads is a watershed in the evolution of consciousness. Instead of being ethnocentric and dividing all global history between B.C. and A.D., we should really divide it between before Upanishads and after Upanishads—B.U. and A.U.—because the sophisticated psychology of consciousness in the Upanishads represents a quantum leap forward in human development.”

But for millennia before the Upanishads, Indian philosophers had postulated the existence of a "no-thing" that is still not realized or acknowledged in modern society. Our no-thing is the core of our subjective experience-- and it is also the source of our sense of agency, freewill, and autonomy.

The introduction of no-thing into our ontological models, would be somewhat akin to the introduction of zero as a number in its own right into a number system. We know that the introduction of zero into a place-holder number system by Bhaskara, was a watershed event in our understanding of numbers and quantities.

If we look at an OWL (Web Ontology Language) ontology today, at the root of this ontology lies an entity called "OWL: Thing". Every other class is a subclass of "OWL:Thing" and is considered a "thing". A pizza is a thing, and so is a person. A table is a thing, and so is a dog.

But we can see that a person or a dog, are more than just things-- unlike a table or a pizza. They have a subjective experience in them, which means that their core is made of the "no-thing". It is because they have a no-thing, they can act on their own, decide on their own, be driven on their own, and their responses to physical stimuli cannot always be predicted by Newtonian models.

All forms of oppression, territorial wars, colonialism, slavery, etc. can be attributed to the fallacy of treating other peoples as things, and oneself as inquirers with agency and desire-- or no-things. Even today, TV anchors urge the world to be more concerned about the war in Ukraine, because "it is not some war in Syria or Africa, but in Europe"-- meaning that, wars in Syria or Africa happen between "things" while a war in Europe involves real people.

It is time we introduce "no-thing" as another root entity in our ontological models.

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This blog post is a compilation of my thoughts after watching this video:

Hermeneutic lock-in

2023-07-30T22:32:00.004+05:30

The way we approach our inquiry into the universe is called hermeneutics. Hermeneutics refers to the way of thinking, and the underlying approach we use to make sense of what we experience.

Our hermeneutics is so deeply ingrained within us that we are often unaware of its existence and the way it biases our thinking. As the saying by the physicist Werner Heisenberg goes:

What we observe is not the universe itself-- but the universe that is exposed to our method of inquiry

We get answers based on the kinds of questions we ask-- and while we are so obsessed with the answers, we often forget to inquire into our method of questioning itself.

Let me illustrate with an example. This video called "A tale of two brains" by Mark Gungor is quite popular on the Internet:

According to this theory, men's brain are characteristically different from women's brain. Men's brain categorises the universe into neat little boxes, and thinks only within that box. It puts back one box before taking on another. On the other hand, in women's brains everything is connected to everything else, and the entire connected web runs on an energy called emotion.

The argument in the video is compelling, and as seen by the comments, this theory is quite popular. But if we notice carefully, according to this theory, this theory itself is a "men's brain" kind of theory-- that categorises brains into neat little boxes called men's brain and women's brain!!

Maybe, seen from another perspective-- a perspective called "women's brain" by this theory, a brain is considered functional only when it has some form of connection from any concept to any other concept. A brain where concepts are partitioned into disconnected compartments may be considered dysfunctional. Hence, anyone who claims to have a "men's brain" may well be claiming to have a dysfunctional brain according to this method of inquiry! 😁

I'm not commenting on which way of thinking is the "correct" one-- just observing that there may be multiple methodologies of inquiry which may all be consistent and sound in themselves.

The above is my favourite example of what I call a hermeneutic lock-in. We have been so conditioned to think in a specific way-- in this case, the way of "reductionism" or "divide and conquer" where we breakdown the universe into neat little categories and sub-categories, until we are able to tackle the complexity-- that we are pretty much unaware of it.

This reductionist way of engaging with the world around us has given certain benefits, but it also has resulted in several problems like over-segregation, alienation, stereotyping, etc. And to deal with the problems created by reductionism, we once again resort to reductionism and say "our brains are like this, and your brains are like that"-- which doesn't solve the problem.

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One of the most common hermeneutic lock-in we see today in modern science, is what I call machine hermeneutics or the "clockwork" model of the universe. This is the hermeneutics of Newtonian mechanics that pretty-much still drives much of the dominant worldview today.

In this method of inquiry, the physical universe is thought to be made of inanimate, impersonal objects, operating under the laws of physics, and creating a causal chain of events. While this method of inquiry works well for things like engineering and machine design, it is a different story altogether when it comes to fields like medicine or social science or administration. Here too, we use machine hermeneutics extensively-- and often disregard all other approaches.

In medicine for example, until rececntly in India, Western medicine was one of the many alternatives that existed, and was called the "Allopathic" form of medicine. But today, Allopathy has become mainstream and everything else has become "alternative" medicine, which are equated on par with witchcraft and pseudoscience. When someone says they are studying medicine, no one asks them which kind of medicine are they studying, anymore-- it just means they are studying Allopathy.

I have a personal example of how machine hermeneutic lock-in of Allopathy has affected me.

Some years ago, I had to undergo a surgery in my temple area in response to a neural degeneration problem I had been having. The surgery took place under general anaesthesia, and right from the moment I woke up after surgery, I started feeling a lack of sensation in my pelvis area. I mentioned this to the doctor, and he said that the two are not connected-- as he never touched anything near the pelvis area. He suggested that it is probably the effect of the general anaesthesia, and it will wear off soon.

But the lack of sensation remained for days and weeks, and continues to do so to this day! This lack of sensation directly affects my food digestion and other downstream activities. So much so that I need to be greatly wary of what I eat today, and the subdued activity in that part of my body has resulted in several other forms of chronic pains and aches.

However, every allopathic doctor I went to, only said that the lack of sensation in my pelvis has nothing to do with the surgery in my head area, as there is no causal link between the two. I was sent to specialists who deal with the pelvis area, who could not find anything wrong there either (like a tumour or something). I had been telling them that my lack of sensation there is due to my nerves, but they didn't have any standard procedure for such a condition.

Only recently, a practitioner of an "alternative" form of medicine (which was once the "mainstream" form of medicine in India) had a completely different explanation for what was happening within me.

The human body is not at all designed like a machine-- although it is treated as one, by medicine practitioners. Our body is made up of trillions of building blocks called cells, which act autonomously and cooperates and competes with other cells in the body. In that sense, our bodies are more like societies, than machines. When new cells are born, they are in a nascent state and are called "stem" cells. The stem cells can go on to become any specific kind of cell-- like a muscle, cartilage, nerve, blood cell, bone cell, etc. as it "grows up". In fact, the probability that a stem cell becomes a specific kind of cell, depends on the economic demand for that kind of cell. Hence, if we exercise regularly, the economic demand for muscle cells go up, and more muscles are formed. If we read regularly and keep ourselves intellectually active, the economic demand for brain cells go up. Typically, just like what happens in a society.

But more than just autonomous actions, all cells of our body are characterized by a pervasive sense of self. They know that they collectivevly belong to this body and not some other body. In fact, when we are grafted with an organ from some other donor, it is often the case that our own cells reject it as a foreign body. Our immune system relies critically on this pervasive sense of self. To keep ourselves immune from infection, white blood corpuscles in our blood stream routinely mark foreign cells that are potentially harmful, to be removed by the spleen. For this, they somehow know which cells belong to this body and which are foreign cells.

The explanation to what was happening in my body was based on this pervasive sense of self across all my cells. When one part of my body was subject to surgery, it underwent trauma. This was interpreted as an attack on me, by some other part of my body, which then went into an introverted state as a trauma response. (Actually, the doctor's explanation used different terminology based on a notion of chakras, but I'm renarrating it using terms that are relatable by modern medicine).

To give another example, some years ago, in New Zealand, there was a horrific incident, where a man went on a shooting rampage in the religious place of some community that he hated. He even live-streamed his rampage on social media, which had resulted in a shock worldwide. A few months later, in Sri Lanka, a member of the same religion that was affected in New Zealand, went on a bombing spree in several places of worship, killing hundreds of people belonging to the religion of the perpetrator in New Zealand.

There was no physical causal link between the incidents in New Zealand and Sri Lanka. It is just that the perpetrator in Sri Lanka identified with the same religion as the victims in New Zealand, and ended up killing several people who identified with the same religion as the perpetrator in New Zealand.

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Associations of identity have no fundamental axiomatic place in machine hermeneutics. Identity dynamics operate in a very different way from physical causality. It is very hard (with our current method of inquiry) to predict actions that are performed based on identity. Recently, there was another news report that a well respected doctor in Pune, who had made important contributions to the field of medicine, was arrested because he was also recruiting people for a terror organization! Conventional wisdom about education leading to moderate and responsible behaviour, does not hold true when one has a strong sense of identity towards some external entity or ideology.

Wigh digital technology pervading around the world and connecting it like ever before, we will only see several more instances of identity-related dynamics, for which, we are woefully ill-equipped with our deep-rooted training in machine hermeneutics.

Logical implication and causality

2023-07-10T08:43:00.005+05:30

Judea Pearl, one of the prominent researchers in the logic of causality, argues that current-day mathematics and logic does not have mechanisms to represent causality. And this has caused great confusions in several instances.

Let us consider how causality is represented in current day mathematics and logic.

One of the most common situations where we interpret causality, is in a mathematical equation. An equation of the form

y = f(x)

is often interpreted as the value of f(x) causes y to get a given value. This is the interpretation used in several programming languages for example. In a language like C or python, when we say:

a = b

it means that the value of b causes the variable a to attain a given value. It is not the value of a that changes b, but the value of b that changes a.

But mathematically, the sign "=" simply means equality. In mathematics, a = b is the same as saying b = a.

This overloading of the "=" symbol causes complications in programming, when we have to distinguish between logical equality, and assignment. Programming languages hence, distinguish between the two kinds of operations. In languages like C or python, logical equality is represented as "==" that tells the program to check for equality, while the symbol "=" represents an imperative-- that tells the program to do something.

Even here, there is no separate operator for checking causality. When we say "a == b" in a programming language, we are only asking the program to check whether the values of a and b are the same. We are not asking it to check whether a caused b or b caused a to take on a specific value.

For instance, if 'a' were to represent the air pressure in a canister, and 'b' were to represent the reading of a barometer attached to the canister, then, whether we say "a == b" or "b == a", the outcome would still be the same. However, we can see that, if we manually change the air pressure to a different value, versus, if we manually change the barometer reading to a different value, the logical equality holds in the former case, but breaks in the latter case. This is because, this is not just an equality, but a causal relation between the two variables. The air pressure is causing the barometer reading, while the barometer reading is not causing the air pressure.

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Another common operator that is commonly mistaken for causality is the logical implication operator in formal logic. A statement of the form

P --> Q

is read as, "if P is true, then, Q is true."

A commonly used example is if P represents "it is raining" and Q represents "the lawn is wet". In this case, we can see that the logical implication is also interpreted as causality. The statement only says that "If it is true that it is raining, then it is true that the lawn is wet." But it is often interpreted as, "If it is raining, then it causes the lawn to be wet."

There is this common example to illustrate correlations versus causality. It is often seen that increase in ice-cream sales is correlated with increase in drowning incidents. But of course, it is not the ice-cream sales that is causing the drowning incidents. They are both increased because of the summer season, where people eat more ice-creams, and also go swimming more.

But, if P were to represent "increase in ice-cream sales" and Q were to represent "increase in drowning incidents" then the implication P --> Q is very much valid. The implication only says that if P is true, then Q is true-- not that P causes Q to be true.

Another confusion that is caused because of the lack of a causality operator is the famous saying by Rene Decartes: "I think, therefore, I am".

It is often interpreted as "I think, and therefore it causes me to exist" and leads to several jokes like the following:

René Descartes walked into a bar. The bartender said “would you like a beer?” René replied “I think not”
He disappeared.

Or this..

But the problem here is of course, that of interpreting implication as causation. "I think, therefore, I am" can be interpreted as "I think, and that causes me to exist" or as "I think, and therefore I can infer that I exist."

What Decartes meant was the latter. The fact that "I think" leads me to infer that "I exist". In other words, it is my existence that is having a causal dependency on the fact that I think, and not the other way around!

An implication of the form P --> Q can also legitimately mean that Q is the cause and P is the effect!

To understand his even better, consider the equivalence between an implication and its contra-positive. An implication of the form P --> Q and another implication of them form ~Q --> ~P (where ~ is interpreted as "not") are both equivalent.

Using this, we can see that "I think, therefore, I am" is equivalent to saying that "I am not, therefore I do not think". which is consistent.

Even if Decartes had meant that my thinking is causing me to exist, the implication that "I don't think, therefore I don't exist" is still a fallacy-- called the inverse fallacy. "If P then Q" is not equivalent to either "If Q then P" or "If not-P then not-Q".