Are you proud of your buckets and combs? Is a cup culture-specific? What's typical? Are objects a part of your identity? Can empathy be created? Can buildings foster (multidimensional) equity? What is bad design? Do the best designs (try to) do many things simultaneously? Does a challenging design problem always involve trade-offs and incentive conflicts? How do evolving needs, preferences, and available resources lead to new categories? Why do non information intensive products (such as debt) c...
Dec 18, 2016•1 hr 9 min
Is 29 absolutely prime? Are the 26 letters of the English alphabet arbitrary? Can you learn a word in isolation? How are children able to learn languages without being taught? Why are there patterns at all, & which are more likely? Do objects with more symmetries occur more often? Can patterns be understood via distributions? (How) are constellations in the sky invariant? Are relations more fundamental than entities? Are prime numbers randomly distributed? Is transformation possible only in ...
Dec 17, 2016•1 hr 10 min
Is all making curating? Is the location of a maker a fiction? Are there always rules to making? Is any expression preceded by an act of repression? How, then, is black magic different from magic? Is alchemy possible? Why can’t every molecule be made? How are some isomers easier to make? Can experience be created without materials? Does architecture help us carve an address in this vast universe by housing rituals in space? Are films different because it is a temporal medium and does not ‘exist’ ...
Dec 04, 2016•1 hr 11 min
What does a bee see? Do we see light? What are we blind to? Is the universe dark? Does darkness have a physical basis? Is light a wave or a particle or both or something else? Does this depend on the nature of the detector? Is light (like a) photon for living systems? Are photons wave packets? Why haven’t all the contradictory theories of light been permanently overthrown? Is the discipline reorganized differently when we revisit it after several centuries? How is heat different from light? Is i...
Nov 27, 2016•1 hr 5 min
Do you have a default tendency to say: ‘Yes’? When do you abandon your own information and follow the herd? Can herds form because of individual selfish interests? How do bee colonies decide? Are all social animals herd animals? Is there no good way to ‘independently’ aggregate group preferences without a ‘dictator’? How does aggregation of preferences and information differ from each other? Must a jury consider everyone’s opinions? Does the nature of the problem (whether cognition, coordination...
Nov 06, 2016•1 hr 5 min
Is Nature logical? Is uncertainty hardwired into Nature? Where do the paradoxes or aporia lie? Might paradoxes exist in the object (& not in the thinking)? What is the ontological status of mathematical objects? Are laws of Nature really written in the language of mathematics? Is mathematics a form of philosophical speculation? Did mechanization precede mathematization? Are axioms more pragmatic than theoretical? Can all mathematics be reduced to (but not derived from) logic? 'How' is mathem...
Oct 30, 2016•1 hr 13 min
How is an entity able to copy itself? How do the four DNA base (A, T, C, G) molecules function like ‘symbols’ leading to the entire genetic code? Why can’t a neuron be treated as a symbol? Are genetic and linguistic codes analogous to each other, with common notions of letters, words, sentences, grammar, and (even) punctuation marks? Is all DNA ‘useful’? How do proteins derive their meaning (function?), & how are they regulated? Does a sentence derive its value from the non linguistic realm?...
Oct 23, 2016•1 hr 3 min
Are we trustworthy? Are you being watched; by whom? How is punishment in the personal sphere different from that imposed by Law? Does Law reason, & permit discretion? Is re-offence rampant? Is punishment a necessity (& a utility?) in a social ordered system? Does society punish for its own sake? Must punishment be just and proportionate, and not merely efficient? Does it need to be accompanied by a moral event in the perpetrator? Can one buy one’s way out of capital punishment? Must caus...
Oct 23, 2016•1 hr 5 min
Is dingo in danger? What are forests and gardens 'for'? Is the wilderness a place where humans are absent? What is the history of the conception of wilderness? Can nature be sculpted? Are gardens a space on a continuum between the city and the jungle? Why do we build gardens? What do you introduce into gardens? Are visually remarkable species preferred in this process? Why are only certain trees planted? Are there 'local' plants and animals? Are starlings American? Are potatoes Indian? Why aren'...
Oct 08, 2016•1 hr 8 min
Are you using a QWERTY keyboard? Why do all clocks go clockwise? Can some systems get locked into sub-optimal states? Why are some processes path dependent and some not? Does the number of variables or the ‘direction’ of change matter? Can future be memory-less, & depend only on the present and not on the past? Can one ‘ensure’ that systems escape unstable equilibria? What role do initial conditions and noise play in arriving at one of multiple possible equilibria? When do systems have uniqu...
Oct 03, 2016•1 hr 5 min
'What' gives rise to conscious experience? How can we know if consciousness is fundamental, and if can we model it? Why aren't sticks and stones, & tables and chairs, manifestly 'conscious'? Do we really know? Is consciousness the capacity of a system to integrate information? Why is information processing by us (often) accompanied by conscious experience? Why is consciousness generated only by certain parts of the brain? How does one measure consciousness? 'How' does pain exist? Is reality ...
Oct 01, 2016•1 hr 7 min
Do you have others working for you? Is the need to work a curse? Or, is work life? Does work establish the relationship between the ‘body’ and nature, economy & society? Do we realize and socialize ourselves via work? Are work and leisure complementary (but only when work is socially configured)? What is leisure for the self employed? How & why is much of production ancillarized? Why are most jobs made idiot-proof? Is a life with only short-term flexible jobs meaningless? Can we, then, h...
Sep 04, 2016•1 hr 5 min
Is your disease human? Are you infected? Do you have an orphan or a rare disease? Has (the) polio (virus) been eradicated? ‘Can’ vaccines be made for all infectious diseases, & is eradication for ever? Why was there an epidemic of measles after the collapse of Soviet Union? Can anything be done about the strong genetic predisposition to (say) Huntington’s Chorea? Is diabetes non-communicable? Does society create different kinds of disabilities? Is all blindness treatable? Why aren’t radical ...
Aug 28, 2016•1 hr 4 min
Can one stay in a hole through one's entire life? Is a system always embedded in another? How large can (or should) the smaller system be? Is the market a free floating entity? Is it difficult to understand when a system has been monopolized? Do almost all communities have skewed abundance patterns? Are niches always n-dimensional hypervolumes? Can there be a qualitative difference between two forests with the same amount of timber generated and harvested? Is niche fundamentally a ‘fund’ (& ...
Jul 24, 2016•1 hr 5 min
Is your name on the top of your mind? Are the preconscious or the unconscious merely the regions far away from the centre of the field of attention? Why are memories transient? Can there be a memory molecule, or are all memories synthesized? Are memories localized in the brain? Can (collective) memories be formless? How are traumatic events remembered? What role does emotional significance, meaning, and stress play in the recording and retrieval of a memory? Can memories be inherited genetically...
Jul 17, 2016•1 hr 10 min
Why don’t we let the past be? What do we do when there is a crisis? What do we see when we look back? What is imitated? Is a renaissance a rebirth: but of something totally new (as a non identical repetition)? What is renaissance ‘about’? Is it celebratory of a past but not necessarily redemptive? Can something ontologically preexisting (& of value) be made into a ‘currency’ by naming? Is the word renaissance substantive or does it need a geographical (say, Italian/Islamic/Bengal) or other m...
Jul 17, 2016•1 hr 4 min
Did Buddha have friends? Did Gandhi have enemies? Can you renounce friends? Is friendship universal? Do we ‘need’ enemies? Is competition ever with enemies? Why is there ‘narcissism of small differences’? Can rivals be friends? How are enemies, adversaries, and opponents conceptually distinct from each other? Are democratic structures meant for pacification of politics: can enemies be turned into adversaries? Does self interest contaminate friendship or does mutual self interest bind it together...
Jul 11, 2016•1 hr 9 min
Can suicide bombers be farmed? Who is a terrorist? How are terrorists recruited, trained and incentivized? Do terrorists run out of weapons? What role does leadership play in the success of terrorist groups? What happens when a terrorist group is decapitated? Is it possible to dabble in terrorism? Is a terrorist attack always a mixture of violence and theatre, and always a part of a communication strategy? How are terrorist groups organised? Can terrorist groups maintain armies, and military lik...
Jul 09, 2016•1 hr 11 min
Do you know that you are ignorant? How do you understand clouds? What would total knowledge do; could you create the entire universe then? Is the process of acquiring knowledge an iterative tussle with ignorance? Does every new knowledge also produce new ignorance? Are all descriptions answers? How is a discipline made possible? Is it possible to classify ignorance a priori? Is science primarily a representational endeavour? What is painter’s knowledge? How does biology understand nature? How do...
Jul 03, 2016•1 hr 13 min
What cannot be abstracted? What was Grothendieck up to? Does abstraction exist all around us; as notions of (say) numbers, distance, money, & more? Further, is there a way of abstracting the notion of distance across different kinds of geometries? Is labour (power) abstract? Is it surprising that we are able to think of 2 apples and 2 oranges as just 2? Does cinema & art usually give a concrete body to abstract things like emotions? What is the method of abstraction across realms, & ...
May 15, 2016•1 hr 8 min
Do kids understand adults? Does foetus feel pain and pleasure? What does the world look like from the crib? Is the new born infant alert, aware & awake, & not confused? What are kids pre-wired for, & is pre-wiring largely genetic? Do we learn fear? Do new-borns get bored? How do children learn, and (what) do they need to be taught? How is grammar learnt? When do kids start becoming autonomous? Have you experienced the Terrible Twos? When does a child stop being a child? Is the concep...
Apr 24, 2016•1 hr 6 min
Is Colin McKenzie for real? What cannot be faked? Are fakes lies? Can copies be more valuable than the original? What is the test of something being original? Is originality a fact? Is it culturally determined? What are the ethics and aesthetics of fakes? How and at what point do we know when an experience is not real? What about reality that cannot be experienced? Is seeing believing, or is believing seeing? Is ‘seeing’ always ‘seeing-as’? Why do some of us prefer artificial flowers over fresh ...
Apr 03, 2016•1 hr 9 min
Are there happy poets? Can one write poetry without having suffered (some) exile? Why has there been deep pessimism about poets, & might poets cause wars and genocide? How is deeply personal poetry dangerous? Does poetry represent perfect, universal and eternal truth? How is a poet different from a philosopher? Does poetry find its foothold in a good society, when philosophical truth is understood as a process, & not a product? How might limitless (anarchic) emotions be expressed given t...
Mar 06, 2016•1 hr 10 min
How does rate of change change? Is equilibrium balance, & what happens when there is no balance? Is equilibrium attained when fast processes have done their job, and the slow processes have not started? Do all systems tend towards equilibrium? How are biological, physical, and economic systems different in this context? What would happen inside a closed box of Hydrogen atoms in (say) a billion years? Is equilibrium scale and time dependent? Is stability desirable? Is daily temperature stable...
Feb 21, 2016•1 hr 8 min
Is babble the beginning? Are languages pure, or were they originally mixed? Was Shakespeare writing in English? Are languages negotiated like in a bazaar, & where then does the power lie? Are there areas & languages where mixing is flaunted, & some where it is not? Do you communicate in a mixed language (Hinglish?)? Does the label of language operate in a retrospective manner? What does it mean to have a first language? What does it mean to loan and borrow words? Do you pun? Do words...
Feb 06, 2016•1 hr 7 min
What is a (hard) problem? Can we know which problems do not have solutions? Is scheduling flights a hard problem? Is assembling cars an easy problem? Theoretically, are there more problems (uncountable) than solutions (countably many)? Are algorithms well defined? Are they a finite description for infinitely many possible inputs & processes? What is not an algorithm? Can processes be algorithmic and not computational? Does it matter how algorithms are embodied? Is every algorithm a Turing Ma...
Jan 24, 2016•1 hr 7 min
Is your (everyday) life repetitive and mundane? Does squirming life lie just underneath the layer of banality? Is the everyday always laced with fantasy and/or skepticism? What is the place of mythology in this context? Can a polluted river be a sight to behold, & might it be crucial to hold such ambivalent feelings? What is an event? Can household events be dreadful? What is totally new? Can a fleeting moment sometimes come as a gift? Equally, can dormant stories suddenly come into being ag...
Jan 24, 2016•1 hr 10 min
What do you believe ‘in’? Do you hold irrational beliefs? Why is it difficult to revise beliefs? Can it be beneficial to have false beliefs? Do you (objectively) believe that there is Heaven? Can beliefs be like axioms, or are they all (iteratively) based on facts? Are absurd beliefs particularly beneficial in forming a community? Does belief always imply an affect? Do you believe that voting is a foolish thing to do? Is belief an instrument of power? Can one infer beliefs of animals or children...
Jan 18, 2016•1 hr 10 min
Have you been stuck in a traffic jam? Is it ‘difficult’ to wear helmets? Can one conceive of one’s own death? Can traffic self organize? Is the ability to reverse, as in certain molecular motors, fundamental to the design of all efficient transportation systems? Are there lanes (microtubules), porters, & ‘bypass roads’ within our cells? Why does the tendency towards order increase as the traffic density increases? How are traffic shockwaves created? What are the interrelationships between de...
Jan 18, 2016•1 hr 8 min
Why aren’t there ant sized elephants? Or, why aren’t there elephant sized ants? What is small, large or infinite? Are there theoretical limits to size for living & physical bodies? Was the Universe infinite in size even at Big Bang, & how? Is there a center of the Universe? Are there different kinds of infinity? Do different infinities have different cardinalities? What is countably or uncountably infinite? Can there be an infinity ‘smaller’ than Aleph-naught? How is infinitely small (in...
Jan 09, 2016•1 hr 5 min
