webinar

In this talk, I trace the relevance of the word backwardness, and its imbrication in the affiliated words identity and tolerance, for the discipline of political economy. Towards this end, I project the word backwardness to two different registers and its two constituent theoretical sub-registers: Walrasian [ADMA (Arrow-Debreu-McKenzie-Aumann)] general equilibrium theory and Cournotian [VNH (vonNeumann-Nash-Harsanyi)] game theory.

Human being is searching for wholeness or fulfillment or unconditional freedom in life. He is usually searching for it in wealth, power, fame etc., but obviously does not find it because freedom happens to be one’s own nature and Self-knowledge is the only means to attain/discover it. Life should become a process leading to this destination. Vedanta which consists of scriptures such as the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita teaches both the end as well as the means.

The most common notion of symmetry in mathematics and its applications is associated with groups, for instance the rotations, reflections, and translations of the euclidean plane.    In recent years, a more general structure known as a groupoid has been found to provide a broader notion of symmetry.

I will explain what a groupoid is, will give some basic examples, and will tell about some subjects to which they have been applied, including dance patterns, the "15 Puzzle", networks of coupled systems, and patterns like the tiles on a floor.

We start by explaining the nature of theory-building. Roughly, a "theory" is an organization of our thoughts on accumulated data on some domain of (human) experience. We shall apply this consideration to the atomic theory in chemistry which arose as an explanation of the philosophical notion of "matter". We shall then explain the role that Mathematics has played in this theory-building. In turn, this raises the question about the nature of Mathematics. In the process, we attempt to offer a definition of Mathematics.

The talk is based on a recently published paper “Kernel regression coefficients for practical significance," Journal of Risk and Financial Management 15(1) pp.1-13. https://doi.org/10.3390/jrfm15010032 The abstract and full paper are available at the link. The actual talk will focus on some human-interest stories about the four founding fathers of the modern scientific method implemented in regressions, not discuss technical details unless asked.

Man is a molecular factory. Malfunction in its operations manifests as a disease state. Repairing the malfunction at the molecular level is conceivable. The biochemical operations of different organs and the entire human body are being established at the molecular level. Now, knowledge is available to open new avenues of treating diseases. Molecular biology is paving the road to molecular medicine.

Science is continuing to build on big-data and powerful-compute to enter an exciting era of accelerated discovery with new levels of speed and scale in scientific discovery. But many areas in life sciences grapple with sparse, small incomplete data, among other challenges. I will discuss how focused and innovative abstractions and representations not only help tackle these challenges but also pave the way for resource-efficient scientific discoveries.

We shall first briefly discuss the Indian Knowledge System and its parts such as Vedas, Philosophy, Puranas and Epics,  Linguistics, Mathematics, Astronomy, Engineering and Technology,  Health and Psychology, Governance and Public Administration. We shall then concentrate on Development of Mathematics in India in Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry and Calculus  from the times of Bodhayana (800 BC) to Madhavacharya (14th Century AD).

Climate narrative from the west often ignores the equity issues and engages in debates with scientifically misplaced metrics such as rise and fall of annual emissions instead of  stock of total cumulative emissions . The root cause of the problem is stock of emissions - and not the annual flow. Even the current net zero emissions narrative does not engage with the issue of equitable actions in proportion to responsibility. Payments for loss and damage to those who suffer without emitting is also a key issue. For example, the recent floods in Pakistan, which is not their doing.

The notion of rationality is much discussed by both Economists and  Philosophers. Perhaps you are rational if you accept certain axioms of rationality. If you prefer A to B and B to C then you must prefer A to C.   Or you can define rationality in terms of the net results of your behavior.  We examine a notion of algorithmic rationality.  Even animals upwards from the humble tick carry out algorithms.  Are they rational?  And can we use this theory to define the IQ of animals?