SynTalk

SynTalk thinks about errors, while constantly wondering if they are innately hardwired into nature. Are error free domains possible or desirable? Would we stop making history if there were to be an error free world? The concepts are derived off / from Gnosticism, Aristotle, Alhazen, Galileo, Kepler, Thomas More, Lord Kelvin, Heidegger, Cioran, Gödel, Piaget, John Bell, & Tony Hoare, among others. Is all truth temporal? The difference between systematic (in one direction) and random (in both directions) errors with respect to the true value. Do things fail in the (non-human) natural world or they just ‘happen’? Is failure about an unfolding process while errors are more punctual? How (measurement) errors are inextricably linked to the notion of standard conception and expectation. Is there a trade-off between safety (not making mistakes) and liveness (making progress) for reactive systems (that interact with the environment)? How did a perfect Being create an imperfect world, and is it possible to have a ‘theology of failure’ (via, say, the demiurge)? How we pose the existence of a creator via notions of making, design or performance of the world (as an object). Is it likely that (software) modules that are individually correct give an error when put together? How in languages that are self referential & expressive it is impossible to prove if a program is correct. How some flawed universal notions can be much more intuitive. The (deeply counterintuitive) equivalence of uniform motion and rest. How there is often a striking similarity between students’ flawed conceptions and the history of ideas. Is limited experience the main source of errors? How computer programs non monotonically learn from experience, and the accompanying process of belief revision? Is consistency the virtue of an ass? What is the opposite of failure? Does one experience profound existential nothingness when one encounters failure? How (fortunately?) utopias – the perfect social & political models of the world – fail, and links with expectations and game theory? The links between ‘the world going to the dogs’, violent movement, bugs, chess, God, invariants, flight controllers, voting, winners & losers, exponential blow up, theory of vision, clocks, the original sin, bicycle, & the verifying compiler. Is it possible that there are ‘hidden variables’ in the physical world that makes even the quantum world completely certain? Would becoming perfect be the end of everything, & should we stay imperfect? The SynTalkrs are: Dr. Costica Bradatan (philosophy, Honors College, TTU, Texas), Prof. Arvind Kumar (physics, Centre for Excellence in Basic Sciences, ex-HBCSE TIFR, Mumbai), & Prof G. Sivakumar (computer science, IIT Bombay, Mumbai).