Suicide

Why is suicide a crime to be repressed? Is it because with every act, however isolated, it leaves a footprint that mocks the society by pointing to its many intractable inadequacies?

Origins of life

The endeavor to trace the origins of life seems to be an unending displacement of scientific focus. If the first forms of life came to be through a simple sequence of chemical reactions sparked by rocks, what explains the origin of these very "first" matters?

Science and purpose

The problem with the machinery of science, in its fascination to facilitate attaining as much of the desired with as little, seems not with its inattention to the undesirable, but with its nonchalance toward how the desirableness was constituted in the first place.

Who is a good inquirer?

As I begin to prepare applying for the Doctoral programmes, I seem quite unsure of what aspects of my profile is pertinent to be underscored. While at this juncture what best impresses upon the admissions committee should be salient, some fundamental doubts seem to prod me in a different direction.

What works is true

Adopting the view that "we live forward, but we think backwards", Professor Robert Schwartz of University of Wisconsin re-examines "pragmaticism" - a nineteenth century philosophical tradition based on the maxim that it is practical consequences that determine the validity of a proposition or ideology.+ more

Pertinent realities

A couple of days back I began my morning browsing the headline story on the closely guarded hanging of one of the accused terrorists. A skeptic that I am, I wondered whether the accused was really hanged or was he still kept secretly alive for some reason that a common man such as I may not fathom. As the question soon faded, a more basic one popped up - "Do I really care about the veracity of the matter?". In so questioning I did not realize that I had inadvertently embarked on a journey toward understanding truth.

Two + two

Of late, there are a few questions that are taking up too much of my mind share. The commonality of these questions is that they appear elementary and seem to frequent more often than due. Every time they occur they cajole me into unfolding them, and in the process they beget more questions and leave me increasingly embittered by my inadequacies to find any reasonable answers.