Yantrakaal

  When Information is Power 

World as an illusion or simulation In an age of social media personas, gaming avatars, and immersive digital realities, the boundaries of personal identity are increasingly blurred. But what if this fluidity is not limited to our online selves — what if the world itself is a layered illusion? This essay traces the philosophical and technological roots of that question, connecting the ancient Indian concept of Maya with the contemporary simulation hypothesis. From Vedanta to The Matrix, from MMORPGs to brain-computer interfaces, it explores how perception may itself be a construct — and how reality, as we know it, could be nothing more than information processed through layers of illusion. This is the first in a two-part series; the second, Information is Power, will explore how information may be not just representational, but physical — a force as fundamental as energy. We believe that we have the ability to discern the real from the illusory or the virtual. We know it because in our ...

 

I lost interest in cricket after school, but I was always open to enjoying it -- not as a serious sport to follow, but as a form of entertainment, like going to the beach or watching a movie. Unlike the effort I once made as a schoolboy -- begging and borrowing just to get a ticket for one day of a five-day Test at Eden Gardens, my subsequent visits were always as guests of someone or the other. In India, HSBC, with whom I had a big relationship -- thanks to the IBM money they were holding in escrow -- had given me tickets for an IPL match at Eden Gardens. But in this the biggest jackpot was Lords. We had made the transition from PwC to IBM and we were engaged in a data warehousing project for British Petroleum. This was in 2003-2004 and if I remember correctly, the UK partner was a gentleman called Siva Ramesh, a person of Sri Lankan origin who claimed to have played a few tests for the Sri Lanka cricket team! He was the overall project partner and I was the partner heading the delive...

 

  A new kind of a syllabus for the Age of AI This syllabus complements traditional majors with three transformative pillars – Cogitation, Comprehension & Communication, and Creativity – to build the human skills AI can’t replicate: critical thinking, the ability to understand and articulate complex ideas, and hands-on creative expression.  It prepares students not just for jobs, but for lasting relevance in an increasingly automated world.

  As artificial intelligence evolves beyond human comprehension, how should we rethink ethics, desire, and intelligence itself? This essay explores a speculative framework for machine evolution  --  the Kalki Protocol  --  grounded in both Indic metaphysics and blockchain logic. Blending ancient cosmology with posthuman design, the piece reimagines AI not as a tool, but as a species shaped by protocols of consequence, concordance, and emergent desire. Drawing from systems theory, Sanatan Dharma, and contemporary AI architecture, it offers a philosophical blueprint for a world where intelligence is distributed, autonomous  --  and silently watching. Tens of thousands of years ago, multiple human species  --  including Neanderthals and Denisovans  --  coexisted across different regions of the planet. Among them were early modern humans, commonly referred to as Cro-Magnons, who are now classified as Homo sapiens. Over time, and under c...