TED Community » Siddharth Chowdhury

More About Me

I'm passionate about

As a CS major at Purdue, I'm taking all sorts of different courses and not just ones related to CS! As for my major, I plan to concentrate in Security as a track along with Machine Learning(A.I.).

An idea worth spreading

I had done a research internship with Thinklabs, the Robotics Institute, India. They have their research centre at IIT Mumbai. I helped them in designing new science experiments that can help Middle and High school students learn simple concepts like Magnetism, Electric Wiring Systems, etc. In the very near future the plan is to take these experiments to various schools through-out India and make it a part of student activity.We are currently developing experiments to make science fun for students. I want students to love science and be inspired, I want these experiments to help turn them in to an explorer of science like me. Education in India is not practical and is not based on understanding. The fact that I'm helping change that and help the future of this country is amazing and something I'm really really proud of!!!! I want this idea to spread and be accepted across the country wit

Talk to me about

Cyber Security, Robotics, Cosmology, Psychology, Philosophy or anything that you would want to share!!

People don't know that I'm good at

Programming ( Hacking too, If u know what i mean :P). Learning and applying the Micro Expression theory in real life....(be careful when you talk to me! haha xD). And photography for fun.

My TED Story

TED has people that inspire me a lot!.. They have changed me and given me a passion and a goal to reach and I know that he means a lot to me. I want to be able to add to the knowledge that manking has already uncovered! And one day, I want to see myself giving lectures on TED!!!

Comments

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• A reply on Conversation: Are we on the brink of creating a human-like digital mind?

  Mar 11 2013: That isnt true. Computers beat humans at chess ages ago, and there s no problem the computer cant solve. The only things is that the variables the computer needs to solve the problem as made by humans and thats where the error comes from.
  Also, you don't need emotion to create the brain. You see, in order for artificial intelligence to work the only criteria is that the computer has to become self aware, that is, it has to realize its own existence.

• A reply on Conversation: After learning a language -Why can't anyone go back and narrate what and how one experienced during the first year?

  Mar 7 2013: Well it could probably be recalled but we will have to have exceptional recall abilities. And we may no always be able to recall because if unused those neurons that access that part of the memory mat no longer exist.
  Now heres a weird paradox. It is said that every time u recall a situation you slightly change your memory of it!
  Think about how that could affect things?
  Yep, societal norms are one of the greatest factors that our learning and memory. Because it influences what we consider to be "important" and what what we consider to be "insignificant".

• A comment on Conversation: After learning a language -Why can't anyone go back and narrate what and how one experienced during the first year?

  Mar 4 2013: The key here is the concept of repetition. In a cognitive psych class I'm taking this semester I learn that our brain tends to discard unnecessary information. We tend to retain only those thing what are useful to survival and those that we remember through "repetition". For example, we still remember numbers and letters because we have subconsciously and consciously repeated it to ourself over a billion times and still do. Every operation, every task involving this is a repetition.
  However if we do not access that those particular chunks of memory, then the brain deems it useless and it begins to fade away. Lets take the SAT for example. I learnt so many new words for the SAT. And I dont think I have or will ever use most of these words. Probably ina year from now I wont be able to recall a single one? Maybe if you read it out to me, I might remember because of similarity, maybe i wont.
  Also the general sense of social logic. Socially speaking, if we were go randomly go to say a market and when someone says hi, turn around and scream "go go daaa da" or something, they would think Im crazy! Well so as we become a "part" or society and "grow up" we also learn the language of society. Society has its own set of mutually understood norms of not only behavior, but also of speech. And thus, even though babies remember so many words and they do understand phonetics and grammar, we tend to forget the unused parts of that speech.
• +1

  A reply on Conversation: "Why Can't We Solve Big Problems?"

  Mar 4 2013: Exactly. By pushing each other to go beyond this "impossibility" as a whole community is definitely a solution. But this brings us to one more question, can everyone work together? Can we leave our ego, the concept of "mine and yours", etc behind and make this happen?
• +2

  A comment on Conversation: "Why Can't We Solve Big Problems?"

  Mar 4 2013: Its simple. we cant solve them because we consider them big.
  If you predecide that something is extremely hard or impossible, then it actually will be impossible.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: Do right and wrong exist?

  Mar 3 2013: Umm no not really. The concept of right and wrong is different in different cases. The definition of right and wrong changes for every different boundary level. By boundary level I mean different levels of existing. First being individual, then others like family, people you know, social status, state, country, the world or even society as a whole. The concept of right nd wrong is differently defined in each one of these. Thus it is very subjective and has no "definition"

• A comment on Conversation: Is there anything that a human being can never possibly do?

  Jan 20 2013: We can never understand the "theory of everything". We will not find the answer to every single question, because you can never understand the "whole" while your a part of it.
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  A comment on Conversation: What motivates you?

  Oct 3 2012: The future. Thats what motivates me!

• A reply on Conversation: WIll building smart self-aware robots endanger our existence in the future?

  Dec 26 2011: Wow....this conversation is getting really complicated...:P

• A reply on Conversation: What's your favorite word?

  Dec 16 2011: Love the word! lol