TED Community » Anupriy Kanti

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I am interested mostly drawing sketches, reading, researching, listening to music...But what fascinates me is the extent to which human creativity can go to...

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• A reply on Conversation: Where does our identity as being "human" come from?

  Mar 4 2012: I think you summed it up very well in the line 'There is a very real difference between the "human-being" and "being human".' Very well put.
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  A comment on Conversation: Where does our identity as being "human" come from?

  Mar 4 2012: A very interesting and a complex question - one that cannot be answered with simplicity perhaps. But scientifically, it could be our sense of cognition, biological similarities and potential of evolving behaviour. Anthropologically, it could be the desire to satisfy not just our physiological needs but to develop our emotional and intellectual self too using culture as a tool. However, the irony in this is that, we yet need to segregate ourselves not just other species, but our own using culture, religion or nation. In doing so over time, we automatically forget that it is not nature that creates this distinction but us (i.e. it does not didactically tell us we are different from apes, we do that). Since it is us, the lines never seem to be very clear as they are done within a context of place and time.
  
  Would like to leave with something I had written a while back -
  
  http://heyimalive.blogspot.in/2008/11/who-am-i.html
  
  WHO AM I?
  
  Am I just a fusion of different chemicals,
  formed miraculously by some divine intervention?
  
  Am I just a biological species,
  happening to be composed of cells and tissues?
  
  Am I just an individual,
  who loves socializing, traveling and sketching?
  
  Am I just a Mumbai-ite,
  with a happy family and great friends around the place?
  
  Am I just an Indian,
  living in a metropolitan city?
  
  Am I just a teenager,
  vainly trying to figure out life and relationships?
  
  Am I just a human being,
  doing my time on this planet seeing if I make a difference?
  
  Am I just a carbon speck,
  in this infinite universe soup somewhere in the span of my existence?
  
  Or Am I just...Anupriy?
  
  
  
  We may be everything, but is it right for us to think within a context to a degree that we forget the rest.
  
  Perhaps that is why there is never a clear answer about the origin of our identity.
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  A comment on Conversation: If you could do a TED talk, what would you talk about?

  Oct 2 2011: 'Revisting our concepts of Problems and Solution'. Did a small presentation with a friend for a Rotary Club in Mumbai, India. It was on the lines of how we have traditionally seen 'problems' (or obstacles, questions etc.) - as something that is 'bad', difficult to understand due to the complex or subjective nature - and 'solutions' (or answers) - as something that is 'good', eliminates the problem, brings happiness. By trying to just give an alternative view, we left everyone with a thought they can not just carry back with them, but can use and apply in the daily life. The idea has developed further and we are planning on writing a book.
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  A comment on Conversation: What's your TED habit?

  Oct 2 2011: Since I got introduced to TED a few years back, I have been watching it on a regular basis (2-3 'new' talks every couple of days). I always make it a point to open a TED site atleast ones a day, just to see if there is a new one has come out. If the name and the description catches my eyes and interest, I watch it there and then - no matter how long. However, if I am in a hurry, or taking a short break from other work, I look for one of the 'Less than 6 minutes or 3 minutes one'. I make it a point to download the once I feel are really good once and send the link to a group of people who may find it interesting too (though I am sure some of them must have got irritated with me flooding their inbox with TEDtalks).
  
  Apart from that, I have 'like'd the TED page on Facebook, so I get a constant update of the current happening on the site.

• A comment on Talk: Lauren Zalaznick: The conscience of television

  Sep 24 2011: Amazingly insightful talk. It is nice to see a new perspective on Television shows and how it affects our psyche. But I do have one question - In the statistic regarding 'Fantasy/Imagination' and 'Unemployment' (A seemingly weird but interesting comparison, I must add), there seems to be a crude relation between the two as if both are directly proportional. How and Why? Is it to say that this particular genre may have contributed in creating unemployment? Or is it the this genre becomes the 'most viewed' when one is unemployed?

• A comment on Conversation: Why don't people believe in God?

  May 2 2011: First of all, I would like to clarify that when it comes to religion and god - I am agnostic i.e. a doubter. This is after years of being an atheist. But my passion of philosophy and mythology made me revise the concept of why religion (and God) exists or atleast why people believe them to be.
  
  Most of us believe or want to believe in idea of God because it gives the world around us a sense of order and purpose. But does God really exist? And how important is it for us to find out? As you put it in your open line 'if it were even the slightest....that God does not exist or does?'. Personally I believe that even if you do you will be going to hell (or something similar) - atleast according to the religions that you didn't follow. Each religion or faith ultimately prescribes a way of living that they believe is the right or optimum way. And who is to say which one got it right or wrong? Perhaps in this process of thinking, I realized that the best way is to keep an open mind about all this...

• A reply on Conversation: What makes me deserving to know the Truth about anything? Does questioning and contemplating make me worthy enough to know?

  Mar 18 2011: I do not think that I am unworthy, that question is moot because one can always conjugate reasons of why one does not meet certain criteria or conditions making him or her unworthy. Besides, you are answering a question by questioning its negation.
  
  Besides, the point of me asking what makes me worthy is that besides, my own curiosity and knowledge seeking attitude, I can't think of any other reason why I should get to know truth about anything.
  
  The idea was to ask - what makes anyone of us better deserving to know something about the world more than others?

• A reply on Conversation: What makes me deserving to know the Truth about anything? Does questioning and contemplating make me worthy enough to know?

  Mar 18 2011: A very thoughtful answer...
  
  The point of me asking this was because I see around me a world full of diversity - people with different outlooks, beliefs etc. It made me wonder 'How am I to understand the world if I am limited by my own perception?'. So I thought that few ways to knowledge, as you aptly put it, was Open-mindedness, humility, acknowledgement etc.
  
  However, it raised me another question - Does a loss of subjectivity get to closer to the truth (or truths)? If yes, then our emotions and perception are not something to be felt, but overcome. If yes, then it is as good as saying that objectivism is perhaps the only way to go. Then it's better to be 'Wikipedia' then a 'human being' if one wants to pursue knowledge or truth..
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  A comment on Conversation: Where do our thoughts come from?

  Mar 12 2011: I too have wondered this for long, I even asked this question on a blog -
  
  Does an idea or a concept orginate or materializes when it comes in a form of a thought or feeling? Or does it exist independently, using us as only medium or vessel to be expressed?
  
  While conventionally, thoughts and ideas are believed to be a refined manifestation of mental activity, or consciousness, recently a new field of Memetics speaks about how thoughts or ideas transfer and replicate themselves from one being to another via 'memes'. This is analogous to the way genes work. There is a lot of debate and speculation about the credibility of this field. But nonetheless, it is another way of looking and understanding the concept of 'thoughts'.
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  A comment on Talk: Denis Dutton: A Darwinian theory of beauty

  Nov 16 2010: Interesting Insight. Amazing and fascinating presentation. But I have a question, regarding the Darwinian explanation of beauty - it says that beauty is beyond 'what lies in the eye of beholder' but then what about the subjectivity of beauty? The idea that beauty is cultural concept was take into account of the context in which it is being judged. The subjectivity of beauty cannot be ignored. Even to two people of the same culture, may not agree upon something or someone being beautiful. Evolution may explain an aspect of beauty (It being "one of the ways that evolution has of arousing or sustaining interest") but does not explain the reason for its subjectivity.