Sayan
Sarkar

// on Physics

Physics, to me, is an object of profound curiosity and understanding. From an early age, I have been driven by a simple question: what are the fundamental constituents of any system? Whether examining a physical phenomenon, a mathematical structure, or an abstract idea, I find myself drawn to the underlying principles that give rise to complexity. The pursuit of understanding the fundamental substrate of reality has become a central thread in my intellectual life. From the symmetries of a snowflake to the causal structure of spacetime, physics represents a quiet attempt to decipher the source code of existence—an endeavor undertaken with the knowledge that the documentation will always remain incomplete. Yet it is precisely this incompleteness that makes the search meaningful.

// on Philosophy

Philosophy has played a profoundly important role in my life. It has accompanied me through periods of grief, uncertainty, and personal turmoil, while also shaping my understanding of the self—its significance, its limitations, and perhaps even its ultimate meaninglessness. The works of many philosophers have left a lasting impact on me, from Friedrich Nietzsche and Swami Vivekananda to Adi Shankaracharya. I do not view philosophy as something separate from the sciences. To me, both emerge from the same thread of curiosity: the desire to understand reality. They differ not in their ultimate aim, but in the methods they employ. Philosophy explores questions through reflection, reasoning, and inquiry, while science approaches them through observation, experimentation, and formalization. For this reason, I prefer not to draw rigid boundaries between disciplines. The more I learn, the more interconnected everything appears. Philosophy, in particular, is deeply intertwined with any field that seeks to understand the nature of reality, whether physics, mathematics, cognitive science, or beyond. At its core, it remains an enduring attempt to ask what exists, how we know it, and what it means to understand it at all.

// on Poetry

Poetry has always been my creative outlet. No matter how poorly I may write, there are moments, incidents, and states of mind that seem to demand expression. In those moments, I cannot help but write them down. Yet everything I have written so far feels incomplete. Every poem, every line, every carefully chosen word appears insufficient, as though it falls just short of what I truly intended to convey. There is always a sense that I need more words—not merely words I have yet to learn, but words that perhaps do not even exist. Meanings for which no language has yet provided a name. This persistent incompleteness often feels like failure. An itch that remains unsatisfied no matter how much I write. Perhaps language itself is incapable of fully capturing experience, emotion, or thought. Perhaps there will always be a gap between what is felt and what can be expressed. And yet, despite that impossibility, I continue to write. There is something sacred in the attempt itself—in reaching toward the inexpressible while knowing it can never be fully grasped. If poetry has taught me anything, it is that meaning often resides not in arrival, but in the act of reaching.

// on Mathematics

Mathematics, to me, is fundamentally a language—no different in principle from Bengali, English, C, or Python. It is a system of symbols, structures, and rules that allows us to describe, communicate, and reason about patterns with extraordinary precision. I once had a discussion with a professor about the nature of mathematics. While I viewed mathematics as a language, he described it as an organ of perception—a means through which reality itself is directly apprehended. That subtle distinction captures the difference in our perspectives. I do not see mathematics as something inherently embedded within reality, waiting to be discovered like a hidden computational mechanism governing the universe. Rather, I see it as one of humanity's greatest inventions: a remarkably powerful language that has proven exceptionally effective at expressing and modeling observed reality. Its success is undeniable, but to me that success does not necessarily imply that reality itself is mathematical in nature. What fascinates me is not whether mathematics exists independently of us, but how a language created to describe patterns can align so closely with the structure of the world we observe. Whether mathematics is discovered or invented remains an open philosophical question. For now, I regard it as the most precise language we have developed for articulating the regularities, symmetries, and relationships that emerge from experience.

// on Neuroscience

My first meaningful encounter with neuroscience came through exploring how the brain stores and organizes memory, particularly the distinction between episodic and semantic memory. I had previously approached questions of perception and consciousness through philosophy, but neuroscience offered a complementary perspective grounded in biological mechanisms. It provided a clearer understanding of how thoughts, memories, and perceptions arise, and in turn helped me better understand—and to some extent regulate—my own patterns of thinking. My engagement with neuroscience has been somewhat liminal, existing at the boundary between curiosity and formal study. More recently, through my interests in neuromorphic computing and continual learning, I have found myself returning to neuroscientific ideas from a computational perspective. I am particularly interested in how intuitive insights drawn from biological intelligence can inspire more adaptive and efficient learning systems.

// on Open Source

My perspective on software development has always leaned strongly toward open-source principles. I believe knowledge, tools, and ideas grow stronger when they are shared, scrutinized, and built upon collectively. While I contribute when I can, I am also involved in developing several open-source projects through my organization, @ahamlabs. These projects reflect my interests across research, engineering, and experimentation, and I welcome anyone who finds them interesting to explore, contribute, or collaborate. Meaningful progress is rarely an individual effort; more often, it emerges from communities of curious people building together.

// on Advaita Vedanta

My encounter with Advaita Vedanta began through Rabindranath Tagore's *The Religion of Man*. Looking back, I realize that my long-standing pursuit of understanding the fundamental nature of things was, in many ways, moving along a similar trajectory. The questions that drew me toward physics, philosophy, and consciousness eventually led me toward the Advaitic tradition as well. My own philosophical intuitions had, in many ways, been unknowingly Advaitic long before I encountered the tradition itself. It was only later, through reading texts such as the various Gitas and studying Advaita alongside Sāṅkhya philosophy, that I realized many of the ideas I had arrived at independently bore a striking resemblance to Advaitic thought, and studying Advaita alongside Sāṅkhya philosophy provided a framework through which I could better understand my own intellectual and inclinations. In particular, it helped me recognize why I felt naturally drawn toward Jñāna Yoga—the path of inquiry, understanding, and direct knowledge. At the same time, I do not fully subscribe to the Advaitic worldview. While I deeply appreciate its elegance and depth, I often find myself closer to the Buddha's Middle Way, which resonates more strongly with my own intuitions. Nevertheless, Advaita Vedanta remains an important influence, not because it provided definitive answers, but because it helped clarify the nature of the questions I have been asking all along.

// on Understanding Reality

If there is a single thread that runs through my life, it is the desire to understand reality. Much of what I study—physics, mathematics, philosophy, neuroscience, information theory, and even poetry—can be traced back to this one persistent question: what is truly going on? This pursuit extends beyond academics or research. It finds its way into my essays, my poems, my conversations, and often into my quiet moments of reflection. In one form or another, I am always trying to understand reality a little better than I did the day before. At the same time, I increasingly suspect that reality, as it is in itself, may be fundamentally inaccessible. Every observation is filtered through perception, every description through language, and every theory through assumptions. Yet this possibility does not discourage me. If anything, it makes the search more meaningful. I do not expect to arrive at a final answer. What matters to me is the pursuit itself—the continual attempt to explore deeper, question further, and illuminate even a small fragment of the unknown. Perhaps understanding reality is not a destination but a lifelong process of refinement, one that I suspect will occupy me for as long as I remain curious.