Patterns that Connect: AI, Management, Metaverse, Quantum, Philosophy, and Physics

Copyright: Sanjay Basu I’ve been working through some new ideas about integrating Promise theory and event-driven software methodologies into my AI agentic workflows, and it’s starting to feel like a natural evolution for how we design and orchestrate these systems. Traditional ways of building out intelligent applications — hardwiring logic, chaining services together in rigid pipelines — seem a bit antiquated when compared to the fluid, conversational, and context-aware capabilities of today’s AI models. By adopting Promise theory principles, I can let each AI component declare its intended behavior and commitments up front, creating an ecosystem of autonomous yet cooperative agents that collectively form the greater intelligence. Meanwhile, incorporating event-driven patterns means these agents don’t just sit and wait for instructions; they actively respond to signals and triggers in real time, scaling and adapting themselves to whatever the workflow needs at the moment. Together, t...

 The Science Behind Indian Street Food Copyright: Sanjay Basu Standing at a bustling street corner in Delhi, watching a vendor flip perfectly spherical pani puri shells with the precision of a nuclear physicist, I'm reminded that Indian street food isn't just cuisine – it's a masterclass in applied chemistry. Each cart is essentially a mobile laboratory where centuries-old culinary experiments are replicated with delicious results. The Fermentation Nation Let's start with the humble dosa, that crispy fermented masterpiece that makes French crepes look like amateur hour. The fermentation process is a carefully orchestrated dance of wild yeasts and lactobacillus bacteria, transforming simple rice and lentils into a complex ecosystem of flavors. It's like hosting a microscopic party where billions of microorganisms RSVP by producing delicious metabolic byproducts. The chemistry here is fascinating – the fermentation creates not just flavors but also increases bioavaila...

  When Ancient Practice Meets Modern Science Copyright: Sanjay Basu I'm sitting cross-legged in a meditation center in Delhi, trying to focus on my breath while my brain helpfully reminds me of every embarrassing thing I've done since kindergarten. Meanwhile, the EEG machine I'm hooked up to is probably wondering if I'm actually attempting meditation or mentally rehearsing my grocery list. The Brain's Greatest Hit: Monkey Mind Scientists call our tendency towards constant mental chatter the "default mode network." Meditation practitioners have a more poetic name for it: "monkey mind." Watching my own thoughts bounce around like caffeinated primates, I'm inclined to side with the ancient terminology. Though I suspect actual monkeys might be offended by the comparison. The fascinating thing is that both modern neuroscience and ancient meditation texts describe this mental state with surprising similarity. Your brain, when not focused on a speci...

 Mathematical Patterns in Temple Architecture Copyright: Sanjay Basu Standing beneath the towering spire of a South Indian temple, I'm experiencing what can only be described as mathematical vertigo. Every angle, every curve, every proportion follows geometric principles so precise they make Euclidean geometry look like freestyle doodling. It turns out ancient Indian architects were doing advanced calculus while the rest of the world was still trying to figure out which end of the chisel to hold. The Golden Ratio Goes to Temple The famous golden ratio (1.618033988749895... if you're keeping score at home) appears so frequently in Indian temple architecture that you'd think ancient builders were obsessed with decimal points. Every major temple element relates to others in this proportion, creating a harmony that's mathematically inevitable. It's as if they discovered the universe's favorite number and decided to build monuments to it. This ratio isn't just sh...

Copyright: Sanjay Basu Yesterday, just hours after he had cremated his aged, ailing mother, I met my childhood friend at his home. The soft glow of the yellow light was the only contrast to the muted hush that followed the day’s solemn rites. Grief weighed heavily in the air, and as we spoke, he mentioned how, despite the heartache, he’d chosen to accept his mother’s long illness and eventual passing rather than protest the inevitability of death. His calm resignation made me think about the delicate balance we all face: when do we accept life’s hardships, and when do we rise up and protest? To accept a situation does not necessarily mean to submit to it blindly or to endorse it; rather, it is to acknowledge and recognize that certain outcomes—like mortality, aging, or natural disasters—are beyond our control. Protest, on the other hand, is an active response aimed at altering conditions that feel unjust, harmful, or preventable. Striking the right balance between acceptance and prote...

 Understanding Color Perception in Indian Art Copyright: Sanjay Basu I'm standing in front of a miniature painting where Krishna's skin is rendered in a shade of blue that makes Facebook's logo look positively pale in comparison. It's got me thinking about how Indian artists understood color psychology long before we had the neuroscience to explain why certain hues make us feel like we're having a spiritual experience rather than just looking at expensive pigments. The Neuroscience of Holy Hues Your brain processes Krishna's blue skin through cone cells that specifically detect short-wavelength light. But here's the clever bit: this particular shade of blue also triggers the release of calming neurotransmitters. Ancient Indian artists basically hacked human neurochemistry without having access to a single fMRI machine. Talk about intuitive neuroscience. The color receptors in our retinas are having quite the party with traditional Indian art. While Western a...

  Copyright: Sanjay Basu When Numbers Dance to Indian Rhythms I'm sitting in a morning raga concert where the tabla player just performed a mathematical equation that would make Einstein reach for his violin. Classical Indian music, as it turns out, is what you get when mathematics decides to have a dance party. The Algebra of Rhythm Indian classical music operates on a system so mathematically precise it makes calculus look like casual finger-painting. The taal (rhythmic framework) functions like a complex number line where beats aren't just counted – they're subdivided, multiplied, and permutated in ways that would give a statistics professor performance anxiety. Take the common Teentaal, a sixteen-beat cycle. Musicians don't just count to sixteen like normal people learning to dance. No, they create rhythmic patterns that are essentially solved equations, with each solution more mathematically elegant than the last. It's like watching someone perform differential...

  Copyright: Sanjay Basu This blog is based on my keynote at the International Symposium on Education for Sustainable Development . Ah, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)—that noble quest to equip humanity with the skills, values, and knowledge to navigate our collective spaceship, Earth, without accidentally ejecting ourselves into the vacuum of oblivion. It's Goal 4 of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with a distinct focus on ensuring equitable, quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all. But the million-dollar question looms: how can Generative AI, the rockstar of the digital era, help us achieve this lofty goal, particularly in the Global South? Why the Global South? The Global South houses a staggering majority of the world's youth—bursting with potential but often constrained by systemic educational inequities. Classrooms might be overcrowded (or non-existent), teachers undertrained, and resources as outdated as fl...