Author: Maria Brain

Around the world, there’s one constant social institution that appears: marriage. Despite language differences, religion, and customs, nearly every society has independently developed some form of formal union between individuals. Marriage is an institution within the community, often sanctioned by religion or law and almost always carrying expectations of commitment, family, and continuity. Why is this idea so widespread?

At the core of everything, marriage is a social technology; it solves almost all of the key problems of human beings: organizing reproduction, defining kinship, creating alliances, and managing property or inheritance. In many early societies, marriage was not just a personal affair – it was a way to ensure proper social order. The families determined who married whom and how they would be married, and it could transfer the land or legitimacy of children.

Even with the evolving society, the fundamentals of marriage remained the same. Whether it is a royal wedding in the UK or a village ceremony in Africa, it is never about just the individuals; it is about family, social roles, and traditions.

Whereas in India, this concept takes another layer of complexity with caste-based marriages, a straightforward derivative of old tribal and clan-based marriage systems. Just like how tribes once maintained cohesion and identity through internal marriage practices, castes in India have taken on that legacy. The ancient social hierarchy caste system has deeply influenced marriage practices for centuries. Many communities still prefer (or insist on) marrying within their caste, preserving cultural identity, lineage, and social standing.

This tradition has found modern expression through digital platforms. One such example is mudaliyarkannalam.com, a matchmaking website dedicated to the Mudaliyar caste, a prominent Tamil community. These sites reflect how ancient social structures are integrated into tools. Today, marriage is arranged through online profiles and algorithms more than love or understanding.

When Western societies are increasingly embracing love-based and inter-cultural marriages, caste-based unions remain the norm in various parts of India. They are seen not just as marriages between individuals but between families, values, and shared heritage.

This contrast highlights a critical point: although the idea of marriage is universal, the way it is practiced is mainly shaped by local and historical values. The need for connection, stability, and continuity ties us together across cultures. But the stories we tell around marriage—who we marry, how we marry, and why—reveal the unique ways each society tries to make sense of love, loyalty, and lineage.

Human progress has been one of the greatest narrations of civilisation, which is always seen from a very linear perspective rather than a nuanced and kind og paradoxical process. From the time we invented wheels to the web, from fire to fusion, we have come a long way and our journey is framed as a steady march forward rather than looking at both sides. We think that with every generation life is going to get much better, easier and more englihthing , but is the sense of progress universal and lasting? Or are we simply shifting from the perception, dependent on context and expectations.

Let’s imagine a thought experiment for a moment: a caveman named Gar suddenly landed from 50000 years ago into our modern world. His first reaction would be one of awe. He is seeing skyscrapers all around the city that touch the clouds, flying machines, food that appears at the click of a button, light without fire, everything that he has to work so hard for in this world. To him, the world is like a genie fulfilling all his whims within some time; Gar is experiencing years of human ingenuity compressed into a single overwhelming experience.

But after the wonder wears off, something very interesting happens; he cannot remain in awe forever. He will start to feel irritated and struggle with the modern world’s complexities. He would be confused by the traffic, annoyed by the noise, and frightened by the fast pace of life we have. The comfort of modern living would come with invisible burdens: overstimulation, alienation, pollution, surveillance, and endless rules.

From where he comes, life is governed by the rhythms of nature, whereas our life is glued to screens, clocks, and economic systems that many of us do not know much about. This raises a deep question about progress: is it inherently good or merely a trade-off?

Every advance solves old problems but introduces new ones. Antibiotics conquered deadly infections but gave rise to superbugs. Cars revolutionized travel but caused accidents, congestion, and climate change. The internet connected the world but also fueled disinformation, addiction, and division. We progress by eliminating suffering and swapping one set of challenges for another.

Through Gar’s journey, we see that progress is not a universal ascent; it’s a layered modern adaptation. What feels like progress to one generation might feel like regression to another. Much of what we see as “improvements” are improvements within a particular framework. But outside that framework—outside modern assumptions about speed, convenience, and productivity—those same “advancements” may appear disorienting or even absurd.

And yet, we don’t stop. We build more, consume more, and invent more. The myth of progress has become part of our identity. We measure civilizations by technological achievement, GDP, and life expectancy, often ignoring mental health, social cohesion, or ecological balance. We assume that newer means better and that innovation is always a virtue.
But progress without reflection is a treadmill. It moves forward but never pauses to ask: What exactly are we running towards?

We have rarely stopped to see what progress looks like. It’s not just the technological or physical progress that we should look at, but rather how well we have learned to manage the consequences of our own advancements. Have we built systems that foster human dignity? Have we made life not just longer but more meaningful? Are we happier, more empathetic, and more connected to ourselves and each other? Real growth isn’t just about building better tools—it’s about becoming wise enough to use them in ways that actually make life better.

In the end, progress isn’t a straight road or a finish line. It’s more like a spiral—sometimes we move forward, sometimes sideways, sometimes we loop back. And just like Gar, each of us must keep figuring out what it truly means to live well, not just in a world that’s constantly changing, but in one that’s getting more complex because of the things we call “progress.”

Social media, trending headlines, and fake news have become the center of the modern crisis. With everything going digital and everybody voicing their opinions, we can differentiate between what is the truth and what is a lie somewhere. But this isn’t limited to our era; misinformation and biased reporting have been with us for as long as humans have told stories. What’s new is not the presence of such fake news; it’s the scale and speed at which it spreads.

Before we even invented the internet, rulers, and leaders used propaganda to control the narratives being told. Much evidence has supported this finding; rulers wanted to shape public opinion in their favor. Ancient Emperors used various coins, statues, and public declarations as a way to get into the minds of the commoners. In medieval Europe, the church controlled the access to knowledge, deciding what information the public should hear; even during the early printing day, pamphlets were often politically slanted, designed to push agendas rather than inform them neutrally.

In between all of these issues is a single human truth: we cannot unquestioningly trust the news we receive. Every messenger carries their perspective, and no one tells a story from a neutral point of view. You would have seen thousands of pieces of information today, each one coming with its own assumptions, values, and emotions. Most of the time, even with the best intentions, bias seeps in, not just in what is reported but also in how it is reported and presented.

The modern expectations of objective journalism are very new and still blooming. They emerged during the 20th century as fresh organizations sought credibility in neutrality. But even then, editorial choices, what stories would be covered, which language to use, and what sources to quote were never fully free from influence. Today, with media outlets aligned with political ideologies, the illusion of unbiased news is even harder to maintain.

The problem isn’t just fake news—it’s that we often believe what we want to think. Studies show people are more likely to trust news that confirms their pre-existing views and dismiss news that challenges them. In this way, our biases reinforce our current information bubbles.
So what can we do?

The answer is not about getting perfectly unbiased news, which is highly impossible; instead, it is about approaching news consumption with humility and skepticism. Understanding key questions like who benefits from the narrative, recognize that every story has learning. Fake news may never go away, but if we learn to question the story and the storyteller, we stand a better chance of staying informed in a world where truth is debated daily.

Politics today doesn’t feel like a discussion anymore; it feels like a fight. It is not a debate over ideas but a battle between “us” and “them.” People aren’t just supporting policies; they’re picking sides, almost like rooting for a team. Everything becomes personal once you’re on a team.

 This sense of picking a team and sticking to them is a lot about tribalism, our deeply rooted human psychology that gets us wired into wanting to belong to a group. Most of our human history, being tribal meant survival and security, loyalty meant safety and corporation, but in today’s world, those same instincts have found a new home; politics. 

Instead of survival, we now chase identity and a sense of belonging. Being politically “left” or “right” becomes part of who we are. It’s rational, not emotional. And once we are on our side as the goof guys, the other side naturally becomes the enemy. We stop listening and start judging, bias is filled in our minds, and we can’t help but fight against them. People are dismissed not because of their arguments but because of the “team” they’re on.

As we dig deeper, the issue gets worse. Our brains are so wired to think in a way that means to better ourselves, not others, we begin to filter the world through this lens of left or right. In fact, research shows that we are more likely to believe something if it aligns with our political identity and more likely to reject it if it doesn’t. In this way, tribal loyalty often overrides critical thinking.

Then there are the effects of social media, which feed us so much of what is already happening and remind us that there is always the other side that needs to be won over. It literally turns politics into a never-ending argument against the true virtue of helping, making winning the only goal, not to understand or be compassionate. 

If there’s something at stake, it’s the conversation, dialogue and curiosity. Tribal politics make it look like changing your mind is being weak and listening to others’ perspectives is a betrayal of your own. We have built walls where we should be building bridges. 

But it doesn’t need to be in this way, if we learn to let go of this tribalism, it doesn’t mean that we dont have the values or we are giving up on anything. It means that we are ready to embrace a broad perspective and honour that the person on the other side is human too.

We all look forward to a better future, even if our paths are different, our destinations are the same. 

Real change begins with empathy and compassion. Learning to listen, willing to talk without turning it into a war, not that we are enemies, but we choose to behave like one, because we want to uphold our side first. Still, once we understand that it’s never about winning, we will go a long way in bringing peace and happiness.

There is a quiet idea sitting at the root of everything we call science. It’s not flashy, and it rarely gets mentioned, but without it, science would fall apart; it’s the Doctrine of uniformity. The belief that the laws of nature stay the same no matter where or when you are.

Give it a thought: gravity works the same way it did millions of years ago. The way light travels, how atoms behave, how the sun rises, and how plants grow are all based on the idea that these patterns don’t change randomly; they remain constant. We use this doctrine everywhere, and without it, none of our discoveries would have ever been made. 

Many of us have not really heard about this, but it’s omnipresent. When astronomers study stars which are billions of light years away, they’re trusting that physics works the same way there as it does here on Earth. When geologists examine rock layers, they assume that the same natural forces, like erosion or tectonic movement, have been shaping the Earth for millions of years. It’s a belief that if it works here, it should be everywhere.

But here is the interesting part: this is not something we can prove, it’s mostly a foundational belief, a philosophical starting point for any research. Scientists trust that the universe follows a set of rules, not because we have absolute proof, but because it’s the only way science can actually function.

This way of thinking really took off during the Enlightenment, when people started moving away from explanations that involved gods or magic. Earlier, people would assume that a volcanic eruption was due to a curse or divine anger, but today we have the means of explaining why it erupts and tracking when it is likely to erupt again. Scientists learned to look at natural patterns and repeatable causes to understand this. For example, Charles Lyell, who studied the formation of rocks, noticed that the slow process of shaping the earth has been at work for ages, even before humans existed. Charles Darwin later took that same idea and applied it to biology. Evolution only makes sense if nature has followed consistent rules over time.

And obviously, people do wonder, what if the laws of physics did change in the past? What if it is different somewhere else? These questions are very fair, and Scientists are constantly looking at the evidence for what might shake these core assumptions we have, but until then, this is what we have. The only thing that truly contradicts the idea of uniformity is our imagination. It gives us the power to learn from the past, understand the present, and imagine the future.

At the end of it, the Doctrine of Uniformity is like the quiet promise behind every successful scientific discovery. It’s never made the headlines, but it is always there, guiding us to victory and holding everything up. Thanks to it, science becomes a global, long-term quest for truth instead of a chaotic mess of guesses and coincidences.

In his provocative TED Talk “Dangerous Memes,” philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett dives into the fascinating—and unsettling—world of ideas that behave like living things. Taking into account evolutionary biology and cognitive science, Dennet introduces the concept of “memes”; not the internet kind that we see so much today, but the original idea penned by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book “The Selfish Gene.” In this book, memes are a unit of cultural transmission, ideas, beliefs, slogans, tunes, or rituals that spread from mind to mind, evolving and replicating similarly to genes in the biology world.

While most of these memes are harmless or even helpful, Dennet warns about a few being dangerous in the sense that they will hijack our minds, override our reasoning, and compel us to believe or act against our best interests. In his talk, Dennett explains how memes are not just passive bits of information but active agents that compete for survival in the ecosystem of human culture.

What Is a Meme?

Memes are framed as “thinking tools”; mental structures or habits that shape how we process the world. Just as viruses exploit biological systems to replicate themselves, memes exploit our cognitive systems to spread. A catchy tune, a religious belief, or even a viral video can be seen as a meme. Once we have seen a meme, it changes our perspective on many things, and it’s very likely you’re going to pass on that to others as well.

What makes memes powerful is not their truth but their replicability. A meme doesn’t have to be good, useful, or accurate—it just has to be catchy or emotionally compelling. This is where the danger lies.

The Evolution of Ideas

Dennet is comparing memes to human evolution. He says that just like how our genes change and evolve through natural selection, memes survive through what he calls cultural selection. The memes that spread easily are the ones that last longest and grow. Over time, these memes can turn into ideologies or belief systems that are hard to change to defend themselves from criticism.

It’s definitely not that all memes are bad; some memes are good for society. They bring people to work together and create new things. But others are harmful; they waste time and energy, stop progress, and keep people stuck in old beliefs or sentiments. Dennett suggests that things like extreme religious beliefs, conspiracy theories, or aggressive nationalism can be examples of these dangerous memes.

Memes and the Hijacking of Human Reason

One main discussion of this has been about how memes don’t spread because they are analyzed by people and accepted but because they are emotionally satisfying, easy to remember, and supported by authority. They affect and infect minds, especially the younger and vulnerable ones, before the minds can develop defenses, which Dennet calls “informational immune systems.”

Dennet links these to software bugs; if you’ve installed unverified code into yout laptop, it will crash your system. Similarly, when we absorb memes uncritically, they tend to exploit our mental vulnerabilities. And many times, these memes come bundled in large, self-reinforcing belief systems that are religion, ideologies, and political doctrines. “Don’t question it,” “Have faith,” or “Those who disagree are the enemy” are classic meme-defending strategies.

The Role of Education and Critical Thinking

Dennet proposes that the best defense against these dangerous memes is education, teaching people how to think and what not to think. He calls for the development of a stronger mental “immune system” that can resist manipulative ideas based on logic.

He’s not advocating censorship. Rather, he believes in open inquiry. The marketplace of ideas should remain open—but people need the tools to navigate it wisely. Just as we’ve learned to vaccinate ourselves against biological viruses, we should learn to protect our minds from manipulative memes.

Culture as an Evolutionary Process

Painting a picture of how culture is a vast evolutionary laboratory, Dennet talks about how memes are constantly competing for attention and loyalty. Many of them bring us art, great science, and cooperation. At the same time, others bring in War, fanaticism, and oppression. The question is about which memes we are going to let thrive in our minds and societies. We should be able to know how and what to trust.

Toward the end, Dennet asks us to become curators of our mental landscapes and question many things. Are we truly sure that the ideas we hold are helpful, or are they hurting? Do we have just reason to believe them or go with what others do? He reminds us that not all ideas deserve to live just because they’re catchy. Like genes, memes should be judged by their consequences.

Choose Your Memes Wisely

Dan Dennet’s TED talk is a reminder that ideas that we have to live our own lives can turn out to be dangerous as they are inspiring. In a world where information travels at the speed of light and attention spans are short, memes have never been more powerful. The battle for our minds is constant and often invisible.

Dennet leaves us with a very clear message: to think as critically as we can, examine and question our beliefs, and be wary of seductive ideas that demand unthinking loyalty.

Human beings have wanted to know the truth for quite some time now. Being obsessed with truth and finding out what truth is has been the very need of many philosophers of Greece and scientists around the world for centuries. We have been trying to understand the straightforward question: what is the truth?? But as much as we long to hold on to it, the truth is elusive, maybe even unknowable, but some of us can’t really digest that fact; we need to know. What we call truth might be nothing more than a temporary consensus, a working model, or a story that is less wrong than the previous one.

It’s such a humbling idea; we live in the era of dressing up opinions as facts, where algorithms claim to know us better than ourselves. In all this noise, we tend to forget a core philosophical reality; we see the world as we are, not the way it is!

Our own mind and reality blind all of our perceptions.

All perception is mediated. Our eyes filter light, our brains edit sensory information, and our minds attach meaning based on past experiences and inherited biases. Even in science, the closest thing we have to an objective method is that we do not confirm truths—we falsify errors. Karl Popper, one of the 20th century’s great philosophers of science, argued that a scientific theory is never proven—it just hasn’t been proven wrong yet. Every law, every theorem, every elegant equation that seems to explain the universe is sitting on a conditional throne: it reigns only until a better explanation comes along.

This is not a flaw in human thinking—it is the very engine of our intellectual evolution. Being wrong and then being less bad is how progress works. The Earth was once flat, then round but stationary, then orbiting the Sun, then spinning through a galaxy. Each stage wasn’t a lie—it was just the best approximation available at the time. Newton’s laws worked perfectly until Einstein came along and showed us that time and space bends. One day, perhaps, Einstein’s elegant equations will also be replaced—not because they were false, but because they weren’t quite true enough.

Truth, then, is not a fixed destination. It’s a moving horizon. You can walk toward it forever, but it will always recede a little further. The map is never the territory. Our models are not the world; they are sketches—partial, provisional, and prone to error.

But this is not a reason to despair. In fact, it is a reason to be curious, humble, and open-minded. If we accept that we’ll never fully know the truth, we are free to ask better questions, to hold our beliefs lightly, and to stay skeptical of dogma. Certainty is often the enemy of growth. The person who is sure they are right has no reason to listen, no need to explore, and no capacity for surprise.

In a world obsessed with being right, perhaps our real task is to become more comfortable being wrong—so long as we are less wrong tomorrow than we were today. It’s a kind of intellectual asymptote: always approaching truth, never arriving, but drawing ever closer.

This mindset demands resilience. It means accepting that even our deepest convictions might be flawed. It means being willing to revise our worldview in the face of new evidence, even when it’s painful. It means saying, “I don’t know,” not as an admission of defeat but as a mark of integrity.

Imagine a society built on the premise that no one has the final word—that truth is a process, not a possession. Debates would be less about winning and more about refining ideas. Science would not be politicized, and politics might even become more scientific. Education wouldn’t reward having the right answers but learning how to ask better questions.

We may never know the full truth. But we can learn to spot the lies. We can discard what doesn’t work. We can update our models. We can move forward, step by step, toward a clearer understanding—not perfect, but less wrong.

And maybe that’s the most honest thing we can do.