AI to the rescue

 I have what I think is a natural revulsion for AI shared by many who would label
themselves progressives or forward-thinkers. It's not that I fear change, but I do fear someone else breaking into the cockpit of my mind and taking over the controls, plundering six thousand years of accumulated human wisdom before I've even had a chance to finger its prettiest baubles. Wait your turn, AI!

But maybe I've been looking at it from the wrong angle. Maybe, just maybe, AI will give us the extraordinary opportunity to explore and finally define what makes us human: what can't be copied, can't be programmed, can't be imitated. What makes us, and will forever make us, unique.

Inconceivable!

The computer long ago surpassed us in computational speed, but once it has examined a subject from every angle can it create new angles, new vantage points from which to view a problem, new combinations to the Rubik's cube which are outside the cube? Can it conceive the inconceivable, or even entertain the possibility of such mental gymnastics? (Note to self: do some reading on quantum computing. It could be the linear nature of algorithms which has disadvantaged computers.)

I'm not talking here about the soul or the mind or whatever name you give to the ghost in the machine. I don't believe in ghosts. I'm talking about the human brain and all its concordant systems which I believe encompass every cell in the body. The ghost is the machine. What puts the sapiens in homo sapiens?

I don't begin to know the answer, but it would be a really big adventure to seek it.

On a hunch (will computers ever duplicate hunches?) I would say it have something to do with our capacity, our rapacity, for novelty and surprise. It may be that the last surprise is that there is no last surprise. That sounds like a reason to get out of bed every morning. And standing in the wings might be our propensity for play. Perhaps we are not homo sapiens but homo ludens. (Which is, by the way, the title of a great book.)

(Of course, differentiation could lead to segregation--not of the races this time, but of the minds, artificial and human. Computers might take on the aspect of second class citizens. The ethics involved have already been wrestled with by science fiction writers and may soon have to be addressed by professional ethicists. Anybody but me.)

Ray Bradbury

“You grow ravenous. You run fevers. You know exhilarations. You can't sleep at
night, because your beast-creature ideas want out and turn you in your bed. It is a grand way to live.”--Ray Bradbury

Learning to Read

 I love reading.

There's nothing amazing about that. Most writers first started writing because they loved reading. What I do find strange is this: I have no memory of learning to read. You would think that such a monumental experience in my life would be a vivid memory. At least the aha! moment when arbitrary symbols suddenly acquired meaning would be etched in my mind.

I do remember first grade reading class with Dick and Jane--or rather, since I went to Catholic school, John and Jean. The Catholic version of these primary readers substituted saint's names for our main characters. I don't actually remember John and Jean, but I'm sure we had the New Cathedral Basic Readers, as they were called, because I do remember vividly that one story began with the ringing of the Angelus bells, which is the noonday bell in Catholic tradition. I had never heard of the Angelus before (and have only rarely heard of them since) and I loved the name. But while I remember reading it, I don't remember learning to read it. I don't recall ever stumbling over words or going down a sentence and finding it a dark alley. I'm sure there must have been unfamiliar words at times, but I was able to guess their meaning in the context of the sentence. (Or simply discount it, as I did with the word "weir" when reading The Wind in the Willows

for the first time.)

Could I have learned to read before the first grade? Kindergarten and pre-kindergarten were not universal in those days, and I never attended either. I do remember going to my school for the first time, months before first grade began, to take an IQ test administered by the principal, Sr. John Roberta, an amazingly sweet-natured lady. You would think I''d have to be able to read to take such a test, but not so. The test is given orally, and with pictures, and is given to kids as young as four. I'm not sure why I was required to take the test, but it may have been because I was starting school at five, not six. They wanted to be sure I could hack it.

What I remember next, which could not have actually happened, was that my mother, pleased with me, bought me some books on the way home. It couldn't have happened that way because we walked home, and nowhere on that mile-long route was there a bookstore. So they must have come shortly thereafter, by mail. I think I recall the books: Ten Apples on Top; Go, Dog, Go; One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish; and Are You My Mother? You've probably come across them. I can't swear these are the first four, because other books followed shortly thereafter.

But--did I read them or did my mother read them to me? I don't really recall. Oh, I do remember her reading aloud Are You My Mother several times, and roaring with laughter every time. But that proves nothing. Mama read to us often, her favorites, for years after we could all read perfectly well. Some of her favorites were the poem The Highwayman, the dark cautionary tale Babes in the Woods and the hilarious A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig. Oh, and The Three Billy Goats Gruff.

So--I've raked my brain and found nothing. Could I always read? Of course not. But I have no memory of learning to read, just as I have no memory of stepping into a warm bath for the first time. Maybe I'm looking for something which doesn't exist. Maybe there is no aha moment, and we (or most of us) take to reading as naturally as a fish to water, or at least to the aquarium. 

How about you? Do you remember learning to read? Was there a moment, or a process, that stands out for you? Or am I just a freak, or a forgetful old man? Clue me in.

Review: The Sorrowful Girl

 There’s a tug of war I’m familiar with in writing historical fiction. The writer
wants to establish historical setting without overwhelming the reader with historical facts—the furniture without the bric-a-brac. And here’s where Keenan Powell excels with The Sorrowful Girl. From the very first page she makes us feel comfortable in small-town Massachusetts at the turn of the last century.

     It's a town mainly populated by poor, hard-working Irish immigrants, at a time when immigrants were hated or looked down on by many Americans. A time of labor unrest and repressive capitalism. Alright, a time perhaps little different from our own. Perhaps the secret to good historical fiction is finding the common denominators between the past and the present.

     Or perhaps it’s in fully realized, breathing characters. A girl has been murdered in the woods outside of town. A girl close to Liam Barret, the local policeman who’s put in charge of bringing her killer to justice. We get to know Liam’s history, his hopes and aspirations, and that of his town as the case places him squarely between the Molly Maguires and the political machinery and machinations controlled by the moneyed mill owner who also seems to own half the state. 

     He’ll have to rely on his wits and his integrity to see him through to the resolution. And even then he may find a compromise is the best he can hope for. 

     This is the first Keenan Powell I’ve read. It won’t be the last.