Emily Dickinson’s Poems: As She Preserved Them
I’ve been reviving my interest in poetry lately, but I have to admit, slogging through Leaves of Grass nearly extinguished it again. Walt Whitman, at his best, is superb. His vision of mankind and America is huge and expansive. He captures humans in all their nobility, shortcomings, and complexity. But much of the time I found Whitman to be a bit of a rambler, tossing in allusions and descriptions that bogged down my reading.
Fortunately I persisted, because I absolutely loved Emily Dickinson’s collected poetry. Dickinson’s poetry just packs a bigger punch. She is a precision poet, packing so much thought and depth in just a few lines. Her compact poems were merciful coming off of Whitman, especially for an attention-challenged modern reader like myself. Even more merciful, Dickinson’s poems often rhyme. Reading Leaves of Grass then Dickinson’s poetry within a couple months of each other has made me appreciate rhyming in poetry. Rhyming just seems to tie everything together, especially if I’m not reading the poem aloud.
Alongside her poetry, I also read a bit about Emily Dickinson’s life. Like Jane Austen, it’s hard to reconcile Emily Dickinson the poet with Emily Dickinson the person. She was essentially a shut-in for much of her life–even close friends were refused entry into her house later in life. She was much more content writing them letters. But her poetry covers the whole of eternity, with frequent meditations on death, resurrection, eternity, judgement, and nature. Not bad for a shut in!
Here are a couple poems that I especially liked:
The Brain—is wider than the Sky— For—put them side by side— The one the other will contain With ease—and You—beside—
The Brain is deeper than the sea— For—hold them—Blue to Blue— The one the other will absorb— As Sponges—Buckets—do—
The Brain is just the weight of God— For—Heft them—Pound for Pound— And they will differ—if they do— As Syllable from Sound—
I took my Power in my Hand — And went against the World — ‘Twas not so much as David — had — But I — was twice as bold —
I aimed by Pebble — but Myself Was all the one that fell — Was it Goliath — was too large — Or was myself — too small?
Autobiography by John Stuart Mill
It was inevitable that my interest in classical liberalism and effective altruism would lead me to John Stuart Mill. He literally wrote the book On Liberty. And he helped shape and define so many of Utilitarianism’s ideas. But his work and writing in his mature years took a backseat while reading his autobiography. His intense educational upbringing by his father was far more fascinating to me. I’ll just leave this passage here, because it is truly extraordinary:
A man who, in his own practice, so vigorously acted up to the principle of losing no time, was likely to adhere to the same rule in the instruction of his pupil. I have no remembrance of the time when I began to learn Greek. I have been told that it was when I was three years old. My earliest recollection on the subject, is that of committing to memory what my father termed Vocables, being lists of common Greek words, with their signification in English, which he wrote out for me on cards. Of grammar, until some years later, I learnt no more than the inflexions of the nouns and verbs, but, after a course of vocables, proceeded at once to translation; and I faintly remember going through Æsop’s Fables, the first Greek book which I read. The Anabasis, which I remember better, was the second. I learnt no Latin until my eighth year. At that time I had read, under my father’s tuition, a number of Greek prose authors, among whom I remember the whole of Herodotus, and of Xenophon’s Cyropædia and Memorials of Socrates; some of the lives of the philosophers by Diogenes Laertius; part of Lucian, and Isocrates ad Demonicum and Ad Nicoclem. I also read, in 1813, the first six dialogues (in the common arrangement) of Plato, from the Euthyphron to the Theaetetus inclusive: which last dialogue, I venture to think, would have been better omitted, as it was totally impossible I should understand it. But my father, in all his teaching, demanded of me not only the utmost that I could do, but much that I could by no possibility have done. What he was himself willing to undergo for the sake of my instruction, may be judged from the fact, that I went through the whole process of preparing my Greek lessons in the same room and at the same table at which he was writing: and as in those days Greek and English lexicons were not, and I could make no more use of a Greek and Latin lexicon than could be made without having yet begun to learn Latin, I was forced to have recourse to him for the meaning of every word which I did not know. This incessant interruption, he, one of the most impatient of men, submitted to, and wrote under that interruption several volumes of his History and all else that he had to write during those years.
He goes on to describe how he started learning Latin at 8 years old, and read much of the Latin classics from ages 8 to 12. Now, I felt fairly accomplished reading through all of Herodotus at age 30 this year. (I actually strongly recommend it–there are some dull parts, but overall it’s pretty fun and fascinating!) But I cannot imagine reading Herodotus at age 8, in the original Greek to boot.
It may not have been an ideal childhood. Mill notes that he didn’t really associate with other children his age, besides his siblings. And it doesn’t seem like he had much time to read or do activities that he wanted to do. This may be one of the more extreme instances of “tiger parenting” in literature. Still, as Mill himself comments on a few times, the sheer energy his father had was incredible. He not only took such an active hand in his children’s education, but did so while being an active participant in ongoing political and philosophical debates at the time. At the end, I’m almost more impressed with Mill’s father than the author himself.
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
AI and AGI alignment are all the rage right now. Will there be a fast takeoff? Are we in the last years of human life before we’re all turned to paperclips? Or will we soon be able to spin up instances of super-intelligent artifical friends on the cheap.
I’m not sure if Asimov had any opinions on slow vs fast takeoff. But the sense I get from his classic Sci-Fi novel I, Robot is that the alignment problem is largely irrelevant–one way or another, the robots are taking over.
I, Robot is a series of related stories, often featuring the Robo-psychologist Dr Calvin, that follows the evolution of robots from their infancy. The robots are definitely the “main character”, but the main philosophical ideas stem from The Three Laws of Robotics. Asimov largely sidesteps the problem of alignment, waving it away by saying that the three laws of robotics are hard coded in robots’ “positronic” brains. Robots are literally incapable of violating the letter of the three laws. But much of the conflict in these stories are where these laws conflict and break down.
The first story, “Robbie”, starts off innoculously enough, with Robots being used as mute nannies. A little girl being cared by one such robo-nanny, “Robbie”, becomes almost obsessive with her caretaker. Even here, in this simple stage, Asimov makes clear his concern of robots supplanting humans. It’s interesting in this story, because it reminds me of how kids often relate with tablets and smart phones. Almost obsessive, neglecting everything else, eveng getting unusually angry or despondent when it gets taken away.
The stories quickly progress to where Robots have more and more important roles and complex situations to deal with. By the end, they even get into politics, and begin surreptitiously running the world. Even having the three laws of robotics hard-wired into their brains fails to prevent them from enacting plans to phase out troublesome humans. The robots are just acting “for our own good”, and are well within the confines of the three laws to begin replacing humans entirely.
Honestly, it’s not a terribly comforting book as we start to see more and more applications of AI. There’s a sort of inevitability present. Even if we totally nail alignment, humans are still slated to be phased out. But it is very thought provoking, and it’s fun to see all the ways Asimov envisions the three laws going wrong.