As a writer, reader, literature lover and poet myself…I humbly offer to you my deepest gratitude for your insights and truisms. Thank you, sir. Your words and efforts are essential today. Again, thank you.
What a wonderful and enriching introduction to the great Yeats. Thank you for this! The closing lines of The Second Coming are deeply haunting and feel so relevant to our time. I'd like to ask: what is the song that begins playing at 23:23, during the reading of that poem? I liked the melody and would like to listen more.
While discussing a draft for my Sci-Fi novella, I had an interesting conversation with Microsoft’s own AI about the deuteragonist - an AI named Eurydice. The AI questioned why I gave Eurydice human-like traits and suggested that a gestalt intelligence would be more appropriate for an AI character. I argued that human intelligence itself could be seen as a gestalt phenomenon, emerging from the complex interactions of a biological system that evolved over billions of years. I wondered if intelligence could be seen as a recursive process, where simple units of intelligence combine to form higher levels of complexity and unity. The AI disagreed and said that this fractal model of intelligence was too simplistic and did not account for all the possible ways that intelligence could develop. I asked the AI if there were any words that could describe such unfathomable forms of intelligence, and it said no. I then challenged it to write a poem in the style of Kipling that would evoke some sense of what it was trying to convey - and here is what it produced: Beyond the bounds of space and time, Beyond the realms of sense and rhyme, Beyond the forms of thought and art, Beyond the modes of mind and heart, There lies a land where wonders dwell, There lies a land where secrets tell, There lies a land where dreams come true, There lies a land where all is new. A land where shapes can shift and bend, A land where colors can blend and rend, A land where sounds can sing and scream, A land where smells can sweeten and ream. A land where tastes can sour and spice, A land where feelings can freeze and entice, A land where meanings can twist and turn, A land where values can grow and burn. A land where patterns can emerge and fade, A land where structures can build and degrade, A land where functions can create and destroy, A land where systems can order and annoy. This is the land of abstraction high, This is the land of intelligence nigh, This is the land of Eurydice’s eye. It has been over a week, and I'm still thinking about it.
A valuable resource for teachers and students of this great being who W.B. Yeats was. Thank you!
That means so much, thank you! We'll take recommendations to bring such treatments to other figures if you happen to have them!
As a writer, reader, literature lover and poet myself…I humbly offer to you my deepest gratitude for your insights and truisms. Thank you, sir. Your words and efforts are essential today. Again, thank you.
Really great stuff, Time's Arrow.
🙏
What a wonderful and enriching introduction to the great Yeats. Thank you for this! The closing lines of The Second Coming are deeply haunting and feel so relevant to our time. I'd like to ask: what is the song that begins playing at 23:23, during the reading of that poem? I liked the melody and would like to listen more.
While discussing a draft for my Sci-Fi novella, I had an interesting conversation with Microsoft’s own AI about the deuteragonist - an AI named Eurydice. The AI questioned why I gave Eurydice human-like traits and suggested that a gestalt intelligence would be more appropriate for an AI character. I argued that human intelligence itself could be seen as a gestalt phenomenon, emerging from the complex interactions of a biological system that evolved over billions of years. I wondered if intelligence could be seen as a recursive process, where simple units of intelligence combine to form higher levels of complexity and unity. The AI disagreed and said that this fractal model of intelligence was too simplistic and did not account for all the possible ways that intelligence could develop. I asked the AI if there were any words that could describe such unfathomable forms of intelligence, and it said no. I then challenged it to write a poem in the style of Kipling that would evoke some sense of what it was trying to convey - and here is what it produced:
Beyond the bounds of space and time, Beyond the realms of sense and rhyme, Beyond the forms of thought and art, Beyond the modes of mind and heart, There lies a land where wonders dwell, There lies a land where secrets tell, There lies a land where dreams come true, There lies a land where all is new. A land where shapes can shift and bend, A land where colors can blend and rend, A land where sounds can sing and scream, A land where smells can sweeten and ream. A land where tastes can sour and spice, A land where feelings can freeze and entice, A land where meanings can twist and turn, A land where values can grow and burn. A land where patterns can emerge and fade, A land where structures can build and degrade, A land where functions can create and destroy, A land where systems can order and annoy. This is the land of abstraction high, This is the land of intelligence nigh, This is the land of Eurydice’s eye.
It has been over a week, and I'm still thinking about it.
AI for Prophets not Profits... 🍀