AI, GeekWorld, Science

Bots and Meatsacks

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Spring and the Trial Moon

Monday gratefuls:  A quiet stomach. Shadow in the whole yard. Dog treats. Rigel. Hilo. Gabe in L.A. Ruth getting ready for finals.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Healing

 

Kavannah: Netzach. Perseverance. Trial begins on Wednesday. I need netzach as I enter this latest round of treatment.

Tarot: paused

One brief shining: Saw in the NYT this am. Lightning wins half marathon. Time: 50:26. Just under seven minutes faster than the record set last month. By a human. Lightning fell near the finish line. Helped up by human bystanders.

Looking for something non-health related to write about today. The story about Lightning’s record time in a Beijing half-marathon. Yes, please.

300 robots ran alongside human marathoners-separated by metal fencing-but close enough to shake hands over the barrier.

What’s the real comparison? Not robotic marathoner vs human champion. Perhaps a whole human against machines made to mimic a particular human skill.

John Henry. The pile driving man. Remember him? A black worker tasked with drilling holes for dynamite. The legend pits John Henry against a steam-engine driven pile driver. John Henry wins, but dies from the strain. Wish he’d had helping hands like Lightning did.

Got me thinking. How might Jacob Kiplimo, the Ugandan whose time of 57 minutes and 20 seconds set the human record, fare against Lightning? Sure, seven minutes is a big gap, but Kiplimo might run even faster against the robot.

How will we measure flesh and blood against machines built for one task: pile-driving, marathon running. Lightning is purpose built to run marathons. He’s a one-trick robot like the steam-powered pile-driver. But their one-trick is pretty damned good.

A.I. measures its capacity against humans. This one’s as smart as a grad student. This one might win the Fields Medal. Besides. Which grad student.

If the artificial general intelligence, AGI, claim is ever made, it will be judged against human efforts, too. I remember the Go match between Korean 9-dan master, Lee Sidol, and AlphaGo. I watched all the matches.

Often, as AlphaGo moved, a commentator would add: “That’s a move no human would ever make.”

We humans operate in an odd dynamic here. We build machines to pound steel-drills into rock. To play go. Then, we pit our best, think Gary Kasparov, against the machine. When we humans go down in ignominious defeat, a small chunk of our uniqueness seems to vanish. Vanquished.

What will happen to our humanity when our final capacity has been defeated?

Not much, I imagine. So far Lightning can for sure run a fast marathon race. Probably faster than any human can dream of doing.

However. When the human marathoner crosses the finish line, they’ll return to family and friends. To work. When Lightning finishes, they will be loaded into a truck and driven back to the factory. No marathon, no purpose. Back to the shed for repurposing,

The point. Humans already have general intelligence and we have it already loaded into a body that can run marathons. Drive steel drills. Also, our sensory detectors are much further advanced than the most sophisticated machines. We blend all this effortlessly.

We are the complete package. Parts of our capacities appeal to researchers. So we get a.i. Or Lightning. But putting all those together in a unified working whole. Humans. Only humans. In that we stand alone.

General

Carriage

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Spring and the Trial Moon

Sunday gratefuls:  Ghosts. Shadow. Liminal times and places. Dawn. Dusk. Holywells. Doorways. The Shadow Line. Near death.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Torah

 

Kavannah: Netzach. Perseverance. Trial begins on Wednesday. I need netzach as I enter this latest round of treatment.

Tarot: paused

One brief shining: My body heals. Slowly. Stomach flighty, keeping me awake last night. Even so. Gradual changes. Gut inching toward normal. Less resistance to food. Coffee feels too far. Sensitivity. Two days ago. Felt good. Less so now. Forward. Backward.

 

Illness. Health. Mind scanning the body, the original imaging technique. Elbows ache. That sore on my left big toe. G.I. tract signaling caution. Bland foods. Reminds me with twitches in my stomach. A few back pains.

Maybe I should say, the mind/body scanning itself. Reporting to my conscious self and, always, to the subtle engineer crafting changes to endocrine levels, heartbeats. Kate used to say that the wonder was not that the body, on occasion, got sick. The real wonder? That it worked so well almost all the time.

When did you last consider your breath? In. Slight pause. Out. slight pause. No conscious mind at work. The body. Heartbeats.

How about my eye? Taking in light and, like Plato’s cave, projecting an image of this computer screen onto my occipital lobe. I act like the screen is real though I’m responding to light processed through my retina and onto the brain which interprets the message. Mediated at least twice removed from what Kant called the ding an sich, the thing-in-itself.

Or, my cancer. Known only to me through indistinct images of radioactive uptake. Affecting my life, yet unseen.

Our whole lives we move and breathe and have our becoming in this vessel of flesh. My body. My self. Evolution.

I am unique. This splotchy skin, road mapped with blue vessels against pale white. That scar on my left hand from a careless day breaking bottles at Pipe Creek.

No less me.

Turned away at the border station on the Ambassador Bridge. Guilty of long hair in 1967.

When I was born in Duncan, Oklahoma, my body/mind breathed air for the first time. Uniqueness elaborated. Marked by life. Again and again.

When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground. Yes. Just so. A life gone, a life of experiences, knowledge, wisdom housed in the library that is our body.

When Kate died, I mourned her as my lover, my best friend. I also realized how stunningly inefficient death is.

Her medical knowledge and experience. Gone. Her many skills: cook, quilter. Just. Gone.

This self, this body/mind of mine, my carriage will fail. Whether soon or late. Until then, I notice my stomach. And await its return.

 

Notice.
The carriage has changed.
Again.

 

Memories, Men, World History

Braided Lives

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Spring and the Trial Moon

Shabbat gratefuls:  Love. Justice. Compassion. Our winter weekend. Less illness overburden. Dishwashers. Slavic.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Cold night

 

Kavannah: Netzach. Perseverance. Trial begins on Wednesday. I need netzach as I enter this latest round of treatment.

Tarot: paused

One brief shining:  Gathered in a circle, arms on each others shoulders, we Woolly Mammoths sang at the close of our monthly home meeting: We circle around, we circle around, the boundaries of the earth, spreading our long wing feathers as we fly.

 

Not sure how we got this Ghost Dance song, but the memory of singing it with my Woolly brothers remains powerful and haunting. We met twice a month for over twenty years.

One meeting was in a Woolly home. Warren would serve his turkey chili. Frank always took the March meeting: corned beef and cabbage, boiled potatoes. Though the host picked the topic, Frank would often punt with–wild card.

Just before we left, we sang.

We also had lunch once a month. More casual. We’d talk over breadsticks, egg drop soup, shawarma. Catching up, discussing the news. Friends. Sometimes there would be heated arguments, most often between the two Charlies.

An annual retreat. I tried to arrive early–to claim a private room.  Many bags of groceries collected on the counter. Sleeping bags, hiking boots, heavy coats. The retreat was usually in January. A Minnesota January–bitter cold.

We stayed in Catholic retreat centers like Blue Sky Monastery, a lodge in northern Minnesota, and in a large lake cabin/home designed by one of our members.

Gathering at Emily’s.  Lunch.  The upstairs room–ours. I liked the raw kibbi. While we ate, Mark might tell us of new exhibits at the science museum. Tom might regale us with blowing up cars. For work!

Each Sunday morning five of us gather on Zoom. Bill’s white hair, a year from 90. Paul’s caps: WTF. Tom and his cat Rascal. Mark and another good week.

Paul, in Maine, moved away first. Then Jimmy headed to South Dakota. Finally, Kate and I moved here to Shadow Mountain. Diaspora Woollies, yet still bonded.

We’re all still alive. We have one Nonagenarian, Frank, who is 93 now. One of us, Bill, will join Frank next year. Most of us cluster in the late seventies to early eighties.

Architect, ob-gyn, clergy. Not a poker club. Not a  beer and the game group.

We did banish a member. His concerns hijacked meetings.

Bill stood by Regina’s bed, stroking her hair.

Tom and Roxann got married in a mandorla.

Ode lost his prostate.

We showed up.

Building trust, shared memories. Almost exactly half my life.

Sure, some of us, like me, have significant health challenges. Yet our lives are ongoing. Braiding together like sweet grass.

Time, braided.

We fly.

Wing feathers catching air.

Fourth Phase, Health

Feed the lev what it needs to prevail

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Spring and the Trial Moon

Friday gratefuls: Mitzrayim. Exodus. Diane. Carrie. Rebecca. Tara. Rich. Ron. Snow and cold. A winter day. Shadow’s kisses.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Better Sleeping

 

Kavannah: Simcha. Joy.  I have such joy with my friends at CBE.

Tarot: paused

One brief shining: Woke up with slivers of myself dedicated to different, sometimes contradictory perspectives. One sliver says, oh, go on. Ratchet down. You know where things are headed. Another. I’m so tired of feeling sick. Another. It’s rally time! Absorb this new reality and get on with it. And this one, where has all the purpose gone? One more: You got scammed.

 

I’ve been drifting emotionally. Carried here and there by rivulets of despair, anguish, resignation. No firm place to grab hold, steady myself. Discombobulated. Rudderless. From this: Oh, go on. Ratchet down. Follow the slow rush toward the sea. Don’t fight it.

Recovery from my difficult constipation has taken way longer than I thought it would. Hasn’t fully arrived yet. That means I’ve felt stomach/gut sick for three weeks plus. The constant drain of this symptom, that symptom. Can I eat now? Will eating make me feel worse? Or, better? An alienated stomach.

So tired of feeling sick. I could discount it. Doesn’t work. The symptoms remain.

My sense of purpose. Lost. I felt circumscribed, hemmed in on all sides by cancer, an unhappy G.I tract, increasing weakness. Purpose dissolved. Feeling hemmed in. If there’s no place to go, purpose withers.

One footnote to all this. My dishwasher broke. I called a repair outfit I’d used before. Crow Hill Appliance. Trusted them. The woman scheduling the appointment was not as thorough as the one I remembered. I was ok with that. This was quicker. Oops.

When Slavic, the Ukrainian repair guy, came, we talked a bit and I left him to diagnose my sick dishwasher. A central circulating pump. $390. Sorry, it’s so expensive. I wrote him a check.

And. Nothing.

It was a slick ruse. And I let it happen–distracted, tired, not fully in my body. I don’t expect to get the money back, but I am calling the police.

This morning. A small, but powerful shift.  No symptoms. Body right. I was glad to be awake. A place to get a purchase. Grab on to a level of living above resignation, above a temporary illness. It’s rally time! First time in three weeks. Some juice left in the tank. That feels so good.

Reflection: Feeling sick, debilitated, has affected my mood–a lot. Even though I knew it was happening. I need to remember. Sick body drags down the lev. Conclusion: feed the lev what it needs to prevail.

This moment. Right now. A sun below the horizon–yet I can feel its power.

My lev quickens.

We await the light.

 

Politics, US History

Where is our Jazmin

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation (1% waning crescent)

Thursday gratefuls: Tara. Breakfast burritos. Shadow and Eleanor, buddies. Blood draws. Down the hill. Snow. Costa Rica.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Rich

 

Kavannah: Simcha. Joy.  I have such joy with my friends at CBE.

Tarot: paused

One brief shining:  In the phlebotomist’s chair. Again. Five vials. A slight push. Jazmin had found my vein. Whoa. She’s good. Efficient, too. Swap in one vial. My body fills it. Out. Another. Less than five minutes.

A working woman with delicate hands. She performs a frequent task with no fuss.

Jazmin.

Compare Jazmin’s careful, accurate insertion of the needle with, say, Trump’s depiction of himself as Jesus. Ham-fisted. Coarse. At the very least, rude. At worst, outright blasphemy.

Facing down, in a cowardly-lion way, the Pope. Who is the Pope? How many legions does he have? He cannot lecture me about war and violence. I have a Nobel Peace Prize. See? Right there.

JD Vance, he of the pliable values, instructs the Pope to be more careful when speaking about theology—to a man who has risen to the highest office in the Roman Catholic Church, who leads a nation of theologians.

Where are the Jazmins of the political world? Is there no one who will relieve us of these troublesome men? Who can identify the tasks before us, address them with care and confidence, and deliver policies that make our nation better—stronger?

They have yet to emerge. It may be that the route to the presidency weeds out politics’ Jazmins, ensuring that the thoughtful, the compassionate, and the competent fall away while the venal, the corrupt, and the cruel survive.

And yet history offers exceptions.

Obama, I believe, was one such man. His values were clear, his compassion evident, though his skills proved insufficient to overcome the forces arrayed against him. That is the nub of it.

A combination of humane vision and the political mastery of Lyndon Johnson is vanishingly rare.

When I consider history, I know such leaders have existed: the martyr Lincoln, the stalwart Washington, the canny Roosevelt. Perhaps the times make the person. Only in moments of rupture do we find those with the courage to heal a broken nation.

My sense, though, is that such people always exist, unnoticed by history. When peace and plenty prevail, effective leadership remains within reach. Many can—and do—lead. The demand for extraordinary vision lies dormant.

But then come the crucibles: the American Revolution. The Civil War. World War II. Nation-shaking events. Even our survival as a republic at risk.

It is, right now, such a time.

Our President, enabled by sycophants and toadies, lurches from boasting of a Nobel Peace Prize to extinguishing a civilization—glad-handing enemies while stiff-arming allies.

I do not know where they are or who they are, but it is past time for the Jazmins to show up—to ply their trade with skill and aplomb.

Eyes closed.

Hands in lap.

Wait.

.

 

 

General

Learning With Heart

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation (4% waning crescent)

Wednesday gratefuls: Rich. Housekeeper. Fruit. Bagel w/ avocado. Tara. Marilyn. Jamie. Joanne. Laurie. Susan. Ron.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Rich

 

Kavannah: Simcha. Joy.  I have such joy with my friends at CBE.

Tarot: paused

One brief shining: Rich came in the morning. Fruit, bagels, breakfast burritos. And washed my dishes. On his birthday. #64. He made me a bagel with avocado and a side of blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, and melon. A very sweet guy.

 

Tara came in the afternoon. Helped get my lower level ready for our MVP meeting. (see picture above) She fussed and stacked, moved this and that. We chatted. The Democratic Socialists called with an opportunity to leave a message for Senator Hickenlooper about two votes today in the Senate. I did.

Marilyn came a little early, bringing me a generous portion of spaghetti Bolognese for meals this week. As folks began to trickle in, Rabbi Jamie sent me a text: Oh, no. I just realized we’re meeting at your house! I’ll be there in thirty minutes. He’s just back from his sabbatical.

Joanne came with Susan Marcus. She has to go backwards down stairs due to arthritic knees. Many helped her down. She’s a living treasure at CBE and treated like one.

Laurie came. She had a story about cycling with her two kids. In the mountains. She’s quite the athlete, nearing 63, and still riding the mountain roads. Her son rode ahead of her on a steep hill. She got up behind me, trying to decide whether to pass him or not. Once before she had and he was embarrassed.

Then, I thought. Screw it. One pedal after another and I zipped past him. She thought about it this way: He might be embarrassed right now, but later he’ll remember the moment his 63 year old mom passed him. Otherwise we’ll be riding together, go home, and there will be no memory of it.

How do we learn best? When emotion and learning engage at the same time. That’s the big take away from talmud torah.

We had a great discussion. A first things part of our conversation. Can deep study/learning be seen as a middah? A character trait which mussar teaches us to either magnify or decrease. Doesn’t seem like it. It’s not the same as say patience or joy or honor. Clear character traits.

Yet. In order to engage mussar, we first have to study. A sine qua non. I suggested studiousness as the character trait. With an important addenda. Talmud torah is studiousness with heart, a studiousness that begins with the understanding we may be transformed by what we learn.

This is not the analytical study of sacred texts. No. It is the deep engagement of self with material that matters. It is learning with heart. Just as Laurie’s 28 year-old son created a memory of Mom passing on by, so do those of us who study with heart create not only lasting memories, but changed selves.

Quiet.

My heart opens.

I see.

Fourth Phase, Health

Life Itself

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Tuesday gratefuls: Rich. Tara. Marilyn. Jamie and Ellen. MVP. Melancholy, come to visit once again. BJ and Pammy. Idaho.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Orion

Tarot: paused

One brief shining:  Embodied. Incarnate. I am life itself, riding this body, the only one I’ll ever have, on the ancientrail from birth to death. No, I’m not special. You and you and you ride alongside me. Someday our paths will fork. I’ll go on my way. You on yours.

 

Over the last two and a half weeks I’ve felt as sick and unhappy as I have in years. I’ve begun to suspect that in addition to constipation and sleep deprivation I had a g.i. bug. I’m still not back. When I eat, my stomach often rebels. I’m sleeping much better, yet still feel worn out. It’s important to me to write this. Get it on the page.

As my physical distress increased, waned, and lingered, as it does now, I went on an emotional journey. Could this mean something dire? Why haven’t I taken better care of myself? Will I feel like this forever?

Self-doubt. It wriggles up, carrying along with it other memories. Those weeks before and after my divorces. When I floundered, no longer at home in the ministry. Less dramatic. What have I done wrong with these vegetables? Why won’t Shadow come inside? Less dramatic, but still corrosive. Acid on the soul.

Focusing on my difficult times, in these circumstances, only made my hard times harder. See. You are like that. Have been all along. Shifting, can you feel it, from a man who made mistakes to a man who is a mistake.

How long can I endure? If I’m a man who is a mistake, not much longer. The pain and suffering will only recur and recur. Such a man can only bring down himself and those closest to him.

If, on the other hand, I am a man who makes mistakes, I can learn, change. Try to make a different mistake. This man will not disappear. Today gives me a chance to alter my diet. To get better sleep. I can even learn to say, oh that was a mistake, how silly of me.

There, you see? I’ve gotten this far down the page. Written myself into a happier place. The key today? I had begun to inch toward seeing myself as a man who is a mistake. One sabotages himself because that’s his nature.

No. I’ve felt miserable and sick because I was miserable and sick. Not as a necessary condition of a permanently flawed man. I can get myself into a better place. How? Eat well. Move. And move some more. Workout how to handle the brace and eating out. Don’t isolate. Participate in the trial.

In other words accept and assert my agency. Don’t let my inner world fill with self-doubt, recrimination. Fill it instead with self-regard, affirmation. Open myself to the wonder of being human.

Quietly.

Peacefully.

 

Mussar

Study

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Monday gratefuls: Accepting our own power. Prostate cancer, my teacher. Purple iris for Kate. Stargazer lilies and gladiolus.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Talmud Torah

Tarot: paused

One brief shining: Holding my Tanakh, I study. This week: Leviticus 12:1–15:33. Walking with Shadow, I study grasses, moss, and spring ephemerals. Driving to an appointment, I pass the Hogback divide, learning of its most ancient origins—older than the Rockies. I cannot move without study. Without learning.

Tomorrow Mussar MVP comes to my house. Tara, Rich, and Marilyn will handle food and setup. They offered to come to me. Going out with head drop—onerous. Their kindness makes me happy. On Zoom: no hugs, hearing difficult, distance realized. In person: hugs. Easier hearing. Distance closed.

Mussar, according to Rabbi Yalanter (19 c), is “hot” study; Torah study is “cool.” It reminds me of Marshall McLuhan: TV as hot media, print as cool. In Mussar I open my lev, discovering how the middah of patience lives within me. Do I veer into impatience? Or drift toward indolence and apathy?

Around the table we will go, telling stories on ourselves—sometimes affirming, sometimes confessing what needs attention.

For example: standing in a grocery check-out line. After unloading her two carts, the woman ahead of me remembers the lower rack. Do I sigh? Scowl? Or reach down and help retrieve the remaining items?

Rabbi Jamie might say: we change our behavior in small increments. Advance your practice of patience by recognizing annoyance, yet choosing not to display it. That is enough. One moment, one incident, a response that feels better. Repeat.

Various lists of middot circulate online. Here are two: Jewish Camp and the Forty-Eight Mussar Middot. On neither list does Talmud Torah appear.

It fits, though, for one excellent reason: without study, there is no Mussar.

Yeshivot—men and boys davening as they argue. The angel at the Jabbok Ford. Is it God? Is it not? Isaac? Not Isaac. Who, then? I believe the angel is an angel—a messenger. Also a direct representative of God.

That is the cool, analytical version of Talmud Torah.

Mussar begins at the gateway to the soul: anavah, humility. Do I speak too often, steering the conversation toward my own (wonderful) insights? Do I remain silent, convinced my ideas fall short? Or do I listen carefully, speak concisely, and choose my moment with care?

In Judaism without Tribalism, Rabbi Rami Shapiro suggests Jews have two missions: tikkun and teshuvah. For my final paper, I added a third—Talmud Torah. It undergirds the other two.

Tikkun, the work of justice, requires careful attention to the realities of our world. It demands that we not look away. This is analogous to the cool study of Torah.

Teshuvah, on the other hand, requires hot study. What in my recent life calls me to return to the homeland of my soul? Where have I missed the mark?

Both require study.

I sit.

Reading.

General
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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Monday gratefuls: Accepting our own power. Prostate cancer, my teacher. Purple Iris for Kate. Stargaze Lilies and Gladiolus.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:

Tarot: paused

One brief shining:

Family, Health

Kate

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Sunday gratefuls: Slavic, dishwasher repair guy. Kate, her life and times. Sleep. Shadow, my sweet girl. Artemis II. All safe.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Kate of blessed memory

 

Tarot: paused

One brief shining: Five years ago on a cold dark night Kate slipped away. Her breathing troubles, Reynaud’s, rheumatoid arthritis–all solved. I was shocked, so deep in mourning I couldn’t see the benefit to her. Not then.

 

From today’s perspective, she found herself in a difficult and vulnerable place. And stepped away. The path in this life no longer viable. A brave woman. Honest. Unflinching.

Every weekday morning until 2011 Kate got up, loved the dogs, and got in her Tundra to drive to Allina. At work she wrestled eighteen-month old babies. Talked to elementary school kids.

She chafed against corporate medicine. Now they’re only giving us fifteen minutes for a patient encounter. A speed up. We’re also supposed to upcode. Find the most remunerative code that fits the visit. No matter how it affects patients.

Corporate medicine, she would tell you with some heat, is all about revenue–not healing. Not relationships with patients. Made me wonder about all the coding decisions made in her ten last days.

Her last days. Surrounded by family. Visiting friends. Rabbi Jamie. Fitful communication. She would push away the thick plastic triangle covering her nose.

When I came in the room, Kate would look up and sign, I love you. I responded with the same. Each day, sometimes each hour a respiratory therapist would check her O2 saturation. Blood draws. Her arms so thin it was hard to imagine finding a vein.

She lay there in the hospital gown, yellow with red accents, each arm, each leg visible evidence of the strain her body had known since early September of 2018. She often seemed too small, a child sat up so she can see her visitors.

Jon sat in a chair on the left side of her bed. His face a full definition of bereft. Shoulders dropped. Head slumping. Kate reached out, hugged him with her thin left arm. Jon’s relief made me smile. Their relationship, often fractious, melted into mother and son. Each year when we celebrate Jon’s birthday that scene comes to mind.

Five years. A long time. No partner. No Kate. The days collected themselves into months and the months extended into years. Would I find a new partner? Move to Hawai’i? Travel? No to the first. I’ve never met anyone. No to the second. Couldn’t leave Ruth and Gabe. Yes to the third. Minneapolis once. Hawai’i twice. Korea once.

It is not life without her. When I look at the Phoenix in the Mardi Gras poster, I see Kate and me at the Cafe Du Monde, water sweating the sides of our glasses, fresh beignets and chicory coffee.

The chair I use we bought for her. The Hawi’ian painting of sea turtles.  Quilts. Blown glass. Kate in her essence.

She’s with me from the time I wake up until I go back to bed.

She rests.

I imagine.

But, maybe not.