Emerson: The Mind on Fire I

I've started on this biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson, by Robert D. Richardson Jr. So far it seems to be well-written, but, because I'm reading it more for the historical context of writers in nineteenth century Massachusetts than for a specific interest in Emerson, I'm not finding it particularly exciting. Emerson and his family sound fairly extroverted, and, over the years, I have gradually come to dislike extroverts compared to introverts. The writers, artists and scientists whom I like best tend to be introverts: George Eliot, Gustave Flaubert, László Krasznahorkai, Emily Dickinson, Vivian Maier, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein and E.O. Wilson, for example. Part of this may be that in order to grasp aspects of life or the world well, one must be capable of observing them and meditating on them for long periods of time. The need to socialize reduces the time available for extroverts to excel in many fields. Rather, I think that extroverts tend to serve the specific function of fostering social unity in various groups. There are probably exceptions to this model, because most people aren't purely introverted or purely extroverted, but it reflects my observations of people over the course of my life. In any case, Emerson seems to me to have been an extrovert, which means that I am unlikely to find his ideas interesting. Nevertheless, it should be informative to learn more about how he interfaced with Henry David Thoreau and other American and British intellectuals of his time.

Emerson was born on May 25, 1803 in Boston. This made him about fourteen years older than Thoreau and twenty-seven years older than Emily Dickinson. In 1803, Boston was a town of only about 25,000 residents, but it was at the beginning of a population explosion. Emerson's father was a poorly-paid minister, and, like other families at the time, his was large, with illnesses and early deaths. The first two children, a girl and a boy, didn't survive to adulthood, then there were five boys who did and one girl who didn't. Emerson's father died 1811, when he was eight, so did not have much direct impact on him. The household, however was highly literate, and Mary Moody Emerson, his aunt, was extremely well-read. He attended Boston Latin School and entered Harvard in 1817, when he was fourteen. This wasn't because he was precocious, and his family's church connections generally allowed the boys to attend Harvard. Harvard at the time was part boys' school and part college, and there were only sixty students in his class. He did not excel academically and seemed to prefer literature to science. He fancied himself a poet.

After graduating from Harvard in 1821, Emerson didn't have a career plan, and he taught at a school for young women until 1825, when he entered Harvard Divinity School, which he did not complete after withdrawing because of an eye infection. Recovering from the eye infection, he traveled by ship to Charleston, South Carolina and Saint Petersburg, Florida in 1826. In 1827 he returned home, visiting friends and relatives in Baltimore, Alexandria, Philadelphia and New York. He became a preacher and met 16-year-old Ellen Louisa Tucker in Concord, New Hampshire. She was the daughter of a deceased Boston rope manufacturer. They fell in love and married on September 30, 1829.

Besides the above, the book dutifully recounts Emerson's readings throughout and his efforts to clarify his religious beliefs. Of course, his religious struggles are of little interest to me, but I realize that they may be important to others. For me, the ideas discussed by intellectuals didn't become particularly interesting until about 1859, when Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species; by then, Emerson was already fifty-six. I do find Richardson's book helpful for understanding the historical and sociological context of Emerson's life, but am doubtful that I would share Emerson's concerns. Hopefully this will not stop me from finishing the book. Because of Richardson's writing style, I may end up speed reading sections of it that don't interest me. In a worst case scenario I'll read only the sections that pertain to Thoreau and Emerson's trips to Europe. 

Diary

Although, as I've said repeatedly, I don't like thinking about or discussing Donald Trump, I thought that I should pass along my impressions of what is happening now. While Trump has proven himself to be incompetent in multiple areas, he is actually fairly predictable, and, after being forced to pay attention to him for ten years, I just noticed how he is changing his strategy. There is a certain amount of speculation here, but this is what I think. Because of his interaction today with the newly-elected mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, and some of the comments that he made during the meeting, I think that Trump has recognized that he is about finished with the MAGA movement and is fully prepared to exit the Republican Party. This is evident in his harebrained continuation of his economic policies from his first term, which didn't work then and aren't working now. Despite his often-aggressive behavior, Trump is one of the most predictable public figures that I've ever observed. He never had much of an emotional connection with the Republican Party, because he grew up in New York City, and he now sees the writing on the wall regarding his future as the leader of MAGA, and he is preparing for a retirement from politics which will allow him to maintain connections with New York City. This can also be interpreted as an attempt to divert from the reality of a weakened economy and public disgust regarding his military assaults on American cities, but, to me, Trump seems to be exhausted from his entire effort and has reached the point where he is seriously thinking about exiting the situation – rather than continuing his attempt to transform the presidency into a dictatorship. It is also possible that new facts from the release of the Epstein documents may be affecting him, but, in any case, Trump seems to be giving up. In addition, it is quite possible that he is now getting negative feedback from the Senate, the House and the Supreme Court. The reason why I'm writing this is that the news media in general is not courageous enough to say it or even speculate at all.

Regarding the last comment, although I don't always enjoy The Contrarian, Jennifer Rubin and Norm Eisen have in fact created an effective antidote to the Trump phenomenon. I find that some of their interviews get right to the heart of the issues, and they don't pull punches. It can be really frustrating to watch the traditional news outlets waltzing around meaningful commentary. My only complaints about The Contrarian are that they are more confident about the democratic process than I am and perhaps have a religious faith that I am completely lacking. Still, their chutzpah can be inspiring. 

In any case, whether or not my evaluation is completely accurate, I now feel that Trump is on the way out. The job market is deteriorating, and if Trump decides to mail out checks to get a political boost, that will only increase inflation.

In other news, I am attempting to prepare for a long, slow winter. I currently have a lengthy biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson to read, which should last for several weeks. While I don't think that I will find Emerson's ideas particularly interesting, I have recently been reading about nineteenth century New England people, and this will help round out the picture for me. I've read enough biographies now to think that entire periods are generally more interesting than any particular individuals who were prominent during those times. This is also a safe way to avoid lionizing one or two people who don't necessarily deserve it. Many famous people have serious flaws that can be quite annoying when you take a close look. At this point I find it more interesting to look at different periods and locations and see the biographical participants within their particular ecosystems. This has worked fairly well for me recently for the French Enlightenment, nineteenth century British intellectuals and artists, and now nineteenth century American intellectuals and artists. However, I may be running out of material and may soon have to learn Mandarin or some other language – though, as I've said, I'm terrible at languages. For entertainment, I am currently watching Claire's Knee, by Éric Rohmer, for the third time. I enjoy seeing Lake Annecy, which I visited in 2000. Annecy is also where Rousseau met Mme. de Warens. While there, I took out a motor boat on the lake.

The Origins of Consciousness: Thoughts of the Crooked-Headed Fly

This new book, by Giorgio Vallortigara, continues his discussion of apparently complex neurological mechanisms in simple animals. He moves on from his last book, Born Knowing: Imprinting and the Origins of Knowledge, which discusses chick behavior, indicating innate knowledge at birth and the ability to perform some kinds of abstract reasoning without language. This book is comparatively more varied and discusses several different experiments involving much simpler organisms in an attempt to clarify the origin and function of consciousness. Because of the density of the material and the brevity of the book, I found it less compelling than his last one. There are eclectic elements to Vallortigara's writing style, and this book even includes two poems by Emily Dickinson!

One of the most interesting experiments to me was one in which bees were trained to identify paintings by Monet and Picasso. After the initial training, they were generally able to discriminate other paintings by Monet and Picasso. There is also a study of horseshoe crabs, which are actually more closely related to spiders than crabs. They have two primitive eyes which, with their neurological system, allow them to discern visual edges. There is an experiment with cockroaches which indicates that their visual system is similar to that of humans.

The experiment with the crooked-headed fly of the title seems to indicate that this fly possesses a neurological structure that contains a model for the external world around it, and that new external stimuli are compared to the standing model in order to assess their reality. In this instance, the fly's head had been rotated on its body from its normal position. When new experiences don't match the existing model, the fly may freeze. Vallortigara's main thesis is that moving organisms, as opposed to stationary ones, as a matter of survival have evolved the neurological equivalent of a map that shows how their bodies are oriented in relation to objects in the external world. He expands this to say that this is the origin of consciousness, and that consciousness is not an emergent phenomenon that exists only in animals with large brains, such as H. sapiens.

I finally figured out, several years ago, that "consciousness" is actually a buzzword that is often used by people who implicitly believe that ours is the only species to have reached that exalted level. In this respect, I am very much in agreement with Vallortigara's tendency to demythologize our place in the universe. Whether or not this experiment proves his conclusion, I already agreed with Vallortigara that many species share characteristics that have enabled their survival with other species; it makes sense that survival-based characteristics may also work in other species. Not only do we inhabit the same universe, but we inhabit the same planet, where all currently known life has evolved.

There is also some discussion in the book about how animals with very small brains manage to survive, given their limited neurological capacities. Vallortigara thinks that social insects may compensate for this with specialized jobs within the hive: one insect doesn't have to know all of the jobs.

I am generally in agreement with the ideas expressed in this book and think that most people who think like naturalists probably would. I was also reminded of Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman, in which humans do most of their thinking fast, like insects, and reserve larger portions of their brains for more complex matters. I am still amazed to see how quickly flies and hummingbirds react to changes in their environments. Larger animals may have the capacity to process more complex information, but they are all descendants of smaller animals that never did slow thinking. 

Diary

One of my characteristics is that I like to be completely caught up on all responsibilities so that I don't have to worry about things that don't interest me much. This is fairly easy to do if you don't work for a living, and I haven't done that since 2007. Even so, certain challenges do come up occasionally, such as at the beginning of winter. It snowed last night, but it is already melting. My property maintenance tasks become compressed at this time of year, since I do nearly everything myself. Because I have a small shed, at any given time I can conveniently take out either the tractor or the snow blower, but not both. This means that I must finish all of the mowing and put away the tractor before the first snow. Then the snow blower can easily be taken out. I also have to clear the leaves from the yard before a heavy rain or snow, or they may still be sitting there in the spring. In addition, since I don't have a garage, I try to install my snow tires before the first snow. This all occurs within a short time period. One advantage at this house is the fact that I have no wood-burning stove. Though I liked having one, it was quite time-consuming stacking and moving wood and cutting and splitting firewood from the property. Also, from sleeping on hard mattresses for thirty-six years, I had developed tendonitis in my shoulders, which was exacerbated by all the wood-lifting. Since moving and buying a new mattress, my tendonitis has disappeared.

When I have free time, that doesn't necessarily mean that I daydream all day. Although I'm not as obsessive as my former neighbor, Dorothy Douglas, I don't like to see trash along the road, and occasionally I stop to pick it up. Yesterday, on a hike in Pittsford, I noticed that there had been a large beer party in the woods behind the Congregational Church. Rather than having to see the cans lying there for years, I decided to remove dozens of Labatt Ice 24 oz. cans. With winter coming, there may not be another beer party until next summer.

Since I'm tired of thinking about Donald Trump, I thought I'd say something about Dick Cheney, who just died. It is instructive to examine Cheney's political career, because he normalized self-dealing within the Republican Party well before Trump came along. He became Secretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush in 1989 after five draft deferments during the Vietnam War. Then, from 1995 to 2000 he served as the CEO of Halliburton, the energy services company which has deep connections with the defense industry. Some of his business decisions were considered questionable, and he accumulated $45 million while there. Cheney is a good example of the revolving door practice in which government officials move on to high positions in the corporate world. Later, after becoming Vice President under George W. Bush, he became the main promoter of the Iraq War, with Iraq as a major oil producer. From an ideological standpoint, he was an advocate of increased presidential power, which has probably helped pave the way for Donald Trump. However, perhaps as a form of contrition, he opposed Trump politically and voted for Kamala Harris in 2024.

There is nothing unusual about self-dealing in politics, but I have long been irritated by people who idealize democracy and present corruption as something that can easily be controlled by voters. It can't be. As I've said on numerous occasions, the underlying problem of democratic governance is that humans are simply large mammals, and, as such, are likely not only to behave irrationally much of the time, but to act primarily in their self-interest if they think that they can get away with it. So, my standing model is still an AI-based government which, if designed properly, would have the potential to permanently remove corruption and incompetence from governance. On a theoretical basis, I think it is possible that democracy may only work in very small societies whose citizens are culturally uniform and have only one class; ideally, they would all know each other. Even then there would be conflicts, but they would occur on a manageable scale.

In other news, I've done a very small amount of stargazing and did get a quick look at the Orion Nebula, though the moon was up. My new mount is working fine now. It is convenient to leave the mount and telescope set up outside, because, at this location, you never know exactly when the sky may clear up. Sometimes that lasts for only a few minutes. I'm not about to move to the Atacama Desert in Chile for better viewing conditions. I plan to bring the telescope inside rather than leave it outside all winter. The mount can handle the weather and that stays outside because it is time-consuming to set up. I've started on a new book and will probably have something to say about it on my next post.

Diary

I have been preoccupied for a few days with a visitor and therefore have not spent much time thinking about this blog. I have also been casually reading two books. One, I decided, wasn't worth the time, and the other, though of some interest to me, is on an obscure topic that would not interest many readers, so I'm setting it aside for now. I did, however, also receive a new book by Giorgio Vallortigara, which looks very promising, and I will be starting on it soon.

We had a few dry, sunny autumnal days, and the leaves are past their peak colors. They are now falling rapidly, with wind and rain at the moment. It is relatively warm for this time of year, and it may not cool off significantly for several weeks. I still have a few edible tomatoes left.

There remains the background noise of the Trump administration and Washington politics, which, as I've said, I try not to dwell on. While I'm reluctant to make an explicit prediction about Trump's demise, it does currently seem to be proceeding at an accelerating pace. His popularity is continuing to decline. He hasn't created new jobs and the economy is somewhat stagnant. The Republican-controlled Congress also isn't producing results which will encourage ordinary workers. Generally, healthcare costs will rise and government services will be reduced. Trump's tariff plan still seems like a fiasco and is unlikely to produce desirable results. His skill in international diplomacy is pretty much nonexistent. Under conditions like this, he tends distract from his incompetence with actions that violate the Constitution in new ways. I think that he may have imagined that by this point in his current term he would have charged up the economy so that he would win votes, but that isn't happening. As of now, he may be more inclined to contemplate an actual takeover of the U.S. government with the military. However, since such an action would be considered unacceptable by the Supreme Court, Congress and nearly all voters, it would be far more challenging than anything that he has attempted so far. While he has been able to control the U.S. military up to now, his actions could precipitate a rebellion within the military, and, in the end, he might be found guilty of treason. I don't think that he has the intellectual resources to extract himself from this mess of his own making, and the Republicans and the billionaires aren't really his friends and will dump him at some point. Furthermore, the "No Kings" movement has a lot of momentum currently and is unlikely to dissipate.

The other aspect of this, that I've mentioned before, is investing. The uncertainty of the effects of Trump's tariff plan has been evaporating. But there is still uncertainty over the AI industry and the meme investing that has been revived recently. Under these conditions, I now have a fairly normal portfolio. I had large portions in money markets and gold for a while, but I have recently returned to stocks.

Diary

We are about at peak fall colors now. Some leaves have fallen, but there is still a long way to go. Technically we are still in a drought, but it has been raining, and there is more rain in the forecast. I've put away the lawn tractor for the winter and the snow blower is ready for action. It probably won't snow for a few weeks. There is a gigantic harvest of acorns this year, probably because of the wet spring. With the dry summer, the bears may not have found enough berries, and they were in the yard during the day eating acorns. I also saw a bear on one of my hikes. Fortunately, black bears are not normally dangerous to humans. Currently there are no longer any mice hanging around outside the house at night, since this is no longer their domicile, but there may be a mouse population explosion next year because of all the acorns. The squirrels are also having a feast. I've done a little stargazing, with Saturn and Jupiter visible now. I can see the Orion Nebula lying in bed, but I haven't felt like getting up at 3:00 A.M. to look at it through the telescope. I plan to wait until it rises earlier, and after that I'll put away the telescope for the winter.

I've been reading a couple of different books. One I didn't like much, and I've given up on it. Another is somewhat interesting to me, but it's on an obscure subject that wouldn't interest most others, so I'm not going to write about it. The popularity of this blog is of some concern to me because it keeps growing. Originally, I thought that I might have a few regulars and have some low-key discussions. Since the pandemic there has been a steady rise in pageviews, and I'm currently up to about forty thousand pageviews per month, according to the data provided. Strangely, in the last month the blog has been more popular in China than in the U.S. And almost as many pageviews came from Singapore as the U.S. I had been sort of avoiding catchy titles for my posts, but I slipped up with "Brain Death by Technological Innovation," and it became one of my most popular posts almost immediately. That may be because it seems to be a popular topic now, and I've seen other articles on it since then.

As usual, I have been trying to limit my exposure to the Trump phenomenon. One of my favorite news sources is currently The Contrarian, and although they tend to focus on legal issues, it is one of the best places to find straightforward assessments of the pitfalls of the Trump administration. I still usually watch part of PBS NewsHour, where I find the news coverage uneven. The new blonde on the staff, Liz Landers, isn't too bad actually. It is probably a tactical advantage to have a blonde female cover the White House. Laura Barrón-López was probably discriminated against at the White House. Some of the NewsHour staff probably also got on her nerves because of their inappropriate neutrality on Trump. Fortunately, many news outlets now aren't afraid to report accurately on Donald Trump: he is a stupid, egocentric, unprincipled liar. He doesn't do anything systematically, and at best he may produce a random assortment of bad outcomes and good outcomes. In the long term, I don't see how he could benefit the Republican Party. He isn't going to make America great, and others will probably have to clean up after him – perhaps for decades. Trump may appeal to Nazi types, but the probable percentage of the population that would convert to Naziism now in the U.S. is tiny compared to Germany in the 1930's. Furthermore, much of Trump's appeal is based on promises that he will probably be unable to keep. He will be known for creating chaos rather than leading a disciplined movement.

I was glad that I came across the poet Jemma Borg. I like poems that describe human lives in the context of the natural world, without the usual filters imposed by transient styles or cultural norms. It is probably relevant that Borg studied zoology and evolutionary genetics. I think that science writers can make good poets. In other news, I was glad to see that László Krasznahorkai was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. I have found him talented and original, and I like the fact that his motivation isn't entirely pecuniary. In his case, his sales may go up a little, but he won't be the next Stephen King.

Before & after the night

 after Antonella Anedda

I

At last, what must be done falls away

undone          Darkness grows like headaches grow

from a hard seed & gathers as pain gathers

                                           the body in, the last note

of sunset paled behind the hill's shoulder

           Night muffles the windows of the house

& the fleet-beacons of cars blare in the dark

           then a quiet that had spread as shadows

from the trees' roots becomes whole

with the lights unfastening                        

                                               Sleep, eyes - let the heart speak -

& a cold air cracks & the bare, brown earth

listens, remembering ice

           The truce of an owl sounds in the wet-winged oak

II

Time stretches, filling the unburied dawn

with windows & cars & leaves - relinquishing

the silence, as songs do

                        when they sing the unsolvable pain

We have slept, contagiously, then rouse

to the road's slick roar, to clocks shaking out

          their numbers like an arcane dew

                                             What no longer mattered -

which was the night's comfort - picks up again

its substance like a ghost

& cleans its aching teeth

                      We enter our empty clothes: here

           comes a hand through a sleeve

like a worm        out of earth        into the blackbird's beak

—Jemma Borg

My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson VI

I've finally reached the end of this long biography, and here is the wrap-up.  

Her 1862-to-1865 period, when she first corresponded with Higginson, was probably her most productive. However, she remained reclusive and did not meet Higginson until 1870, when he visited Amherst. Fortunately, he wrote a detailed account of this visit. So much of this book is a recording of her interactions with family members and routine acquaintances that I found Higginson's impressions far more useful: he was a worldly outsider and far better positioned to make an objective evaluation. He found the household strikingly individualistic.

In the entry hall he heard a "step like a pattering child's & in glided a little plain woman with two smooth bands of reddish hair...in a very plain & exquisitely clean white pique & a blue net worsted shawl."...Twice he used the word "childlike." His hostess presented him with two day lilies as her "introduction," then asking him to "[f]orgive me if I am frightened; I never see strangers & hardly know what I say," she began talking. She talked "continuously" but "deferentially–sometimes stopping to ask me to talk instead of her"–and then resuming....he judged her to be "thoroughly ingenuous & simple." Although he doubted his wife would care for her, he considered much of what she said "wise."

"Her father was not severe I should think but remote."

"I was never with any one who drained my nerve power so much. Without touching her, she drew from me. I am glad not to live near her." Decades later, in a final attempt to sum up his impression, he availed himself of a newer psychological vocabulary: "The impression undoubtedly made on me was that of an excess of tension, and something abnormal." 

As Habegger notes, this is probably the best existing description of Dickinson and her household. Emily became increasingly reclusive as she aged, and she was only thirty-nine at the time of this visit. Higginson saw her only one other time, in 1873, and that appears to have been uneventful.

Edward, her father, died in 1874, at the age of seventy-one. In true patriarchal fashion, he left no will, and it was simply assumed that Austin would thereafter take control of the household, with the three women having no rights or inheritances. From here on, the book is mainly a sequence of deaths. In 1882, her probable "Master," the Reverend Charles Wadsworth, died. Emily came to know the popular judge, Otis Phillips Lord. He was about eighteen years older than her. His wife had died in 1877, and, after Emily's mother died in 1882, he apparently proposed to Emily. She did not accept. It's probably just as well, because he died in 1884. Emily herself died in 1886, at the age of fifty-five. At the time, the stated medical cause of death was basically mumbo jumbo. A more recent analysis suggests that she died from hypertension, which would certainly make sense.

 Austin was having an affair with Mabel Loomis Todd (1856-1932) then. She was the wife of an astronomy professor at Amherst. She was a spirited person, liked sex, and had an open marriage – nothing like any of the Dickinsons. Todd worked with Higginson to produce the first book of Emily's poems. There has been criticism of their editing, but the book sold exceptionally well, and Emily's reputation as a poet was immediately established.

Habegger reproduces the entire title poem, which is about death:

My Wars are laid away in Books—

I have one Battle more—

A Foe whom I have never seen

But oft has scanned me o'er–

And hesitated me between

And others at my side,

But chose the best—Neglecting me—till

All the rest have died—

How sweet if I am not forgot

By Chums that passed away—

Since Playmates at threescore and ten

Are such a scarcity—

I've been thinking about the main influences on Emily Dickinson. Although she apparently admired Elizabeth Barrett Browning, her style is probably much closer to that of Emily Brontë. She also admired George Eliot, but George Eliot was vastly more knowledgeable than Emily – and a bad poet. While Emily seems to have been well-read – apparently she did like Henry David Thoreau – as a practical matter she was challenged by direct interactions with people, which excluded her from the kind of knowledge that makes good novelists. Still, I find some of Dickinson's poems to be remarkable little gems.

My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson V

Emily Dickinson left behind three unsent drafts to a person who was addressed as "Master." This has caused a great deal of scholarly speculation, which, according to Habegger, isn't really all that important. One possible candidate was the Reverend Charles Wadsworth, who had visited her at least once. They appear to have been written in the late 1850's and early 1860's. At a later date, in April, 1862, she read the article in Atlantic Monthly, written by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, which I discussed earlier here in connection with Renée Bergland's book, and Higginson thereafter became her de facto "Master," though probably not at an exalted level. The intellectual men who attracted Dickinson's attention tended to have religious training, and that even included Higginson.

Habegger's book is full of minutiae regarding boring bourgeois life in the last days of Puritan New England. He is dutifully reporting it, given that he is a scholar of the subject, but, understandably, this is not a particularly exciting topic, to me at least. Even so, it is still of some value to know that the people in Dickinson's life faced problems different from the ones we have now. Besides the Civil War, with a lack of effective contraception and a primitive state in medicine, people tended to have enormous families, and they were often ill, dying or going bankrupt. Dickinson herself had eye problems and spent a lot of time in Cambridge getting treatments.

As I am reaching the end of the book, I am tending to think about Dickinson in the context of the history of poetry. Since the only other poet I know much about is Denise Levertov, I am often making comparisons. They had a few things in common and a few major differences. They both had hard times establishing their footings as poets. Both wrestled with their religious backgrounds. Levertov's father was a fringe Jewish theologian who came to recognize Christ, and she grew up admiring Rilke. Dickinson's family consisted of rather bourgeois lawyers. Her brother, Austin, lived next door in a showy house; he became an art aficionado, making special trips to New York City to purchase art objects, and this perfectly fits my model of a social climber. Levertov had greater political proclivities than Dickinson; her sister had traveled to Spain during the Spanish Civil War, and Denise actively opposed the Vietnam War. Both Dickinson and Levertov had very strong religious interests, and in this area, Dickinson seems to have been more sophisticated because of her awareness of science, as discussed in Natural Magic. Levertov, on the other hand, was scientifically illiterate, and she seemed to go off into a haphazard religious exploration at the end of her life. 

I was intrigued that both Dickinson and Levertov used the word "Master" to designate people who could guide them in their poetic development. In Dickinson's case, there was no existing blueprint for female poets in the U.S. at the time. She really wanted guidance, and I don't think that she ever found it. By 1862, she had settled into the idea of writing for posterity, and there does not seem to be any evidence that she wanted a public life. She was bound by her family culture and the artistic environment of Massachusetts at the time. Thus, for her, Walt Whitman was not an acceptable or even a readable model, and even Emerson and Thoreau may have been too risqué for her. In Levertov's case, she knew from an early age that she wanted to be a poet and unselfconsciously engaged in networking until she became established. Her transition to the poetry ecosystem within the U.S. after World War II was challenging, and she at one point designated Robert Duncan as her "Master." Because she had worked in Massachusetts for several years, she may have picked up the term from Dickinson. 

Dickinson and Levertov are two of my favorite poets, and they both occasionally seem like mystical visionaries. At the time and place of Dickinson's life, it was impossible for her to have experiences similar to those of Levertov. Thus, what we see is a restricted artistic expression, which I think demonstrates a restrained challenge to religious dogma, along with a remarkable linguistic inventiveness. Levertov lived during a far more propitious time for female poets, and her poems cover a wider range of human experience than Dickinson was capable. However, because Dickinson's work was essentially private during her lifetime, she never had to make compromises for commercial considerations or the prevailing views of the arts crowd.

I expect to finish the book soon and will make a final post. 

My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson IV

I'm up to the year 1860, when Emily turned thirty, and will finish the book within a couple of weeks. During the 1850's, her life took more shape, and her writing skills continued to improve. Most of her childhood friends drifted away, and she became close to Susan Gilbert, who came from a wealthy family but was orphaned at a young age and had grown up with relatives in Geneva, New York. Subsequently, she moved to Amherst and lived with a sister and her brother-in-law. Apparently, Susan and Emily didn't meet until late in 1850. They were the same age and seemed to hit it off immediately. Susan had a sharp mind, and they had productive discussions and correspondences. However, Susan occasionally gave Emily the brush-off, so she must have had other priorities. The most obvious one was her involvement with Emily's brother, Austin, with whom she became engaged in 1853. 

In 1855, the former Dickinson Homestead came on the market, and Edward decided to buy it back. Initially, Emily wasn't excited about moving there, because she liked her home on West Street, and the Homestead was becoming decrepit. But Edward devised a plan, not only to refurbish the Homestead, but to build another home, later called "The Evergreens," an "Italianate villa," next door for Austin and Susan. By then, Austin had graduated from Amherst and Harvard Law School. Austin and Susan had planned to move west, and apparently this was an incentive for them to remain in Amherst, with Austin working at his father's firm. "The Evergreens" thereafter became the site of much of Emily's social life.

Habegger, I think, effectively captures the emotional dynamics and the poetic results created by this living arrangement:

What made Sue's distant nearness so powerful a stimulant was that it fit a basic rule of life for Dickinson: always seeking intimacy and finding it withheld. The pattern shows up not only in her friendships but in her orientation to nature and religion. The naive fixation on heaven that was so central in Protestant America, and which she had recklessly taken to heart without experiencing a conversion, had generated a pressing quest for the absolute within the mundane. This perennially expected rush is one of the things that gives her poems on bees, sunsets, and the seasons their Dickinsonian cachet:

A something in a summer's Day

As slow her flambeaux burn away

Which solemnizes me.

A something in a summer's noon—

A depth—an Azure—a perfume—

Transcending extasy.

The last line was not hyperbole. Ecstasy comes with fulfillment, but what moved Dickinson was expectation: not rowing in Eden, but the thought of rowing in Eden. A later stanza of this poem describes the action of nature's fingers on the responsive heart:

The wizard fingers never rest—

The purple brook within the breast

Still chafes its narrow bed—

Sexual, yes, but so much more than sexual, this constant chafing that results in a poetry of increasing power, daring, mastery. The poetry of arousal, it is the product of the single heart lying in its narrow bed and dreaming of a final escape from itself.

I'm not sure whether Emily Dickinson herself would agree with this analysis, but it's the best one I've seen on the dynamics within her poems.

Besides this important artistic tension, social events at "The Evergreens" provided Emily with interesting discussions occasionally. She got to know Samuel Bowles (1826-1878), the editor and owner of the Springfield Republican, quite well. He was far more progressive than her family members and an advocate of women's rights. Although Sue and Austin did not operate what would be called a literary salon, Sue may have intentionally invited guests who would suit Emily. One such guest was Ralph Waldo Emerson, though Emily apparently never met him. It isn't clear whether this was Emily's choice or an accident. In any case, Emily seemed to find ample intellectual stimulation from English authors, particularly the female poets and novelists of the time.

It would seem that, by the age of thirty, Emily had settled into a life that would intentionally not entail marriage, employment or fame.

Diary

For a break from Emily Dickinson, I decided to make a "Diary" post. I really don't like following the news, but thought that I should say something about Charlie Kirk. I had barely heard of him, so I did minimal research on him to find out what he represented. I came across a video of one of his rallies, in which he had a discussion with an atheist. This was quite interesting, because Kirk was well prepared and listed several arguments for the existence of God. He didn't actually interact much with the atheist, but he wasn't dogmatic. Finally, the atheist, who was an overweight, slightly unkempt young MAGA supporter, said that he wasn't convinced by any of those arguments. Kirk then tried to explain his personal reasoning for his belief in God. This had to do with probabilities – how it seemed impossible that we could be here at all without a God. The atheist tried to explain to him that the universe is extremely large, and that there may be many other civilizations of which we are unaware. That's about as far as the discussion went, but I was surprised how open to discussion Kirk seemed. The audience, however, disliked the atheist and was glad to see him go.

Of course, I haven't changed my position at all on free speech and don't think that Charlie Kirk deserved to be shot. For a right-wing supporter, he was actually quite civil. Even so, he was just a careerist evangelical, and I have no respect for so-called Christians who cozy up to Donald Trump. I've been wincing ever since the 1960's from exposure to people like Billy Graham. At heart, this is just a sophisticated form of hucksterism. Saint Donald has even less credibility than Saint Richard Nixon. These days, any religious movement in the U.S. is likely to be a form of financial opportunism. Once you realize how gullible people are, there is no mystery to this phenomenon.

Another phenomenon that I'm tired of is the rise of blonde-bimboism. There has been an explosion of blonde bimbos, from press secretaries to cabinet members to news reporters. Everywhere now resembles Fox News. I had been closely watching Laura Barrón-López at PBS NewsHour, who covered the White House and obviously disliked the passivity of her co-workers, who have become increasingly corporate in recent years. I can hardly stand Amna Nawaz or Nick Schifrin, who labor to remove any hint of personal judgment from their reporting. This has been a major trend for several years in most news media, including the New York Times and Washington Post. Because of the risks associated with upsetting politicians or corporations, news outlets have now generally adopted the Fox News model, which is infotainment. Under these circumstances, Laura Barrón-López has left PBS NewsHour for MSNBC. And Laura has been replaced by....a blonde bimbo! I'll reserve judgment on the blonde bimbo, but the management strategy at PBS NewsHour had clearly shifted to avoiding upsetting the Trump administration and corporate funders. It is quite unsettling to see law firms, corporations, universities and news media cave in to the Trump administration, but I still think that Trump's success depends on job creation, an area where I don't think he is making any progress. Unfortunately, the economy itself is almost on autopilot and may still do well even if Trump unwittingly damages it.

Back here at the home front, fall is rapidly approaching. The leaves are turning, particularly in the mountains, but may not be as colorful as usual due to the drought. I have too many tomatoes again, and some of them are getting overripe. Fortunately, the yard is surrounded by a gigantic compost pile, so I just chuck them into the woods. The cherry tomatoes that I grew are quite tasty, and I usually just eat them when I'm out in the yard. The telescope is working correctly now, and I've done a little stargazing. This morning at 5:30 there was a deer in the yard and Orion was overhead.

Normally at this time of year there would be mice crawling all over the outside of the house at night and storing food. I haven't seen any at all. As part of my mouse-blocking, last year I removed the one-way mouse door in the eaves that had been placed there by exterminators; I had seen that some mice were getting in through there. I also sealed the remaining hole with caulk. There was an unexpected benefit to that, because flies and other insects had been getting into the walls from there. As the weather cooled, flies started to appear in the house in 2023 and 2024, but there haven't been any this year.

My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson III

When Emily returned home from college in 1848, she was given household assignments, such as cooking and dishwashing. She baked bread for the first time. She had some interactions with men, but not many. She hit it off well with Elbridge Gridley Bowdoin, who was her father's junior law partner from 1847 to 1855. He was "a confirmed bachelor" ten years older than her. He lent her his copy of Jane Eyre. A more significant influence was Benjamin Franklin Newton, who was nine years older than her and also worked with her father briefly. He may have introduced her to Wordsworth and is known to have given her a book of Emerson's poems; at the time, these were advanced works of poetry by New England standards. He may have been the first person to recognize her talent. Unfortunately, he moved away to Worcester and died of tuberculosis in 1853. Theirs was not a romantic relationship, and he had married in Worcester, but Newton seems to have formed her prototype for "Master," who later became Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who seems to have had a lesser impact on her. She continued a friendship, though it declined, with Emily Fowler. Fowler's outgoing and confident demeanor seems to have been off-putting to Dickinson. 

In 1853, Edward was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and served for one term. Apparently he was too dogmatic and inflexible to fit into that environment, and he subsequently gave up entirely on politics. Politically, he was not an abolitionist. While he was away in Washington, his wife and Vinnie visited him. During that visit, arrangements were made for Emily's friend, Susan Gilbert, and cousin John Long Graves, an Amherst student, to stay with her.  Apparently, Emily played improvised tunes on the piano alone late at night – annoying the others.

Habegger mostly sticks to old letters in this book, but he occasionally inserts psychological interpretations. He thinks that the Dickinson home environment alternated between warmth and frigidity. The family members weren't always happy, but that didn't stop them from thinking of this as their home, making it, at least in an abstract sense, the secure place where they belonged. Habegger also thinks that Austin was not emotionally sensitive, and compares his relationship with Emily to Tom Tulliver's relationship to Maggie in The Mill on the Floss. 

Of course, these meager statements don't satisfy my interests. I've been thinking about how legal culture is expressed by people who take it upon themselves to become civic leaders. The Dickinsons of Amherst remind me a lot of the Seymours of Middlebury. Horatio Seymour (1778-1833) attended Yale and became a lawyer. While in Middlebury, he practiced law and built an enormous house downtown, which still stands. He served as Middlebury postmaster and state's attorney for Addison County. He also became involved in the management of Middlebury College and served as a U.S. Senator for two terms. Seymour's grandson, Joseph Battell (1839-1915), whom I discussed long ago, also became a civic leader, though he was a little eccentric. Besides supporting the Morgan horse, he was active at Middlebury College, engaged in the construction of the Main Street bridge over Otter Creek, and built the Battell Building nearby. The hotel that he built in Ripton later became the site of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference.

I also noticed, much later, the flurry of activity that my lawyer father-in-law engaged in in Indiana following World War II. While his contributions to the town were probably not as significant as those of the Dickinsons or the Seymours, I got a very close look at that family's structure. His family was also completely patriarchal. He had a brief political career in Indiana but apparently disliked politics. When they became rich and built a large house, the three daughters were crammed into two small bedrooms on one side of the house, and their lone brother had a gigantic bedroom to himself on the other side of the house. The brother was always praised and attended to by his parents but he had nonexistent relationships with his sisters. None of them were particularly good students, but he eventually got a Ph.D. and became a zoology professor. He married and had children. Later he became a university dean. The three daughters also went to college, married and had children, but only one of them had a good career. There was always discord in that family, and I think that some of it was related to the patriarchal structure – and what might now be called sexism.

I have long noticed that law doesn't necessarily attract the best people. It has been a highly attractive career choice for social climbers. When I think of lawyers, I don't necessarily think of Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln. More likely, I think of Roy Cohn, Joseph McCarthy or Richard Nixon. And today we have the selfless Rudy Giuliani, Mike Johnson, J.D. Vance and Ron DeSantis.

In Emily Dickinson's case, the sisters also appear to have been treated like second-class citizens. Not much information is provided, and it is unclear to me how Emily felt about her appearance. In the one confirmed image of her, her face is expressionless, and she does not seem to have attempted to make herself attractive. But it is thought that she had been ill for a long time and was only sixteen. Habegger thinks that there is another image of her. In that one, she is older and plumper but still has a vacant expression on her face. Generally, my sense is that her parents' relationship wasn't appealing to her mother, the marriage involved a lot of unpleasant toil, and these factors may have made marriage unappealing to Emily. In this vein, she seems to have made no effort to attract marriageable males. If she had wanted to marry, she could at least have attended church, which was a traditional place to meet potential spouses. She was obviously extremely introverted and private, and these two characteristics may have driven her behavior. But because Lavinia, who seemed to be more outgoing, also never married, the parental example may have been significant.

I'm plodding away through the book but am only halfway to the end.

Theme Song of the Day

Chinatown.

My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson II

I am ambling along in the book and will spend several more weeks before finishing. Habegger seems to be recording all of the pertinent information – and there is a lot of it. He inserts his interpretations from time to time, and they seem reasonable enough, but it is clear that he is an English professor who was educated in the U.S. Emily's father, Edward, seems to have been interested in restoring his family's reputation in Amherst, but was initially hindered by the Panic of 1837, which was part of a series of recessions and depressions that had originated in the cotton industry. Immediately after his marriage, he had been living in a rental house, but when it became apparent that he could be evicted, he made arrangements to move into one-half of the old Dickinson Homestead. This occurred before Emily was born. In 1839, they all moved to a house on West Street, where Emily spent much of her childhood. Once again, I am finding that money often plays a background role in enabling children to lead successful lives, in the arts or otherwise. Edward got help from his father-in-law, who advanced funds to the family by deducting them from his daughter's future inheritance. Charles Darwin's father did the same thing when Charles wanted to buy a house. Edward also made investments in land in Michigan. Besides his law practice, he was the treasurer of Amherst College. He also served in the Massachusetts government as a state representative and, later, as a state senator.

The Dickinson household followed a completely patriarchal model, but Emily didn't seem to mind. She had so many relatives and there were so many illnesses going around that there was always some activity. When Edward was away in Boston, he always left instructions and sometimes arranged for a substitute male to be present. He acted as if he were an amateur physician and advised his family members on what they should and shouldn't do for their health. Emily herself sometimes had serious coughs.

Some hints of Emily's later interests emerged quite early. Her poetic style may have been influenced by signing as a witness some of her father's legal documents. Her siblings also did this, but it appears that they were often out socializing, while Emily remained at home. I can see how Emily's poems roughly match rather terse legal documents. Her mother loved flowers, and Emily began collecting wildflowers and cultivated flowers at an early age. She dried and pressed them and kept them in a large book, called a herbarium, up to her death. It contains four or five hundred specimens, which are identified by their scientific names. Her poems are also economical in style and were produced slowly over much of her life. They were also carefully preserved up to the time of her death. It appears that Emily spent much of her time alone and gave considerable thought to these two hobbies.

With respect to her siblings, they seem to have had cooperative relationships. Clearly, Austin was destined to be a future patriarch, but Emily seems to have enjoyed communicating with him, both in conversation and letters. Her younger sister, Lavinia, known as "Vinnie," was more socially active than Emily and far less intellectual.

Emily's high school equivalent was Amherst Academy, which was somewhat unstable and in a state of flux while she attended it. As described by Renée Bergland in Natural Magic, it seems almost accidentally to have been rather advanced in the subjects offered to girls. Besides the sciences and mathematics, they were taught Latin, and Emily excelled at the latter. I never studied Latin at all, and I have always been interested in how it became a popular subject. When I was in college, I studied Greek mythology and Homeric Greek, which seem a lot more interesting to me. The answer seems to be that Oxford and Cambridge were originally theological seminaries, and church services were then conducted in Latin. The original graduates, who became the English clergy, had to know Latin for their livelihoods. By the time that the Catholic Church left England, Latin was so much associated with high social status that it took hundreds of years for its importance to diminish within the English universities. Charles Darwin, who was certainly no linguist, had to be tutored in Latin in order to be admitted to Cambridge. On the other hand, Emily Dickinson was supremely talented in language and did well in Latin.

Following Amherst Academy, Emily spent a year at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, as also described by Renée Bergland. While she did enjoy some of her classes, the environment was unpleasant in several respects. Emily preferred Amherst, which was only ten miles away, but was often unable to go home due to the strict rules. Furthermore, with all of the girls and faculty squeezed into tight quarters, people were often sick. The worst thing, I think, was that the women running it were intense evangelicals, and they harassed the "impenitents" mercilessly. As an independent thinker, Emily can't have found that pleasant. Although she regretted having to leave school early that year due to an illness, in many respects it must not have suited her at all.

My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson I

I've started on this long 2002 biography by Alfred Habegger. Normally I might have saved it for winter, but I don't have any other suitable books at the moment. Natural Magic, which I read in March and April, doesn't focus much on the details of Dickinson's life. As far as I've read, this book is extremely thorough regarding Dickinson's family background and the social atmosphere in Amherst at the time. I am hoping that I will gain some insight into Dickinson's thinking process and, ideally, a better understanding of some of her poems. Even if it turns out that aspects of Dickinson's poems will remain inscrutable, biographies can be an art in themselves if they fully explain the social dynamics in a place and time. I was a little disappointed by the biography that I read of Thoreau, who was thirteen years older than Dickinson and also lived in Massachusetts, because the discussion of his family background and the precise context of his intellectual development seemed somewhat limited. While this book seems better-written, some of that may have to do with the fact that Dickinson's family was firmly in the middle class and Thoreau's was not; if Thoreau hadn't happened to live near Ralph Waldo Emerson, he may never have become a prominent writer, whereas Dickinson's poems probably emanated organically from her background in conjunction with her personality. Furthermore, since Dickinson's family was more involved with civic affairs than Thoreau's, more information is available for her than Thoreau. And the Dickinsons produced vast correspondences.

On the Dickinson side of the family, Emily's grandfather was Samuel Fowler Dickinson (1775-1838). He was a Dartmouth graduate and a lawyer who was instrumental in the founding of Amherst College. However, as noted in Natural Magic, his civic zeal led to his financial ruin, and he moved to Ohio permanently, apparently with some bitterness regarding events in Amherst. Emily's mother was a Norcross, from Monson, Massachusetts. Her father, Joel Norcross (1777-1829), was a civically active businessman and seems to have been better-off than Samuel Fowler Dickinson. Habegger, I think, does a good job describing how life in these families was quite different than it is in most families today. The Norcrosses had nine children, seven of whom survived to adulthood. The Dickinsons had nine children, all of whom survived to adulthood. In those days, I think that the stresses were quite high in non-farming families where it was presumed that the sons would attend college. Emily's father, Edward, had to transfer to Amherst from Yale once, apparently because his father couldn't afford the Yale tuition. And housekeeping must have been a nightmare, with no electricity, no modern appliances, no public water and no public sewage systems. Furthermore, even for wealthy families, there was a shortage of qualified domestic servants. It sounds as if Emily's mother, also named Emily, was rather anxious, and it is easy to see why, even though in her case she had only three children.

I'm up to the year 1836, when Emily was just five. Her older brother was Austin and her younger sister was Lavinia. Her mother's sister, also named Lavinia, took a liking to Emily. Not much has happened yet in Emily's life, and her father, Edward, is still under some financial duress due to his father's bankruptcy. He has moved once, between marriage and Emily's birth, and will move again twice during Emily's life. It is already apparent that Austin might become a lawyer, but the fates of Emily and Lavinia seem unclear. It is possible that the stress evident in their mother discouraged them from wanting children, and they don't seem to be under any pressure to follow that path.

Video of the Day

 A walk with Sabine Hossenfelder.

Diary

I've sort of been waiting for the Trump administration to implode, but, although it does seem to be occurring, it's still a slow process. Obviously, the Republicans are already panicking about losing the House in the midterm elections next year, and in true Republican form they are launching a massive gerrymandering campaign. Since they have specifically tied their destiny to Donald Trump, I don't think that they are going to get the results that they wanted. One thing that has caught my eye is that Trump is currently losing the support of male voters. I think that, from this position, the only way that he can increase his popularity is by reviving the economy and reducing inflation. However, economic growth has been jostled about by his tariff "plan," which is still in an unstable state, and, even if it is finalized soon, the economy may take several years to stabilize. If there were a resurgence in manufacturing jobs, which I think is unlikely, it would probably be after 2028. And, since the initial effect of tariffs is usually higher inflation, there may be higher inflation for some time. Because Trump is an idiot, he seems to think that if the Federal Reserve lowers interest rates, he will get both an economic surge and lower inflation. In fact, there may not be an economic surge, and this might lock in higher inflation. As I said earlier, inflation is usually reduced by raising interest rates, not by lowering them. 

On a broader scale, I have been thinking about recent American political developments in terms of "liberal" and "conservative," and how this relates to my readings on evolution, particularly the evolution of cooperative behavior in humans. In many respects, the MAGA movement is a continuation of the Tea Party movement, in which selfish behavior overshadows selfless behavior in politics. The rough pattern of this change is that conservatives gradually decided that it wasn't worth it to them to help minorities, immigrants or women, and that liberals dug further into the idea of social equality as a democratic principle. From an evolutionary standpoint, either view might be correct. While cooperation is probably the main reason why we exist today as a species, as I've said, that was primarily an evolutionary fluke, and all of the other primate species are less cooperative than we are: if they could vote, they would probably be Republicans. This may be why progressive politicians currently seem to be fumbling around to come up with an effective message. My overview of this situation is still that the human population is too high, we have seriously damaged the environment, and that we should cooperate at least in addressing these two issues and reducing warfare. As I have also noted, H. sapiens is not an intrinsically rational animal, and I would welcome some help from AGI.

My personal life is currently a lot less dramatic. My tomatoes are doing even better this year than last year, and this is the first time since I moved to Vermont that I've had large, ripe tomatoes in the first week of August. I'm hoping that, since this is a longer ripening season, I may be able to eat all of them this year and not have to give any away. As far as my investments go, I haven't held any stocks since July 22. So far, this has had little effect on the value of my holdings, and I would rather be safe than sorry, with huge market drops possible in the next few weeks. My new telescope mount finally seems to be working properly. At times I was getting fed up with it but was unenthusiastic about repacking it into four boxes and returning all 116 pounds to California. The main problem turned out to be that, in the course of making screen and software modifications, they never changed their setup instructions, so that the instructions didn't match the equipment. I eventually figured this out on my own and experimented a little to figure out what the correct steps were for star alignment. Losmandy is a little different from most astronomy equipment-making companies, which tend to be engineering-oriented. I don't think that Scott Losmandy went to college, and he attended Hollywood High School. He started the company because he was a machinist and stargazing hobbyist. The company is located in the same town from which The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson was broadcast. Johnny also became interested in astronomy and used to have the astronomer, Carl Sagan, as a guest. Even so, although there was this glitch, the people at Losmandy were friendly, and I sort of enjoyed seeing how they operate. They make more videos and podcasts than other suppliers, probably because of their Hollywood orientation. I usually appreciate quirky companies like this that don't follow standard corporate models.

Brain Death by Technological Innovation

Today I came across this short article on reading versus listening on 3 Quarks Daily, which I usually peruse once a week on Sundays, and thought I'd comment on it. As I've said, I don't think that I was a natural reader when I was growing up, and, because no one encouraged me to read, I don't think that I became particularly proficient at it until I was in my thirties. I probably wasn't that great of a listener either, but I was always able to pay attention. My appreciation of reading developed very gradually, when I found out that you could learn new and interesting things that you might never know otherwise. The end result, I think, is this blog, which probably covers more topics in a small space than most blogs.

What made me think of this topic is that I know a highly intelligent person who was able to read by about the age of four and graduated from Cambridge. I had long noticed that she liked to multitask and, before I even met her, she became accustomed to listening to recorded books and rarely actually read physical books. In the more than twenty years that I knew her, I don't recall her ever reading a demanding book. She usually listened to light fiction. Although this is only one example, it came to represent for me how new technology may actually induce cognitive decline. According to the Dworak study, there was a cognitive decline in the U.S. from 2006 to 2018 in all areas except spatial reasoning. On a broad scale, since about 2004, I have noticed a general decline in American intellectual life, a general increase in the number of social influencers, a general decline in news quality, and, especially now, an increase in the number of completely incompetent political operatives. Arguably, a major source of these changes has been social media, which has also created some of the wealth imbalances that we are currently experiencing.

As a personal matter, as I've written, I have found that by weaning myself from a daily consumption of internet material and switching to serious nonfiction and fiction in printed form, my psychological state has improved considerable since 2015. I've taken down that noose. An unfortunate side effect of this improvement is that many people are unable to relate to me, because they are still in that internet trance. For example, thousands of people from all over the world (currently about 20,000 per month) click onto this blog and never express their opinion.

Of course, I see this as a subtopic of the broader subject of the corrosive effects of capitalism. Essentially, the U.S. is up for sale. Maybe, in a few years, we'll luck out, and Xi Jinping will buy the U.S. and fire Donald Trump!

Diary

I'm entering my traditional summer doldrums period, during which I tend to lose interest in everything. My new telescope mount is taking a long time to become functional, I think because the electronics are not particularly well-designed for users. The company that made it is quite small, and the founder is a machinist, not an electrician or a software engineer. However, I don't think that there is a major design flaw, and I am gradually making it more functional. I don't exactly have a major stargazing project planned, so I'm not in any hurry. For me, stargazing has therapeutic benefits, and I have nothing in common with many stargazers, who, above all, value fancy-looking equipment. A large setup with a guide, a camera and lots of wiring looks impressive, but I would find astrophotography boring. I'd rather look at photographs taken by Vivian Maier, which I occasionally do.

The greater annoyance for me is having to watch the slow-motion collapse of the Trump administration. What is particularly annoying is that, during much of my life, the primary political leaders, particularly in the U.S. and U.K., have been, in my estimation, incompetent, if you hold them up to any standard. Generally, they are unversed in science, geopolitics and economics and are in the pockets of greedy capitalists. Most of them seem to be completely out of their depth intellectually. Many people liked Ronald Reagan, because he seemed like a nice guy, but I don't think that he had any significant achievements; his "trickle-down economics" was a complete fantasy, and it has since been disproven as a valid economic concept. The fact that the Soviet Union collapsed while he was president was purely coincidental, and, during his second term, he was barely aware of some of the undercover activities undertaken by his administration. I think that George W. Bush lied to initiate the Iraq War, which in hindsight served no purpose. The Vietnam War was a multi-presidential war, involving Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford, and is now generally thought to have been unnecessary.

Regarding Trump, the one good idea that he has is that wars are bad. In his case, he may only dislike them because they are expensive. Given his background, if, rather than coming from a long line of opportunistic grifters, he had come from a long line of military suppliers, he would probably think that wars are great. What is remarkable to me is that Trump's limitations have been known for some time, yet he still receives little public criticism. It isn't at all difficult to see that his plan, to the extent that it is coherent, will never succeed. While the idea of restructuring the world's economic ecosystem isn't necessarily bad in itself, you must first consider how complex such an operation would be. It is mindbogglingly complex and would ideally follow years of analysis, discussion and negotiation with the countries concerned. Even if Trump manages to push through his plan, many aspects of it haven't been examined closely enough to be considered plausible. The one that strikes me the most is that this is supposed to bring back manufacturing jobs to the U.S. You don't need any particular expertise to see that, with the long-term evolution of world economies and the increasing use of new technologies, it is simply not possible to recreate a 1960's-style manufacturing environment in the U.S. Trump is so ignorant that he probably doesn't understand one of the foundations of modern economics: comparative advantage. This is a model that still seems to work, and it was first put forth by Adam Smith in 1776. One of the benefits of market forces is that they often reach balances on their own if the markets are not heavily regulated. Though, obviously, some regulations are appropriate, free trade did help many countries, including the U.S., and was easy to implement, because it didn't involve an extensive analysis, which, frankly, would exceed human cognition. Doing the opposite does in fact exceed human cognition, and it is extremely likely that Trump's tariff policies, if he implements them, will be followed by years of unintended consequences and may take decades to correct. With AI and robotics, unemployment is about to take off, and nothing that Trump is doing addresses that. Of course, there are more people than Trump involved in this process, and to see just how badly the U.S. economy is being managed, consider that Russell Vought, who is associated with the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025, is a Christian nationalist and a lawyer with little economic experience, and he currently influences Trump's policy decisions.

The picture emerging for Trump is that his initiatives will damage the Federal government, reduce economic growth, increase inflation, alienate allies, and, ultimately, that his supporters will feel betrayed.

To end on a more upbeat note, one new activity that I've undertaken has been finding streams near the house, because my grandson likes them. There is one next to a nearby road that I took him to on his last visit. Last weekend, I walked in the woods behind the house and found a stream that wasn't near any roads. It's only a ten-minute walk each way, on a good trail, and I may go there occasionally.

Silvio in El Rosedal

If you have been reading this blog much, you will have noticed that my interest in fiction has generally diminished over the last few years; my inner scientist has been emerging lately. Nevertheless, I am still a closet art appreciator, and when I get tired of rationality, I tend to return to paintings and literature, and, to a lesser extent, music. My opinion of the American arts, as I've said, is generally low, though there are exceptions. I don't think that the fiction here compares favorably to the fiction of Europe; ditto for paintings. If you have been following the news here for the last ten years, you will have seen that the U.S. is a surprisingly crude place. Note that, while I like Carson McCullers, and I liked The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, my current interest in her is mainly biographical. My recent strategy has been to completely avoid fiction, with the exception of László Krasznahorkai, and to occasionally dabble in earlier French and English writers. I'm tired of Michel Houellebecq at this point but haven't completely given up on Krasznahorkai, because I enjoy his intensity occasionally. The one big exception to all this is poetry, because I have gradually realized that I like American poetry, or at least a very small portion of it. It takes an enormous amount of effort from me to find a poem that I like, but there still seem to be a few of them out there that I haven't read. This may be because I dislike the formality and pretentiousness of earlier poetic forms. When I was in college, I instinctively disliked English majors.

So, for a change of pace, I decided to read Silvio in El Rosedal, by Julio Ramón Ribeyro, partly because it was not a large investment of my time. I first heard of Ribeyro from John P. in the early days of this blog. Following that, I read a novel by Ribeyro and some of his short stories. However, what I liked best was the unpublished translations of Ribeyro's diary that John had made. While I generally dislike the short story format, I think that this one is pretty good.

This story is about a man who grew up in Lima, Peru, and ended up owning a large farm in the country. As a child, his mother had encouraged him to learn the violin, but she died young, and his career was at his father's hardware store. When it came time for his father to retire, he wanted to return to Italy, where he had been born, and show off his wealth. But, because World War II was then underway, he had to shelve that idea, and he decided to buy the farm, called El Rosedal, which also accorded with his doctor's recommendation, because of his lung disease. Unfortunately, his father died almost immediately after moving there by choking on a peach pit. Silvio was his only heir and moved in. He was unmarried and in his forties at the time.

On the whole, Silvio is rather lackadaisical about running the farm and primarily leaves it up to the employees. He attempts to socialize with his landowning neighbors by throwing a large party, in which he plays the violin, accompanied by his local violin teacher. Most of his neighbors don't show up, and the ones who do have no interest whatsoever in classical music. So, Silvio leads a rather aimless life, largely in isolation, and his mind wanders into obscure questions. He notices that the rose garden is arranged in a pattern that looks like Morse code, and he translates it as "RES." This obsesses him for some time, and he can never figure out what it might mean.

Then, out of the blue, he receives a letter from his Italian cousin, Rosa Eleonora Settembrini. Rosa's father has died and her husband has left her. She has a fifteen-year-old daughter, Roxana. Rosa asks whether she and Roxana may move in with Silvio. At first, Silvio thinks not, but then he realizes that his cousin's initials are RES, and this changes his mind. If there were a meaning to those letters, it might be that Rosa would move there.

Rosa does move into El Rosedal with Roxana. She turns out to be extremely industrious and takes over the management of the farm, which becomes highly profitable. The neighbors take a renewed interest in the farm, and a large party is held there after a few years. By then, Roxana is of a marriageable age. Silvio is present at the party, but the story ends with him furiously playing his violin without being audible to the others. 

I find this to be a highly nuanced piece of writing, and think that Ribeyro can be quite eloquent. It lacks the density of a novel, but expresses some themes with which I can identify. In a sense, it is about people who have European histories and artistic interests who have ended up in an unsophisticated location in the Americas and feel out of place. This, I think, may apply to Ribeyro, who ended up moving from Peru to Paris. It may also apply to John P., who grew up in the U.S. and moved to France, then Switzerland. In my case, I was born in England, my mother grew up in Greece, and I grew up in the U.S. As I've said, I don't feel completely at home here. I am living alone in the woods, hardly know my neighbors, and in some ways still feel European. So, to a certain degree, I may be similar to Silvio. Of course, not everyone will have these feelings, but writings that describe them can be quite rare.

Diary

I had expected to write about Empire of AI by now, but have decided not to say much. The reason is that it is extremely detailed in a journalistic sense, but lacks the kind of perspicacity that I appreciate. Karen Hao has been covering the AI industry for years and has met many of the players, but, by the time you get to the hundredth person or the two-hundredth meeting, it becomes a blur. I just prefer analysis to journalism as it is practiced now. Overall, the impression I have is that we are living in a feudal system with warlords and vassals. The field is dominated by highly competitive males and somewhat clueless tech nerds. It's clearly about money and domination, and thoughts about the future of mankind seem to be relegated to academics, who are generally marginalized. This seems to be a continuation of the pattern in which people like Mark Zuckerberg attempt to win at all costs, and, in the process, the quality of life for millions of people declines as a result of new products such as social media. I think that social media has had a net negative effect on society. Besides reducing the quality of personal interactions, it has opened the floodgates to unscrupulous "influencers" who, in different times, would rightly be ignored. In any case, from reading this book, I'm not sure how the AI story is going to end, but the trajectory doesn't look good at the moment. There is a significant likelihood that this will be one of the most transformative periods in history, comparable to the development of agriculture or the Industrial Revolution. But it could also turn out quite negatively if power isn't distributed appropriately. Judging from current geopolitics, it could be disastrous. However, the EU has been uniting recently and, if the MAGA movement in the U.S. collapses, as seems increasingly possible, the Western world, at least, may begin to behave rationally again.

I think that the hot weather here is abating for the year, and I'll be spending more time outdoors. I just returned from the Cadwell Trail, and it is once again suitable for dainty women such as Emily Dickinson. It appears to me that most women, not including tomboys, dislike the outdoors but won't admit it. Spending a lot of time outdoors, especially under adverse conditions, is similar to roughhousing – not a female favorite. My new telescope mount seems to be working properly, but I need a few clear nights to work on the alignment. By pinpointing known objects, the computer improves its finding and tracking accuracy. Although I like the Losmandy company, I would prefer a detailed manual to a bunch of videos and podcasts. This is another result of the social media craze that I find to be time-wasting. When I am working on technical problems, I don't see the point of turning them into social experiences. Social media has created the myth that all interactions must have a social element – even when that serves no purpose. One of the effects of this phenomenon, I think, has been a decrease in literacy. Many videos or podcasts could be summed up in a few sentences. Also, it is usually easier to look up information in a book rather than scour videos and podcasts. However, on a positive note, I am finding Google searches with AI highly productive. If you word your query carefully, you can save an enormous amount of time and get better answers. Unless Wikipedia changes its operating model, it will probably become obsolete. I wouldn't miss it.

So, I don't currently have anything lined up to read and will begin looking again. I'm also running out of films to watch. I've started on "Splendor in the Grass," with Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood. Warren Beatty is not a great actor, and he used to be a "hunk." Barbara Streisand said recently that she slept with him once, but that she couldn't remember whether they had sex. Many women slept with him. I much prefer Natalie Wood, who was a good actress. But the film is sort of formulaic and dated (1961).

Diary

This summer is turning out to be a little muggier than usual, but the actual temperatures here haven't been that high. The main effect for me is that I'm getting a little less exercise than usual. The trails are no longer muddy. The garden is doing well, and the tomatoes are ahead of schedule: I've already eaten a couple of cherry tomatoes. I've put up a removable fence around them, which is a little inconvenient, though it is quite adequate for deer protection. I see deer during the day here and elsewhere, and the population seems to be high at the moment. The deer have been passing through the yard without much munching so far, and the hostas are starting to flower, unassaulted. I also see a fox occasionally, which I like, because I think that they help control the mouse population. I haven't seen a bobcat so far this year; that may be because they don't like being seen and have noticed me. I do have some bats, and one sleeps in a large crack at the back of the house. I installed a bat house high up on the wall, but it has been unused so far. There isn't currently as much insect or hummingbird activity as there was earlier. Though there are still some flowers, there aren't many now compared to May.

My telescope arrangement is turning out to be a drawn-out saga. Everything is set up now, but there has been a malfunction in the electronics, and they're mailing me a new module from Burbank. Unless there is another surprise, that should be the final delay. I really enjoy the personal touch from Losmandy. They have extremely good customer service and are highly accessible. When I had problems with my Chinese iOptron mount, there was no help. Brian Valente at Losmandy, in contrast, made lots of videos for users. Here is a good example of one, with Scott Losmandy,  pretending to assemble a mount like mine in the background (it's a short repeating loop). The mount itself is quite solid and more heavy-duty than my previous one.

As I've said, the whole Trump phenomenon is really boring, and it's like being forced to watch a third-rate sitcom. However, it seems to me that Trump has already reached the point of no return, and his decline has actually started. I think that most intelligent people knew before the election that Trump is generally incompetent as a leader, political or otherwise. But that wasn't a disincentive for some of them, who saw this as an opportunity to advance their careers. As time passes, it becomes increasingly apparent that Trump has no understanding of economics, history, science or the U.S. Constitution, and that he considers himself above the law. When you add the fact that he has no empathy whatsoever, even though he has hired coaches to help him seem empathic occasionally, he is an altogether unappealing person, particularly for a politician. It is very gradually dawning on some people that he has nothing to offer that would benefit people outside his circle. Anyone who follows business or economic news has to notice that his haphazard decision-making process could cost the world trillions of dollars for no reason other than making Trump think that he is important. The man is really stupid. I think that Elon Musk should have handed out free "I'm With Stupid" T-shirts to Trump's appointees and all of the Republicans in Congress and on the Supreme Court instead of joining DOGE. With the retirement of Thom Tillis from the Senate, we may be seeing the beginnings of Trump's abandonment by the Republican Party.

My social life doesn't amount to much, but this is somewhat offset by never having to associate with shallow social climbers. I still get a certain amount of enjoyment from striking up conversations with strangers. I think that the quality of most people's private lives has been getting worse for several years, and many of them can be drawn out a little if you provide them with an opportunity. I also have some family activities to occupy my time. Unexpectedly, my grandson is turning out to be a prodigy on my favorite instrument, the piano.

I haven't been reading much but may report on my current book on my next post.

If a Lion Could Talk II

I first posted on this topic, regarding Ludwig Wittgenstein's view of language, over ten years ago. My ideas have evolved quite a bit since then, and I decided that I should update what I had to say on the original post. In that post, I outlined how a lion might at least understand some human symbolic language if it were given the right exposure. This was based on the fact that some dogs do understand at least one symbolic action: the meaning of pointing. Similarly, domestic cats also understand some symbolic communications made by humans. Therefore, if cats and dogs could speak, we would definitely be able to understand them to some extent. I didn't mention it at the time, but dolphins, whales, elephants and other mammals have their own languages which, with further study, we might be able to understand. As far as I know, Wittgenstein never owned a pet.

Wittgenstein would be technically correct in the sense that all species have their individual evolutionary paths, so their priorities might be completely different from ours and unintelligible to us. However, the languages of organisms are probably all survival-related, hence it would not necessarily be difficult to decipher them. Many animals make sounds indicating the presence of dangers in their immediate environment that would be easy for us to understand through observation. Similarly, it wouldn't be hard to figure out calls for help. The fact that we have complex symbolic language is the result of our development of bipedal gait, our close cooperation with each other over thousands of years, and the changes that occurred in our brain function that became encoded in our genes and permitted us to survive as a species. I would say that Wittgenstein didn't realize that language starts as a kind of noise-making that has survival benefits, and, if you look at various noise-making species, I don't think that it is necessarily difficult to interpret a noise-making behavior if you examine it in the context in which it is made.

I also mentioned Noam Chomsky, who has said that we don't understand how language works in the human brain. In the context of AI, he thought that we could never teach AI how to think, because we don't know how we think. This was before the development of large language models, which are currently at the forefront of AI. I don't study the research in these fields, but it appears to me that, although words, grammar and usage did develop in human brains, it isn't necessary to have a human brain or human learning techniques to learn languages. In fact, it is probably likely that all of our ideas could be expressed without human brains or human language. I think that the messiness of neural development, as described by Robert Sapolsky, indicates that languages that perform better than ours could probably be developed. That is because our languages developed through the rather haphazard process of natural selection. In natural selection, what counts is not necessarily the development of the best possible system, and it all boils down to whether each successive generation survives or dies. This is why I expect AGI to be developed before long, and I see no reason why it would have to function much like the human brain. 

Wittgenstein, I now think, received far more credit than he deserved as a philosopher. Because of his personality and his initial acceptance by English academics, he never had to argue or publish his positions after he received his job at Cambridge. It sounds to me as if most of his career involved lectures with no discussion, at which his devotees simply took notes. That was certainly a dream job!

The Federal Reserve

This is a sort of unusual topic for me, but I decided to write a little about it because Donald Trump has been attacking Jerome Powell, who is the current chairman of the Federal Reserve. As an investor, I have been following the Federal Reserve for many years. In case you don't know, the Federal Reserve was set up partially to depoliticize policy decisions regarding the financial system in the U.S. and to protect it from abuse by political operatives. I think it important to understand this, especially now, when news coverage is clearly inadequate. I'm getting very tired of PBS NewsHour.

After I graduated from college in 1972, inflation gradually rose to high levels. At that time, I also think that the U.S. economy began to restructure due to foreign manufacturing competition, particularly from Japan. The Vietnam War, which was unjustified, was also costly, and a strong inflationary trend developed. Political parties tend to kick the can down the road, such that they can blame their errors on future administrations. During this process, the Johnson, Nixon and Ford administrations oversaw inflationary pressures that lasted for several years. By the time that Jimmy Carter became president in 1977, inflation was taking off. Carter appointed Paul Volcker chairman of the Federal Reserve in 1979, and he served until 1987. During Volcker's tenure, the Federal Reserve took draconian actions in which they intentionally raised interest rates in order to reduce inflation. My first house was purchased with a 13% mortgage rate in 1980. Volcker is now considered to have been one of the best chairmen. Later on, Alan Greenspan got mixed reviews as chairman, because he mishandled the dot-com bubble in 2000 and laid the groundwork for the Great Recession, from 2007 to 2009, by deemphasizing financial regulation before he left in 2006.

In my opinion, Jerome Powell is doing a good job as chairman, as was Janet Yellen, his predecessor, and he has generally been reducing inflation and improving employment since the pandemic, his two main mandates. The situation with Trump now is so transparent that, to a knowledgeable audience, he is simply confirming to them that he is ignorant and self-centered. Trump and his advisors want to forestall an economic slowdown, with unemployment, by introducing economic stimulus through interest rate reductions, which would cause inflation. Trump's tariff program is inflationary. So far, because the Federal Reserve is specifically designed to prevent rash policy actions promoted by politicians, and because Trump can't replace him until next year, when his term ends, we still have some protections. Trump wanted to remove Powell ahead of time, but he seems to have received enough pushback to stop for now. Even so, he continues to belittle Powell publicly, not caring that Powell is obviously more competent than he is.

I still can't predict the exact timing of the collapse of the Trump administration, but it seems to me that he has created a situation from which he will never recover. At the moment, it looks as if he will not succeed in creating any benefits for low- and middle-income voters, the Republicans will lose seats in congress, and he will generally lose his influence.

While I am still quite disappointed with how the news media has been handling the Trump phenomenon, there are now some pretty good voices out there. I particularly admire Jennifer Rubin, who currently communicates through The Contrarian. Ironically, Rubin was previously known as a conservative. What counts for me is that she has a brain that actually works and isn't a congenital money-grubber. From speaking to a couple of random Vermonters recently, I was also heartened to see that there is a simmering Trump hatred here, and probably everywhere – a positive sign indeed.

Diary

Though I'm sure that many are becoming unsettled by the recent news, at heart I still find it a little boring. To me this seems like a sequel to "When Donald Met Roy" or "Donald and Adolf: The Bromance Across Time." I've been trying to think of what the next blockbuster title might be. It could be a sequel in the "Superman" series. In this film, global warming accelerates suddenly because of the energy demands created by cryptocurrency and AI. As the world heats up, it becomes uninhabitable for humans, and Elon Musk plans to escape to Mars with his children. Elon develops a site on Mars over a period of several years and then permanently departs Earth via SpaceX. However, soon after the Musks arrive on Mars, they find that there are many others already living there in a large colony nearby that was unknown on Earth. That colony, it turns out, is inhabited by Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Sam Altman, Peter Thiel and J.D. Vance. They all live in luxurious mansions, except for J.D. Vance, who lives in the servants' quarters on the Thiel estate. Because Elon has had falling-outs with most of them, he decides to change his identity. He changes his physical appearance and voice and names himself Clark Kent. The Kents, he tells them, are relatives of Warren Buffett, and had lived on a large farm in Kansas. Over time, they all get along fairly well, but they still feel a little claustrophobic. Using AGI and robots, Elon begins his galactic seeding plan by setting up new colonies on Europa, orbiting Jupiter, and Enceladus, orbiting Saturn. Eventually, the Musks move beyond the solar system.

I am starting to think of AI as the largest potential danger emerging for mankind. This is because I've started to read Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI, by Karen Hao. It is the first serious book that I've seen about the current people and culture in Silicon Valley. So far, they generally seem like wealth-maximization robots, and Sam Altman is not an improvement. It is also concerning to me that governments are not doing anything in preparation for the unemployment wave that has already started. It looks to me as if Trump is unknowingly serving as a tool for Silicon Valley. His ideas regarding trade deficits and manufacturing jobs are just plain ludicrous when you look at employment trends at the largest companies in the world. There are going to be fewer jobs, period. Nevertheless, there are some good AI people out there, and Geoffrey Hinton is recommending that people who aren't millionaires study subjects such as plumbing. I think he's right.

As for myself, I am starting to imagine that I inhabit a small, wooded country which, for security reasons, hasn't announced itself publicly. The residents are all relatively well-adjusted. The eastern phoebe eggs in the nest above the front porch have hatched, and the chicks will probably leave within a few days. They prefer Earth to Mars, so I may see them again next year. There have been no mice in the house this year, but they still live nearby. The only annoyances are that they like to store nuts under the hood of my car and take nesting materials. They like paper towels, rope, cotton and soft foam, but so far haven't done much damage. The tomatoes are doing very well this year, and, since they are protected, there have been no deer attacks. I think that I may have too many tomatoes again, though there are only three plants. Two are Fantastic F1, which I grow every year. I used to grow Sungold F1 cherry tomatoes every year because someone I knew liked them. I didn't, and this year I'm trying Artemis F1, which I think will taste much better. There was a delay in setting up my telescope, because the new mount didn't come with a power supply. That has arrived, and I should be viewing again within a few days.

The spring weather here has not been optimal. It has mostly been cold and wet. Then there was a three-day heat wave – but I still haven't used an air conditioner. The hiking trails are extremely overgrown at the moment, and there are lots of insects. The deer flies are out, and I'm leery of them because I think that I caught Lyme disease from them in 2019. It is also theoretically possible to get it from mosquitoes. I don't think that I had any ticks in 2019.