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Several times now I've been exposed to "poems" generated by LLMs, whether sent to me by friends or posted by bloggers. Leaving aside their questionable quality, I would never use LLMs in this way. To me, the joy of creation lies not in the artifact but in the artistry. Would you prompt an LLM-equipped robot to attend a concert or sporting event on your behalf, take a walk with your child, or meet your best friend for lunch? I shudder to think that people might do such things before long. Similarly, writing poems, composing music, making pottery, and the like are not instances of drudgery but creative acts emblematic of the life of a free person.
For tasks in which efficiency, productivity, impressing your boss, and getting the right answer are paramount, I sort of understand the appeal of LLMs. Thankfully, now that I'm out of the workforce I no longer need to do such things. Instead, I have the freedom to think and play and create in the realms of music, poetry, and philosophy to my heart's content at my own pace. Because I find these activities perfectly delightful on their own, I'd find it intrusive and degrading to interact with an LLM while engaging in them.
It's becoming increasingly evident that our human world is being invaded by "artificial intelligence" (I always use scare quotes because the term begs many questions). People who are dear to me use LLMs every day to complete the banausic tasks their work requires, and I don't judge them for it. But each of us must be intentional and deliberate about whether and where we will use this new technology. For me, I draw the line at autotelic activities that are and of right ought to be ends in themselves.
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)
(This post introduces my new Substack newsletter, Beautiful Wisdom.)
Well, here we are in the middle of things. I mean that in several senses:
As to the title of this venue - Beautiful Wisdom - it represents my commitment to appreciating the enduring and evanescent beauty of the world we live in, bringing something beautiful into existence by composing poetry and music, and treating people as beautifully as I can in my all-too-brief span on this earth.
Onward and upward!
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)
To keep my sanity and experience more beauty in life, I endeavor to read a few poems every day. To facilitate this practice among other people, I've decided to start a Substack newsletter with a simple mission: publish one classic poem a day from the vast store of English-language verse in the public domain that I've already uploaded to the Monadnock Valley Press website. Check it out at the link below.
FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION
A while back I learned of a poet and historian named Peter Viereck (1916-2006), who not only won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1949 but also wrote insightful books of social and literary criticism in the American individualist tradition of Emerson, Thoreau, and Randolph Bourne. In his now-forgotten book The Unadjusted Man, published in 1956, Viereck celebrated the kind of person who dodges the pressures of conformity (what he called "overadjustment") to maintain a measure of intellectual independence. Here is a fine passage about one path to becoming an "unadjusted man":
To remain an individual in an overadjusted society, start out, first of all, by being an amateur at everything, never a professional. This is true whether you are a poet, scholar, or political leader, whether you are an artist of life, love, or billiards. According to Mark Twain, to play billiards moderately well is the sign of a gentleman; to play it too well is the sign of a mis-spent life. In an age of boorish, narrow specialists and of efficient experts who do everything "too well" in unimaginative, slavish stereotypes, in such an age only the amateur stays inwardly free. An amateurish life is a life of harmonious proportion because it alone finds time to cultivate the complete human being, public and private, cerebral and emotional. A free society requires not only free ideals, free institutions, but free personalities. The free personality is an "amateur" in both senses: (1) he who does things for love, not utility; (2) the non-technician, not yet deprived of creative imagination by expertise.
Although Viereck paints with too broad a brush - to take but one example, pianist Glenn Gould was both a consummate professional and a consummate individualist - his central point about being "inwardly free" is worthy of serious consideration. At root this is a matter not necessarily of professional status but of attitude. I'll grant that the attitude - similar, perhaps, to the "beginner's mind" that Buddhists try to manifest - might be easier to keep if one doesn't feel a need to achieve the status, yet it does seem like something that even non-amateurs could cultivate...
FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION
Several factors have conspired recently to slow down my pace of posting. Not only have I been working through a difficult and distracting family matter, but I've been questioning some of my existing commitments. Among other things, I've decided to conclude my philosophical coaching and startup advising activities. Although these were intriguing experiments and I enjoyed working with several people, I have my doubts about how truly helpful I was; more generally, I doubt that I am cut out for the helping professions. As a result, I'll be shutting down my philosopher.coach website and in the future posting only at stpeter.im (however, I won't rule out a move to Substack, at least for some of my mid-length writings).
Progress on my Aristotle book continues, but that has slackened, too. Because my powers of attention have been weak and scattered, all I've been doing of late is mindlessly typing passages from Aristotle's works into my searchable collection of book and article summaries. This will set me up for success six or twelve months from now when I expect to start writing in earnest, but it's not an inherently fulfilling task. C'est la vie.
On the plus side, to stay calm during this somewhat stressful time I've been engaging in my favorite form of meditation: playing guitar. I've been learning the Trois Gymnopédies of Erik Satie as arranged for classical guitar and, even better, I'm composing a short piece inspired by Satie (which I'm calling Gymnosophie #1 in honor of the "naked wise men", likely early Buddhists, that Pyrrho and Alexander the Great visited in northwestern India 2300+ years ago). This piece started out as a simple essay in the Dorian mode but is gradually morphing into an exploration of harmonic ambiguity à la Fauré and Satie, with travels to distant keys and an eventual return to the home key of D. I'm not yet sure if it will come together successfully, but I've been enjoying the unhurried musical journey.
(Cross-posted at philosopher.coach.)
Most of our metaphors for knowing and thinking are based on the power of sight; for instance, the ancient Greek word eidenai means "to have seen", i.e., the past perfect of idein (whence our word "idea"). Less commonly, knowing is held to come from hearing what is said - especially hearing the word of god as in the Hebrew tradition. Yet all indications are that music predates language. What depths of wisdom could we sound if we were to base our metaphors on actively and collaboratively making music? Consider some of the primeval phenomena of music: the living pulse of rhythm and its resulting entrainment of the music makers; the importance of harmony, both internal and interpersonal; the striving, movement, and completion of melodies and chord progressions. Beyond these fundamentals there is much more to explore: timbre and coloration in different instruments and keys, consonance and dissonance, the stretching of time in rubato and syncopation, tempo and its relation to human activities and emotions, improvisation and spontaneity, active listening and responding as crucial to cooperative music-making, making music as a form of meditation, and much else besides. I intend to ponder these matters as I delve more deeply into music in the years ahead.
(Cross-posted at philosopher.coach.)
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