[ExI] Pope Leo and AI

[John Clark]

On Sat, Jun 20, 2026 at 6:03 PM William Arnett <waarnett at mac.com> wrote:

*>I’m still of the opinion that the Turing Test is a pretty good measure of
> “intelligence”.*


*Me too. After all, intelligent behavior is the only way we have of telling
the difference between a smart person and a stupid person.  *

*> explaining why people still read Dostoyevsky*


*Hmm, at one time many Russians read Dostoyevsky for pleasure but these
days most read Dostoyevsky because they need to pass a course on him or
they need to teach one. I am reminded that back in 2008 on this list I said
something like that to the late great Damien Broderick, only I was talking
about James Joyce not Dostoyevsky, and unlike Dostoyevsky or even Homer,
Joyce was never popular anywhere at any time. To my surprise Damien turned
out to be a fan of Joyce and sprange to his defense.  The following with my
rebuttal:*


*"It's interesting that you need to give a long and detailed answer to a
very simple question, if somebody inserted a page of computer
generated gibberish into Finnegans Wake would anybody notice? If somebody
asked me if anybody would notice if a page of gibberish was slipped into
one of your books I wouldn't need paragraphs to reply, I'd just say "Yes,
of course they would.*

*I just got back from a bookstore and saw Finnegan's Wake on the shelf and
in light of our recent conversation I picked it up, I hadn't seen it in
years and I wondered if I was a little too hard on it. HOLY COW, it's worse
than I remembered! I started thumbing through it seeing if I could decode
one coherent thought, no luck, all I got was a headache. *


*I did read the introduction by some Joyce scholar because at least that
part was written in English. I can't quote verbatim because needless to say
I didn't buy the book, but he said don't worry if you go through many pages
having no idea what Joyce is talking about because it happens to the best
of us. Then he tried to make the case that Finnegan's Wake is more
accessible than Tolstoy because if you don't understand or misinterpret
some part of War and Peace it will seriously compromise your understanding
and enjoyment of the rest of the book, but with Finnegan's Wake if you
don't understand something it doesn't matter because it will have nothing
to do with the rest of the book anyway. He certainly didn't use these words
but he seemed to be saying those parts of Finnegan's Wake that are not
gibberish are saying nothing of importance. So why read the damn thing?*
*It is not my usual habit to lambaste a book I have never read and will
never read, but I will make an exception in this case. I'd rather have my
teeth drilled than read Finnegan's Wake."*

*Damien then criticized me for using an apostrophe because the title that
Joyce gave to his book was "Finnegans Wake" not "**Finnegan's Wake".  This
was my reply:*

*"**But there should have been an apostrophe! How can you tell if Joyce is
artistically expressing his contempt for the oppressive rules of English
grammar, or if he just fucked up?  I seem to remember times when you
chastised me for my less than perfect spelling; how did you know my
alternative spelling was not deliberate and part of a brilliant artistic
edifice making a bold and heroic statement about the nature of man?*



*Ok I will admit that maybe you're right, maybe Joyce has tapped into a
source of knowledge that is just inaccessible to a being with a mind like
mine; I doubt it but I must admit it's possible. By the way I loved Anthony
Burgess's novel "A Clockwork Orange", the movie too, but that's about as
avant-garde as my literary tastes go. John K Philistine"*

*I miss Damien, he was fun. *
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