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Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

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Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

#111

Post by cmrdporcupine »

gwern wrote: post #92
SamBam wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I adore most of Chiang's work, but Understand is one of my least favorites. Fun premise, yes, but it reads to me like much less mature sci-fi, like something written by a teen about what being super-smart would feel like.

That's the problem with any superintelligence story; they are by definition hard to write without being superintelligent. As Vinge was famously told, "you can't write this story. No one can." If a chimpanzee could write a story about a human expert of any sort, the other chimpanzees wouldn't understand it: it would either be gibberish, or dumbed down to superficial analogies that give an illusion of understanding. ("…

"the other chimpanzees wouldn't understand it: it would either be gibberish, or dumbed down"

This is kind of how "Excession" by Iain M Banks is. Much of the dialogue in the book is supposed to be between the hyperintelligent AI "Minds" that are the ships in his Culture universe. It's supposed to be in a form similar to how they talk to each other. It's quite hard to read. I can never decide which of the two (gibberish or dumbed down) it is. Probably both.

Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

#112

Post by bgroat »

SamBam wrote: post #74
blader wrote: post #43

Ted Chiang wrote a short story inspired by Flowers for Algernon ("Understand") that explores what might happen if a guy just never stopped getting smarter: https://web.archive.org/web/20140527121332/http://www.infini... I love Flowers for Algernon, but Understand is my favorite short story of all time.

I adore most of Chiang's work, but Understand is one of my least favorites. Fun premise, yes, but it reads to me like much less mature sci-fi, like something written by a teen about what being super-smart would feel like.

That's wild because it's my exact opposite take.

I found it to be one of the most thoughtful explorations of super-intelligence and how it becomes qualitatively different than conventional intelligence.

I came away from it thinking, "This is Limitless if it were written by a grownup"

Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

#114

Post by taeric »

darkerside wrote: post #89
taeric wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that has been fairly heavily disproven. That language defines culture. I meant my anecdote to be that I grew up in America, and didn't see this behavior at large. Outside of movies. Completely agreed that it is an interesting topic.

Disproven is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Is there a study you are citing?

Fair. I meant my claim there more as a question. I only have vague memories of the Sapir Whorf hypothesis. Quickly scanning, I can't find anything definitive. Probably the criticism from Pinker, is what I remember?

Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

#115

Post by DrTung »

Long time ago I read a novel called Brain Wave by Paul Anderson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_Wave (it predates Flowers for Algernon by about 10 years).

It has a similar theme of suddenly acquired intelligence but for the whole planet. I you like Flowers for Algernon you'll like Brain Wave.

Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

#116

Post by rayiner »

taeric wrote: post #77
solardev wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Words (or in their case, characters & the concepts) partially define culture, though. If you don't have an easy word for something, whether it's a personality or a color, it's a foreign idea to you. Sure, someone can translate it for you and tell you what it means, but it's not the same as having it be a part of your culture. Someone can explain "tea time" to me, but as an American, it will always be a Britishism eve…

I think that has been fairly heavily disproven. That language defines culture. I meant my anecdote to be that I grew up in America, and didn't see this behavior at large. Outside of movies. Completely agreed that it is an interesting topic.

That’s a different point—you can’t conceptualize an orange if you don’t have a word for orange. OP is making the opposite point: you don’t have a word for orange if you don’t have oranges. The absence of a clear word (much less several) for a “nerd” stereotype might reflect a culture that doesn’t create that categorization.

Coming from south Asian culture, for example, we don’t really have a similar concept either.

Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

#117

Post by myself248 »

gwern wrote: post #92
SamBam wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I adore most of Chiang's work, but Understand is one of my least favorites. Fun premise, yes, but it reads to me like much less mature sci-fi, like something written by a teen about what being super-smart would feel like.

That's the problem with any superintelligence story; they are by definition hard to write without being superintelligent. As Vinge was famously told, "you can't write this story. No one can." If a chimpanzee could write a story about a human expert of any sort, the other chimpanzees wouldn't understand it: it would either be gibberish, or dumbed down to superficial analogies that give an illusion of understanding. ("…

> That's the problem with any superintelligence story; they are by definition hard to write without being superintelligent.

Ditto this, but for any domain specialization.

A lot of fiction gives me a bad case of something which I don't have a term for but it seems like it might be the inverse of the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect:

Basically, I was fine with the story until it got technical in a way that I know well, and the technical aspects of the story were so egregiously sloppy, I could no longer suspend my disbelief. And then even the nontechnical aspects just annoyed me because I figured, if the author was such an idiot they couldn't bother to look up how lasers work or whatever, they probably got everything else wrong too. Even the parts I'm not a specialist in, which I had previously just been taking on faith, I am now forced to assume that a specialist in those things would also find them laughably bad. And the whole work is ruined for me.

(To be clear: If the author would just say, "these are magic lasers" or some other form of "a wizard did it", okay that's fine, it's fiction, I'll accept that, let's see how the story develops from there. It's when they try to claim they're real-world lasers but then merrily ascribe them impossible traits, that I get brain-jammed.)

Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

#118

Post by jstx1 »

remoquete wrote: post #6
dc-programmer wrote: post #5

This was a formative read for me many years ago but only recently realized there is also a novel version. Has anyone here read both?

It’s commonly agreed that the short version is way better.

I would have said the opposite - I like the few changes in the novel and I think that the whole story is a bit more impactful when it takes a bit more time instead of being very compressed like the short version is.

Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

#119

Post by jwmcq »

pmoriarty wrote: post #54

If you liked the story don't ever read the book. The author apparently felt the story didn't have enough sex in it, so he added a bunch of it to the book, along with a big helping of Freudian analysis. Ugh...

Fully agreed. There seemed to be a trend in mid-20th century sci-fi for authors to expand short stories into full books, and I've yet to find an example where the novel was an improvement.

Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

#120

Post by sandworm101 »

I always hated this story. For me, the underlying theme is one of class and social structure. The illiterate man is lifted above his situation by science. He is then hammered back down. This is a story about how science cannot change the underlying "natural" state of a person. It is a lesson for scientists about not messing with god-given realities. I also don't like the linking of one's job to one's intelligence. The two are rarely directly related.

The opposite to Flowers for Algernon is Captain America. A weak man is improved by science and goes on to be the champion of his nation: Science overcomes nature and God-given limitations can be overcome by government-backed scientific wonders.

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