Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

sdfo.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 215 posts

Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

#161

Post by kelnos »

nobody9999 wrote: post #142
sslapec wrote: post #99

My elder brother is mentally challenged due to lack of oxygen when he was born. I had this idea a few years ago of how would he experience the world if he'd suddenly become healthy. How would he deal with his previous life, etc. I once mentioned my thoughts to my boss during a lunch and he told me there's already a novel about it. That's how I've discovered Flowers for Algernon.

>My elder brother is mentally challenged due to lack of oxygen when he was born. I had this idea a few years ago of how would he experience the world if he'd suddenly become healthy. How would he deal with his previous life, etc. I once mentioned my thoughts to my boss during a lunch and he told me there's already a novel about it. That's how I've discovered Flowers for Algernon. I have a close relative with signfica…

> It may seem cruel, but it feels almost worse than if she'd died.

I don't think it's cruel at all. For the person suffering dementia, they are no longer that person, and they must be confused all the time, and stressed out about being confused. It sounds like a miserable way to live, if you can call that "living". For everyone else, the person they love is gone, but there is a constant physical reminder of who they used to be. Everyone loses.

> Especially as at the peak of his abilities, he really turns into an arrogant asshole with little patience for the idiots (as he perceived them) around him.

I think that's to be expected; consider if you gave a 3-year-old the mental capacity of a genius-level adult. They don't have the emotional development or maturity to deal with it. Charlie is similar. I actually think of it the other way: Charlie adapted remarkably well to his newfound intelligence, given his lack of understanding of the world beforehand. He certainly wasn't perfect, but I think many/most people would fare worse.

Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

#162

Post by kelnos »

sandworm101 wrote: post #120

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. Th…

> This is a story about how science cannot change the underlying "natural" state of a person.

I think it's easier to look at it as a cautionary take. Many scientists (and engineers, and other types of creators) spend far too little time thinking about the implications of what they create. Certainly that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to improve people's lives, but we should be extremely careful. "First: do no harm" is a guiding principle that medical doctors are expected to follow, but many scientists perhaps don't think about enough.

Was it even ethical to perform this experiment on Charlie, someone who likely did not have the cognitive ability to understand well enough to consent? I wonder about that.

> The illiterate man is lifted above his situation by science.

He wasn't merely illiterate (and he wasn't illiterate; he could read and write, just not well). He was developmentally disabled. He didn't have the mental capacity to learn to read and comprehend better, or to write and spell better.

> I also don't like the linking of one's job to one's intelligence. The two are rarely directly related.

I don't think that's true. Certainly not for the example at hand. I think it's pretty common for developmentally disabled people to hold fairly simple, menial service jobs, assuming they can work at all.

I have a feeling -- please correct me if I'm wrong -- that you're railing against the kind of "not very smart" person who fails upwards into high levels of management at a company. Sure, in that case a person's intelligence was not well-linked to that person's job. But this story is examining intelligence on a different level: not just the ability to learn, but the ability to understand the world around you. This failing-upwards executive may lack the ability to learn sufficient competence to earn these sorts of promotions based on merit, but most likely can understand the world well enough in order to exploit it to gain these unearned promotions.

Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

#163

Post by WalterBright »

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. ("…

I always kinda avoid scifi stories about super-intelligent beings. There's no way one could write about what they'd be like.

But I make one exception - Brain Wave by Poul Anderson. In it, ordinary people become much more intelligent. Their speech patterns change into very few words, because a more intelligent listener would be better at inferring meaning from the context.

Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

#164

Post by WalterBright »

myself248 wrote: post #117
gwern wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, there's a chapter where a bunch of figures about the submarine are given. I played around with the math, and discovered that the figures were accurate. Cool!

Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

#165

Post by kragen »

softcactus wrote: post #130
bgroat wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

Exactly how I felt. It explores what motivations of a super-intelligence might be in a way that I hadn't seen before. I understand the commenter's sentiment though--it's difficult to read an earnest story about a super intelligent trans-human because the archetype of "cool and collected super genius" has been done to death and has become cringeworthy.

The most interesting book I've found on the motivations of a super-genius is Notes on the Collection of Transfers. https://www.sidis.net/TransfersContents.htm

Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

#166

Post by kelnos »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #124
sandworm101 wrote: post #120

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. Th…

Interesting interpretation. To me, this book has nothing to do with science. There is very little science mentioned and even the wonder that changes Charlie is not mentioned in any detail that I remember. His change could have easily been caused by something else besides science like a head injury that magically and temporarily reversed his handicap. And the story would have still been beautiful. It’s more like a lit…

I agree with you in part. I never really read the grandparent's themes of "don't mess with nature, scientists full of hubris!" from Flowers. To me it was just a beautifully sad story of gaining something precious, and then losing it, while watching yourself lose it, piece by piece. The idea that it's not something external and tangible, but is a story of mental faculties, makes it all the more tragic.

And we can draw parallels to conditions like dementia. Charlie experienced a full life of learning and decline in a matter of a few months.

I do think of this as a science fiction story. Not "hard" sci-fi, but still sci-fi. To me it's the examination of what a scientific achievement could do, but for a fatal flaw. I think it is interesting and important to the story that Charlie's experience was caused deliberately, and not through an accident or other means.

Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

#167

Post by kelnos »

dvt wrote: post #69
quanto wrote: post #12

She said dont be scared Charlie you done so much with so little I think you deserv it most of all. Charlie was a man with a good heart, motivation, and self-awareness, and yet the world was not so kind to him. The story reminds me of something I read somewhere: be kind to less intelligent people -- the world is already not so kind to them.

> be kind to less intelligent people -- the world is already not so kind to them. This feels weirdly patronizing. Why not just treat every person with humanity and respect and be kind to them regardless of any particular trait or lack thereof?

This feels like an "all lives matter!" kind of response. The parent was specifically addressing the type of person who might be dismissive or unkind toward people of lower intelligence. Yes, there are people who are unkind toward all sorts of people, and that's not good either, but that's besides the point.

Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

#168

Post by jstanley »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #151
johnny_reilly wrote: post #55

This book changed me. I was an idle eight year old, and my school didn't give us homework to do. So my father decided to set me homework of his own devising, which on one occasion was reading Flowers for Algernon. I was moved by the story of a man who had little natural ability, straining to make the best of what he had. Then becoming smarter than everyone around him, and then what follows. There's many things to tak…

> I took away that we should make the best of what we have. As someone on the spectrum, no.

What else are you going to do? Not make the best of what you have?

On the spectrum or not, you'll be gone in 100 years. May as well try and enjoy it while you're here.

Re: Flowers for Algernon (1965) [pdf]

#169

Post by dmitriid »

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. ("…

> a real protagonist would be doing things Keys can't even imagine, which sound like gibberish

Mimsy Were the Borogoves by Lewis Padgett explores this to an extent.

Post reply on HN