On the Marking of Years
It’s only January. We still have lots of winter to go.
The author of the robot book is now talking endlessly about goals.
He says intelligence is only the ability to engage in goal-oriented behavior.
It could be good or bad. Playing chess to win or playing to lose.
Building a secret underground city or building a bomb.
The content of the goal isn’t important. It’s only the orientation that counts.
Having robots cooperate with us is all about making sure they have friendly goals.
Meaning they won’t change their minds all of a sudden and decide to kill us.
Not to say that’s a bad goal, the author assures us.
Just that it isn’t quite aligned with our own.
I try to keep all this in mind as I watch the trees.
I understand how the world will want to turn on us.
There will be dwarf stars and a big crunch or a big freeze.
There will be dark matter and dark energy. There already is.
I try to find a way to keep myself still.
And yet walking sometimes feels like the only way out.
The only way to stay in step with the world.
18.
Years ago, I loved containers far more than the things they contained. I bought makeup simply to own the makeup bags. Orchids in vases simply to acquire the vases for good, and watch them grow dusty and cracked as time went on, and as other flowers occupied the glass. Having those containers made me feel, in a way, tied down to something. To things that could simply occupy bare space. It is the conditional that drew me, the sort of if/then that must exist perpetually, at least in some of us: if I find a thing I love, then I will have a place for it that fits.
These days, I much prefer things that are full, or at least packed tightly.
But I think I have passed onto Sophie my old love. To be fair, I’ve never mentioned it. But perhaps the idea has passed between us, silently, the way secrets do, or ideas about beauty, or shame. Or perhaps she’s come up with it on her own. In either case, I sense I know her, meaning I know what she means. I wait and listen while she explains what she bought on her last shopping trip. Face bright, she shows me a plastic case patterned with pineapples, about the size of her palm, and asks, “What could go in this, you think? What sort of thing could we fit in here?”