Meditations and Learnings

Meditations and Learnings

The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling

by Ted Chiang

This short story looked at a man’s resistance to incoming artificial intelligence which can take the accumulated “lifelogs” of people and filter them according to subvocalised queries. A concomitant story is told about the learning of writing by a rural villager, Jijingi, and shows how writing itself changes the way he thinks - valuing vough (what is precise) over mimi (what is right). The fictional author’s story comes to a head when he is made to confront the falsity of the narrative he had built about his life, specifically about how he acted as a father.

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