Thu, 18 May 2023 01:14:52 -0700
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Considering just what a Twain bot would be, I’m most bothered by the
thought that I would not know what Mark Twain I was talking to. The idea
that a person such as Twain could be distilled down to a particular
personality with a particular set of ideas I find absurd. Indeed, that
any person that had lived any kind of interesting life could be so
rendered, I find quite disturbing. The Sam Clemens escaping the youthful
confines of village life on the Mississippi is not the same person
piloting a riverboat. He is not the same person found living in a
foreign land of Washoe or San Francisco of the 1860’s, and especially
not the same person who had traveled around the world and had so many
preconceived ideas shattered by an interesting life.
Aside from being entertained by his writings, my own interest in the man
concerns his relationship with the context of his life, when and where
he was. I have described the role Mark Twain has in my Twain’s Geography
project as my Virgil, Dante’s guide through hell. I want to understand
his impressions of where he was and what he was doing at the time of its
doing. All these places changed through the time of his life and several
he would revisit many times. His thoughts about such places would not be
the same for each visit. What opinion of Florence, Italy would be the
correct one?
If I was to ask such a bot what he thought of New York, what would he
tell me?
--
/Unaffiliated Geographer and Twain aficionado/
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