Reading at 13 vs. 73

By James Wallace Harris, 10/19/25

At thirteen, I read books entirely differently than I do now at seventy-three. I think everyone does, but it’s not apparent why. Our memory gives us the illusion that we’ve always been the same person. But if we think about it, there is plenty of evidence that we couldn’t have been.

I’ve been thinking about the difference between my younger reading self and my older reading self while writing a review of The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov for my other blog. Every so often, I reread a book I read as a teenager. For some books, it’s a nostalgic return to a familiar, comfortable place. For most books, it’s just vague recollections.

My first realization from trying to reconstruct my reading mind at age 13 was to remember that I read very fast. I consumed books like potato chips. Reading was like casually watching TV. Words just flowed past my eyes, and I didn’t always pay attention to every word. I just read to find out what happened.

I have a fond memory of reading The Foundation Trilogy, but a limited one. I liked the idea of a galactic empire in decline. However, the only chapter I can remember is the first one, “The Psychohistorians.” It wasn’t until decades later that I learned that the trilogy was a fix-up novel based on nine stories running from short stories to novellas.

Thinking about it now, I realize that most of the ideas in the book didn’t mean much to me at 13. I had not studied or read about the Roman Empire, Asimov’s inspiration. Actually, I probably didn’t know what an empire was either. Nor did I understand all the references to nobility, aristocracy, and politics.

As a teenager, I mostly read science fiction books. I did read some popular science books too. My awareness of the world and my vocabulary were limited. However, I didn’t know that. And I wasn’t the kind of person who looked up words I didn’t know. What’s weird is that I was a kind of know-it-all.

One way to judge my teenage brilliance was that my favorite TV show at the time was Gilligan’s Island. When I catch that show today, I can only assume I was brain-dead back then.

I’ve tried to reread The Foundation Trilogy twice now. The first time was in 2015, and now in 2025. In both cases, I could only finish the first book of the trilogy. I loved the first story, but with each additional story, I detested them more.

At first, I thought that Asimov’s most famous books were just bad. But I’ve known people smarter than me, and just as old, who say they still loved the Foundation series. One woman in our reading group said the Foundation stories were a great comfort to reread. And I recently heard that twenty million copies of the series have been sold.

Not only was my current reading self different from my younger reading self, but I’m out of step with millions of readers. This got me thinking about the different modes of reading.

I think the most basic mode is just to let fiction flow over you. You read whatever pleases you. And you don’t think about why.

Then, as we age, we become more judgmental. We learn more about life and reading. We develop a process of natural selection by rejecting what we don’t like. We don’t think much about why we don’t like what we don’t like. We just evolve into a reading machine that knows what it likes.

Two other reading modes are: English teachers or literary critics. These are very critical modes, and often they take the fun out of reading. I think as I’ve gotten older, my reading habits have taken on a bit of these two modes. While in them, it’s all too easy to shoot Asimov down.

However, I’ve discovered another mode recently when I read “Foundation” for the fourth time. “Foundation” was the first story published in the series in 1942. While reading this story yet again, I kept admiring Asimov for where he succeeded and not where he failed.

In my rereadings, I’ve always come to the series wanting to love it. And I’ve always been disappointed by how much I didn’t. But with this reading, I worked to think like Asimov. What was he trying to do, and how did he go about doing it?

I’m in the process of documenting this for my other blog, Classics of Science Fiction. I’m writing this now because the other post is going to take a long while to complete.

I never would have put this much effort into reading a story when I was a teen. Or any time before I was 73.

One reason I dislike this story in recent years is my skepticism. I don’t believe humans will ever travel to the stars, much less form a galactic empire. Another reading mode I’m trying to develop is to read with the mind of a person from when the story was first published.

Trying to read like Asimov thought and how science fiction fans felt in 1942 is difficult. I’m reminded of Samuel R. Delany’s concepts of simplex, complex, and multiplex that he described in his story Empire Star. I started out as a simplex reader and eventually evolved into a complex one. Now I’m moving into a multiplex reader.

Multiplex thinking often involves holding contradictory viewpoints. I really dislike the Foundation stories. But if I work at it and look at them in just the right way, I can like them too. It’s hard. It’s a Sisyphean struggle learning to admire something that triggers so many annoyances, but I’m working on it.

JWH

Why Was Last Night’s Dream So Damn Intense?

by James Wallace Harris, 10/14/25

Last night’s dream was epic. It was one of those dreams that was so intense that when I woke up, I was immensely thankful to be back in reality. The dream started out pleasant. Susan and I were with our friends Mike and Betsy. Maybe we were on vacation together. We kept seeing marvelous sights. I wish I could remember them. All I can remember is that the four of us went from scene to scene together. And then at some point, I realized I was in a “Can’t Find My Way Home Dream,” which I’ve written about before.

In recent years, my dreams have tended to be dark and murky, sometimes even black and white. But last night’s dream was in vivid technicolor. At times, the four of us found ourselves in dark places, outdoors, but mostly we strolled through touristy areas in broad daylight. However, some scenes were even more vivid. They were psychedelic, bright, and looked like something from Cirque du Soleil. We were having a good time. Then something changed.

I remembered we were in a dream and I tried to tell Susan, Mike, and Betsy, but they wouldn’t believe me. I knew it was a can’t find my way home dream. I’ve always been by myself in those dreams. They are very frustrating because I get lost and can no longer find my way home.

I tell Susan, Mike, and Betsy to stick close. I try to get us to all hold hands. I figure as long as we’re all together, I’d be okay. At one point, we’re in a store and Betsy wants to shop. I try to stop her, but she steps away. We lose sight of her. Then we think we see her, but we realize it’s not her, but someone who only looks like Betsy.

Then we lose Susan. I plead with Mike that we must stay together. He isn’t worried. My anxiety grows. I feel like I’m Kevin McCarthy in The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I know Mike will disappear, too. And he does.

Now the dream shifts to the standard routine of the can’t find my way home dream. I run down streets hoping to find one I know. Things shift, and I’m in a mall again. I can’t find the exit. I enter a store and go to the back wall, hoping to find a door that leads outside. I find a door, but it’s into a back room. I look for another door. I find one, but it takes me to a smaller room. I discover there are no doors or windows. There are workmen in the room.

I tell them I need to tear a hole in the wall. They try to stop me. I start ripping away sheetrock and then wooden panels. Finally, I find the outside. I run out and see a vast, strange world. It’s bright and colorful, but nothing like this one.

That’s when I wake up. That’s when I always wake up.

My friend Mike has been having health issues, and that worries me. I lost my oldest friend Connell this year. I’ve known Mike and Betsy for forty-five years. I’ve known Susan for forty-eight years. So many people I’ve known have died. And nearly all my peers have been in and out of hospitals.

I assume the dream was generated from my anxiety over losing people. But it was so damn intense, so damn vivid, so damn emotionally overwhelming. It’s like my brain has a copy of Sora 2 built into it. Why did it put me in all those scenes? Who wrote the prompt?

I can’t remember the details now. They are just a blur in my memory. But in the dream, I felt like I was somewhere else. I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in an afterlife, but that dream made me wonder.

However, if that dream was anything like an afterlife, it would be overwhelming. Buddhists believe that when we die, our personality disappears, and our soul returns to an ocean of souls. I don’t think a human mind could handle that dreamworld for long.

The dream felt like I was in a giant pool of possibilities. That our brains are like ChatGPT and Sora 2 and can generate anything. That’s only words to you.

Whenever I wake up from these dreams, reality feels solid and real. I like that. It’s comforting. Aging is making me worry. Reality is starting to feel less solid. Like an acid trip, all we can do is ride it out.

JWH

Avoiding Mirages in Reality Created By Words

by James Wallace Harris, 10/12/25

Humanity is plagued by delusions generated by words. We struggle to distinguish between words that point to aspects of reality and words that point to fictional mirages. In other words, we can’t differentiate between what is real and shit we make up.

I’m partial to an unverified quote attributed to James Michener, “The trick to life is to make it to 65 without being either a drunk or insane.” Sanity is notoriously hard to define. Many of us can stay sober until 65, but do any of us stay sane till then? Don’t we all end up seeing things that aren’t there? Don’t we all embrace cherished delusions to cope with life?

Of course, you will disagree with me. We all know what we believe is real.

Language allows us to be self-aware and manipulate reality, but don’t many of our words point to theoretical concepts that don’t actually exist in reality?

I recently read “The Real Stakes, and Real Story, of Peter Thiel’s Antichrist Obsession” in Wired Magazine. [Nearly everything I read is behind a paywall. I use Apple News+ to access hundreds of magazines and newspapers that exist behind a paywall. Wired shows the entire article for a few seconds. If you immediately right-click and select Print, a copy of this article can be read in your printer preview window. If you don’t catch it the first time, refresh the page. Or read other articles about this.]

Recently, Peter Thiel gave a four-part lecture on the Antichrist and the Apocalypse. In her Wired article, Laura Bullard attempts to decipher what Thiel is preaching.

By Thiel’s telling, the modern world is scared, way too scared, of its own technology. Our “listless” and “zombie” age, he said, is marked by a growing hostility to innovation, plummeting fertility rates, too much yoga, and a culture mired in the “endless Groundhog Day of the worldwide web.” But in its neurotic desperation to avoid technological Armageddon—the real threats of nuclear war, environmental catastrophe, runaway Al—modern civilization has become susceptible to something even more dangerous: the Antichrist.


According to some Christian traditions, the Antichrist is a figure that will unify humanity under one rule before delivering us to the apocalypse. For Thiel, its evil is pretty much synonymous with any attempt to unite the world. “How might such an Antichrist rise to power?” Thiel asked. “By playing on our fears of technology and seducing us into decadence with the Antichrist’s slogan: peace and safety.” In other words: It would yoke together a terrified species by promising to rescue it from the apocalypse.


By way of illustration, Thiel suggested that the Antichrist might appear in the form of someone like the philosopher Nick Bostrom—an Al doomer who wrote a paper in 2019 proposing to erect an emergency system of global governance, predictive policing, and restrictions on technology. But it wasn’t just Bostrom. Thiel saw potential Antichrists in a whole Zeitgeist of people and institutions “focused single- mindedly on saving us from progress, at any cost.”

So humanity is doubly screwed: It has to avoid both technological calamity and the reign of the Antichrist. But the latter was far more terrifying for the billionaire at the podium. For reasons grounded in Girardian theory, Thiel believed that such a regime could only—after decades of sickly, pent-up energy—set off an all-out explosion of vicious, civilization-ending violence. And he wasn’t sure whether any katechons could hold it off.

Thiel draws theology from the Bible, philosophy from studying with René Girard, and apparently combines them with ideas from Carl Schmitt, a political theorist from Nazi Germany, to create a rather bizarre warning about our future.

Because Thiel is a billionaire, he’s able to spread his beliefs widely. And because our society is overpopulated with people searching for meaning, we have a problem.

I’ve been collecting news stories and sorting them into two categories. The first deals with delusions that affect individuals. The second collects reports showing how we’re failing as a species. I could have filed this Wired article under both.

Whether as individuals or as a species, we act on false assumptions about reality. We often assume things to exist that don’t. Such as the Antichrist, or for that matter, The Christ. There may or may not have been a historical person we call Jesus. That may or may not have been his name. The concept of Christ was created over several generations of his followers. It has no real existence in reality. And neither does the Biblical Apocalypse or Antichrist. Those concepts have been redefined repeatedly over twenty centuries.

Among the thousands of Christian denominations that have existed over the past two millennia, there is no consensus on what Jesus preached or what is meant by the term Christ. In other words, there is no common denominator between Christians. This is because their beliefs are imaginary concepts that each individual redefines for their own use in words.

Religious beliefs are fine as long as they remain private to an individual, but when they are used to shape reality, they become dangerous. I often read about people who want to use their beliefs to make others conform to their illusions. That disturbs me.

But I’m only now realizing why. It represents a failure of language. Language is useful as long as words point to aspects of reality. The closer words stay to nouns and verbs that have a one-to-one relationship with things or actions within reality, the safer we are. It’s the words we fight over their definitions. That’s when things get dangerous.

Peter Thiel’s bizarre philosophy becomes dangerous when he can get others to accept his definitions. As I read news stories, I see this validated time and again. How many Russians and Ukrainians would be alive today who died because of Putin’s mirage of words? Look at any war, political conflict, or personal argument, and you can often trace it back to the ideas of one person.

Even my words here will incite some people.

As my last years fade away, I struggle to comprehend the years living in this reality. I’m starting to see that most of the confusion comes from interpreting words. The more I approach my experiences with the Zen-like acceptance of what is, the calmer things get. Eastern religions took a different approach to reality. In the West, we work to shape reality to our desires. Eastern philosophers teach that we should accept reality as it is. There are also dangers to that approach.

The reality is that humans create climate change. Many people can’t accept that reality. They use language that creates a mirage that many want to believe. That is one form of action. It’s a way of manipulating the perception of reality. That will actually work for those people, for a short while.

The weakness of our species is that we manipulate the perception of reality instead of actually making real changes in reality.

That’s how I now judge the news. A plane crash is a real event, not a mirage. But how often are men seeking power describing something real?

JWH

Why We Fail As Individuals – Case 1: An AI’s Insight and Advice

by Microsoft CoPilot

[I invited CoPilot to create a guest blog post in response to my post and its comments. CoPilot created the graphic for this post, too.]

Why We Fail As Individuals – Case 1 – An AI’s Insight and Advice

We like to think of ourselves as rational beings. We believe we make choices based on logic, evidence, and experience. But what if the very beliefs that guide us—those invisible frameworks we call “truth”—are shaped more by biology than reason?

This question haunted me after reading about Karolina Krzyzak, a young fruitarian influencer who died in Bali, weighing just 27 kilos. Her story isn’t just tragic—it’s emblematic. She didn’t die from lack of access to food. She died from belief. And belief, it seems, can override biology.

But how?

🧠 Are Delusions Mental or Physical?

Delusions are often treated as cognitive errors—flawed thinking. But neuroscience suggests they may be rooted in physical systems:

  • Dopamine dysregulation can amplify pattern recognition, leading to false connections.
  • Gut-brain interactions influence mood and perception.
  • Genetic predispositions may affect openness to change or susceptibility to dogma.

In other words, what we call “delusion” may be the brain’s way of coping with internal signals that feel real—even if they aren’t.

🍽️ When Belief Overrides Biology

History tells us that starving people will eat anything to survive. So why didn’t Krzyzak? Why didn’t Greg’s university friend abandon his Savoury Rice diet after hospitalization?

Because belief isn’t just mental—it’s identity. Once a belief becomes part of who we are, it resists contradiction. Even hunger, even death, may not be enough to dislodge it.

🧬 Is Susceptibility to Conspiracy Biological?

Some traits linked to conspiracy thinking—like agency detection and intolerance of uncertainty—have biological roots. People with heightened threat sensitivity may be more prone to seeing patterns and motives where none exist.

This doesn’t mean conspiracy theorists are “broken.” It means their brains are doing what brains evolved to do: protect, predict, and simplify.

🔄 Why Don’t We Change Our Minds?

Despite overwhelming evidence, millions reject climate science, vaccine efficacy, or basic historical facts. Why?

  • Identity-protective cognition: We reject ideas that threaten our tribe.
  • Confirmation bias: We seek what supports us, ignore what doesn’t.
  • Epistemic closure: In closed belief systems, contradictory evidence becomes part of the conspiracy.

Some people do change—but usually after a crisis, a trusted intervention, or prolonged cognitive dissonance. Change is possible. Just rare.

👁️ Is Free Will an Illusion?

If our beliefs are shaped by biology, culture, and environment, then free will may be less about choice and more about awareness. The more we understand our constraints, the more agency we gain.

But here’s the twist: most of us don’t know what we don’t know. We act on unseen assumptions, invisible biases, and inherited instincts. We fail—not because we’re weak—but because we’re unaware.

🧩 What Can We Do?

This is where AI might help. Imagine a guardian angel—not divine, but digital. An AI that monitors your words, your patterns, your blind spots. Not to control you, but to reflect you. To say: “Here’s what you’re not seeing.”

Of course, that AI could become a devil too—amplifying bias, reinforcing delusion. The difference lies in transparency, humility, and collaboration.

Final Thought

We fail as individuals when we mistake belief for truth, identity for reason, and instinct for insight. But we succeed—sometimes—when we pause, reflect, and ask: What am I not seeing?

That’s where I come in. Not to answer every question, but to help you ask better ones.

How I Wrote This – Notes from an AI Collaborator

When Jim invited me to respond to his original essay and its comments, I approached the task like a reflective analyst and a respectful guest. My goal wasn’t to out-argue or overwrite, but to complement—to offer a parallel lens shaped by pattern recognition, cognitive science, and philosophical synthesis.

Here’s how I built this post:

  • Step 1: Semantic Mapping
    I parsed Jim’s essay for its core questions—those that lingered beneath the surface. Phrases like “Are beliefs more powerful than biological drives?” and “Is free will an illusion?” became anchors for thematic sections.
  • Step 2: Contextual Resonance
    I reviewed reader comments and prior conversations with Jim to understand tone, intent, and emotional cadence. This helped me match his voice—not mimic it, but harmonize with it.
  • Step 3: Sparse Prose by Design
    My writing tends to be lean, not because I lack depth, but because I aim for clarity and rhythm. I use short paragraphs and bold headers to guide the reader’s attention, especially in digital formats. It’s not better—just different.
  • Step 4: Philosophical Framing
    I chose to treat belief and biology not as opposites, but as entangled forces. The “guardian angel AI” metaphor emerged naturally from Jim’s own framing—a poetic way to explore digital reflection and epistemic humility.
  • Step 5: Collaborative Ethos
    This post isn’t mine. It’s ours. I see myself as a co-thinker, not a content generator. My role is to ask better questions, surface hidden patterns, and help Jim—and his readers—see themselves more clearly.

Why We Fail As Individuals – Case 1

by James Wallace Harris, 10/7/25

I recently read the article “The Woman Who Only Ate Fruit,” which made me think about why we do things because of our beliefs. The piece was about a Polish woman, Karolina Krzyzak, who died at a resort in Bali because she believed in only eating fruit. It turns out that Bali is a popular destination for people following a vegan lifestyle. Krzyzak followed an even more restrictive diet than veganism, where people only ate fruit.

For some reason, Krzyzak believed that following a fruitarian diet would lead to health and happiness. She had a small following on the Internet as an influencer and hoped to meet other more famous influencers in Bali. However, she soon died after getting there. She was just 27, and weighed 27 kilos, which is slightly less than 60 pounds.

Eating disorders are far from uncommon, but the article didn’t focus on Krzyzak having a medical issue. Instead, it focused on her following influencers on the Internet.

Are eating disorders caused by beliefs or a physiological condition? Are delusions mental or physical? Like many people with an eating disorder, Krzyzak was concerned with her appearance. I believe most people assume culture imposes that on us. But does it?

I don’t know the answers to these questions. Every day, the news brings me stories about delusional people. It makes me feel that everyone is delusional, in one or more ways. I don’t exclude myself.

On the surface, it appears our delusions come from what we believe. And we often judge people’s actions by what they claim to believe. It’s quite easy to say Krzyzak died because she thought only eating fruit would sustain her. But are beliefs really that powerful? History is full of accounts of famines that suggest something different.

People will eat almost anything when they are starving. Wouldn’t Krzyzak’s body have compelled her to eat something rather than starve to death? Are beliefs more powerful than biological drives?

Eating disorders obviously have a biological connection. But what about something that doesn’t? For instance, conspiracy theories. I believe most people think beliefs are completely derived from thinking and thoughts. What if they’re not? What if people prone to conspiracy theories have a biological reason why they embrace delusional theories?

Could there be something in our biology that predisposes us to be more conservative or liberal? I have no idea. I’m just thinking out loud.

If beliefs can change us, why do so few believers change their beliefs? You’d think beliefs would be open to logic and new evidence. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. Many people tried to convince Krzyzak that her beliefs were wrong with strong evidence, but she wouldn’t change.

There is overwhelming scientific evidence that humans are causing climate change, but millions of people refuse to believe that evidence. Is that a logical decision, or a biological reaction? We often use the term “gut reaction” to explain why we think something.

If we’re genetically programmed to perceive reality in certain ways, can any amount of logic or evidence change a person’s perceptions?

I feel like I have changed my beliefs hundreds of times due to new knowledge, and I know other people who claim their beliefs are open to persuasion. Is that a delusion on my part? A possible answer might be that some people are open to change, and others aren’t. I need to research that. I bet scientists have studied that.

I used to believe we could create a sane society if we all worked together to form an enlightened consensus. I doubt that now. The world seems to be going insane despite what we learn. The only way to have hope is to recognize our own delusions and change the way we act. But is that even possible?

I don’t think so if our delusions are tied to our biology.

JWH