The Art of the Eavesdrop, Part One
There once was a famous course taught at Harvard University by three very well-known professors. The course was called Thinking About Thinking, and the professors were Stephen Jay Gould, Alan Dershowitz, and Robert Nozick. The course was taught at The Science Center, a building outside Harvard Yard that looks like an old-fashioned Polaroid camera placed on its side. Way back when, during the time I was wandering around the campus, there was a café on the first floor. Our story begins in that café.
One day I was sitting in the café, drinking a large diet coke and minding my own business, when the three professors sat down at a table right next to me. What was I supposed to do? They were grabbing a bite to eat before their class started, and I was sitting within easy earshot. Of course, I settled in and listened. I didn’t make it too obvious; I just made sure my internal audio antenna was pointed in their direction.
The next week I went back to see if they would appear again. They did, and, once again, I was sitting right beside them. This went on for much of the semester. None of the discussions were scientific, legal, or philosophical in nature; they were all about baseball. What else were they going to discuss? They had to save the good stuff, the thinking about thinking stuff, for the classroom, right?
Author’s Note: The following story is true. I happened to witness the whole thing. Once again, I was sitting alone in a booth at The Red Cat Café (minding my own business, as usual) when Buford Lister and Piper Pandora Pennington sat down beside me. I was wearing a pair of homebuilt over-ears headphones that not only were noise-canceling but, at the flip of a switch, transformed into spy speakers. I don’t really want to explain why I built such a device; it is not central to our story, but I will say the headphones acted much better than any hearing aid you might get from a doctor. Oh yeah, they also have Bluetooth recording capabilities. As I already stated, you don’t need any details.
Buford Lister looked the young girl over. He checked off each part of her uniform. White Daniel Johnston “Hi, How Are You?” t-shirt. Check. Black yoga pants at least a size too small. Check. Checkerboard Vans, no socks. Check. Old school Oakley sunglasses with built-in mp3 player. Check. Black backpack nearly as large as she is. Check. Ratty, black Bad Brains hat turned backward. Check.
“All right, young lady. What’s up today?”
She sat silently. I could hear the ruffling of some papers. I wasn’t at a booth where I could see them. I could only listen to what was going on.
“Well, if you don’t have anything to say, I might as well head home and take a nap.”
“I just read that mathematicians might be totally replaced by computers. Pretty soon, computers are going to be able to do proofs.”
“And your question is…”
“Duh! I don’t have a question. That was just an observation.”
“Yes. A very interesting one. I have thought for a long time that computers are eventually going to replace almost everyone. That is just part of the deal.”
“I didn’t make any deal.”
“No, but one was implied when your presence graced the world. You didn’t have a choice; it is just part of the human experience.”
“What am I supposed to do? Do I stop studying math and take a deep dive into programming the computers that are going to take over?”
“I want to tell you a little story. We are going way back in time for this one. I have memories of watching the original Star Trek TV series many, many decades ago. What caught my attention about that show was that they rarely mentioned money. It soon dawned on me that those on the ship were not doing a job for pay; they weren’t working to accumulate wealth. There was something else going on. One day it dawned on me; they were working to improve themselves. That was the point of their existence. They wanted to make themselves better, thereby making those around them better. That was the point. “
“And your point is?”
“My point is an important one. Those fictional characters offer an example for all of us. We should all try to make the world a better place. It seems to me that the easiest way we can do that is by learning as much as we can and then applying that knowledge in the best way we see fit. The hope is that by improving ourselves, we can elevate everyone.”
“Yeah, playing poker is an honorable way to spend one’s time, isn’t it?”
“My story is not an average story. It does not apply due to lots of different circumstances.”
“You mean like the ones in this book?”
“I haven’t read it. I know exactly what happened. I don’t need to read some outsider’s account of my life. I lived it.”
“Well, duh! I guess your life has been a bit unusual, but that still doesn’t explain why you waste so much time playing poker.”
“Luckily, I don’t have to explain myself to you.”
“I guess not, but it would be OK if you did.”
“Unfortunately, we are not evolved enough as a species as the people in Star Trek were. My grandfather used to say to me, ‘People say money isn’t everything but just you try living without it.’ Of course, he was right.”
“What did your grandfather do for a living?”
“Coal miner. He had a hard life. He would be happy to know you don’t have such struggles with money.”
“Yeah, yeah. My dead mother left me a lot of money. Would he be happy about that? Would he be happy about how I got to be rich?”
“OK, listen. The point I am making is that the answer to every question in the world is the same. I don’t care what the question is; ask any question you like. The answer is always money. Money will usually be the direct answer, and sometimes it will be the indirect answer. Look close, and you will find it.”
“So that is why you play poker, money?”
“That is the only reason I play. I am very, very good at it. I make lots of money. Dump trucks full of money.”
“Ptttfff…you just said…”
“I said that we as a species are not yet evolved enough to give money up. And I’ll tell you one thing – for me, money is freedom. It gives me the free time to work on my math problems, to meet with you, to do all the other things I want.”
“So, you are not wasting time by playing poker?”
“Oh, I am certainly wasting time. I can’t think of any other place that is a bigger waste than sitting at a poker table. Unfortunately, I need to do it.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Look, physicians make a difference every day. Most people in the medical field do. Their life’s work is an accumulation of all the good they do throughout their careers. Every night they can go home knowing that they made the world a better place. If you choose to be a physician, that is the kind of life you will lead.”
“Why would I do that? They are going to be replaced by computers, just like everyone else.”
“I think that is correct. Geneticists will take over for the family doctors, and then the computers will replace the geneticists. Surgeons will lose out to the robots, and on and on we go.”
“So, what am I supposed to do?”
“The good news is that hopefully, this will free us all up to live in a society more like the one on Star Trek. Maybe we can all work to improve ourselves instead of wasting time working to accumulate wealth. I certainly won’t live to see it, and you might not either, but I hope that we eventually get there.”
“Uhhh…”
“I can help guide you; I can nudge you, I can point you in different directions. I can steer you away from dangerous bunny holes like The Collatz Conjecture. Still, I can’t know what ultimately inspires you. I can only throw darts and hope that something sticks.”
“I’m a dartboard?”
“You are a twelve-year-old genius that I am hoping does not decide to lead a life of destruction. I know how angry you are, and I have seen what anger can do to a person.”
“People are so stupid…”
“I understand that. If only everyone were as smart as you…”
“Then, the world would be a very different place.”
“Yes, it would. Unfortunately, you are special. And as such, you have an obligation to make a contribution to humanity.”
“I don’t owe anything.”
“So you say. My hope is that as you get older, your attitude will change. Maybe you will end up at Harvard in a few years. There you will be surrounded by people who feel that responsibility and they just might rub off on you.”
“Pfffttt…”
“You are young, rich, brilliant, beautiful beyond words, and white—most people living in the world today experience things much differently than you do. For them, this is a very different planet. Even in this country, most people live paycheck to paycheck. Their struggle is real.”
“Yeah…well…”
“Tell me…how many poor people do you know?”
“I see them all the time; they are always around the library.”
“You mean, the homeless.”
“Yes.”
“And how many of those people do you know? How many have you sat down with and had a nice talk?”
“Well, duh! None, and you know it.”
“You need to understand the world is a different place for different people. Your view is from a privileged space. You need to understand your obligation to those homeless people, to the poor people struggling to feed their families. I hate to tell you this, but you certainly do have a duty to all those people.”
“Yeah, what if I play poker instead. What if I am a gastropod, like you?”
Author’s Note: All that followed was laughter. Buford Lister thought it was pretty funny that little Pi has called him a gastropod. He was confused about why she used that particular word. How did she know that calling someone a gastropod was his go-to playful insult? If he had read The Lister Affair, he would have had his answer. The term was referenced throughout the book. There was even a section about the trouble a group of mathematicians had trying to get an exact translation of gastropod into their native tongues. The discussion broke down into a drunken brawl. The story was included in the book because a man named Ichabod Won Torino had a chair smashed over his back. As the chair hit him, he had a flash of insight into an obscure Set Theory problem he had been working on for years. Ichabod screamed, “Eureka,” the brawl stopped, and everyone sat as Ichabod started writing on the blackboard. Estimates have it that several hundred papers resulted from those scribbles. The conference went down in history as The Gastropod Meeting. The obscure area Ichabod Won Torino became famous for studying is now known as Gastropod Theory.
“You, young lady, should be very grateful that I like you. I wouldn’t let just anyone call me a gastropod.”
The recording, at this point, is a bit hard to understand. As I played it over and over, I almost think I heard a snort and a giggle from a twelve-year-old girl. I know I must be mistaken; Piper Pandora Pennington does not snort or giggle in public. The only confirmed cases of such things happen when she is with her sister, Susie. When she is with her, it is at times hard for her to stop smiling. The face she shows the world is a very different one, and I don’t blame her at all. She is under the impression that there is an inverse relationship between intelligence and happiness. I think the issue isn’t yet settled, but she has research to back up her position.
So, I guess there wasn’t a whole lot to be learned from their interaction—no deep insights into humanity or anything like that. I will mention that as they parted, Pi told Buford Lister that she was off to the library to spend the next couple of days working on The Collatz Conjecture. All I heard on the recording was a “Pfffttt!,” followed by what sounded like a backpack zipper. I casually, cooly, and silently watched them leave.
