A dastardly interference

For ages I have been bothered by a demand ‘Reconnect’ with other partners. For a long time, I simply ignored it. I did not want any ‘partners’ in my work; those who want to read what I write have the chance to read it when I publish it on my blog. But then very annoying, disturbing infringements of my articles began to occur as I was writing them. It was preceded several times by simply not allowing me access to my blog unless I accepted the ‘Reconnect’. At first, I was about to write about it an article on my blog, but the moment I began to copy the ’Reconnect’ message, the message disappeared, I could access my text, but the infringements of my text were very unpleasant. So, in the end, I thought: Let me accept the ‘Reconnection’ (i.e. let me click on ‘Reconnect’), and let me see what happens. And indeed, it became much better; very often the ‘corrections’ were real, positive corrections. I thought that an AI had been connected, and was truly helpful. Thus, when I wrote ‘Soul’s immortality’, something very welcome happened. ‘Normally’, when I type the Greek text, after each full stop the computer begins the following sentence with a Capital, overriding my lower case letter. That’s very annoying, for I must always correct it. But as I was writing the article on ‘Soul’s immortality’, suddenly the text was printed as I wrote it, i.e. no ‘computer corrections’ of the initial letters of sentences after full stops. I really enjoyed it, but it lasted only while I wrote the relatively short article on ’Soul’s immortality’.

Yesterday happened something new, something really nasty. As always, I began writing the text of my new article in SPIonix, i.e. in Greek letters; when that’s done, I copy the article bit by bit from C.J. Rowe’s translation, following Rowe’s English text with the Greek original in brackets. Yesterday and this morning, I wrote the whole article on ‘The other souls and the forms’ in the original Ancient Greek, and, as always, I then began to copy Rowe’s text, following it bit by bit by the Greek original in brackets; I got as far as 248e4, when I had enough, and went to bed. In the evening, I wanted to reopen ‘The other souls and the forms’ and resume my work where I finished it before I went to sleep, but it just wouldn’t come. It didn’t bother me, for my computer is very slow – it was so many times interfered with in the past that I am amazed it works, however slowly – and instead of waiting, I opened a new word document and began to write Rowe’s English text beginning with 248e4. I’ve got as far as 249c6, when it was the high time to reconnect it with what I had written before. To my surprise, the original text simply disappeared from my computer. Is my work on the Phaedrus so unacceptable to British classicists and classical philosophers that they decided to simply stop what I have been writing?

Well, I shall try to write the article on ‘The other souls and the forms’ once again. Will it be stopped and disrupted again?

For years I have been thinking that something like this would one day happen. I have been curious; if it does, what will it do with me and to me?

I don’t think I shall continue working on Plato. I think I shall turn to German literature – the last thing I read in German was Stefan Zweig’s Hochstapler Felix Krull? I put ‘Felix Krull’ with a question mark, for I am not sure I remember it correctly. I wanted to check it on Google, but the Google became totally unresponsive.

And I shall return to Tolstoy, and to French literature. I shall just enjoy myself.

I finally got Stefan Zweig’s Hochstapler Felix Krull on Google; I’m pleased, my memory is not too bad; I read it more than 50 years ago; I got it for my 35^th birth day as a mischievous present from a colleague of mine in the Publishing House of the Czechoslovak Academy of sciences, where I worked as editor for philosophy. I loved it.