[{"id":310283,"date":"2026-08-25T13:45:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T17:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/?p=310283"},"modified":"2026-08-25T10:14:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T14:14:22","slug":"nobel-laureate-daron-acemoglu-why-we-must-stop-talking-about-artificial-general-intelligence-and-instead-build-pro-worker-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/3quarksdaily\/2026\/08\/nobel-laureate-daron-acemoglu-why-we-must-stop-talking-about-artificial-general-intelligence-and-instead-build-pro-worker-ai.html","title":{"rendered":"Nobel Laureate Daron Acemoglu: Why we must stop talking about artificial general intelligence \u2014 and instead build \u2018pro-worker\u2019 AI"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Daron Acemoglu in <em>Nature<\/em>:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-310284\" src=\"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/d41586-026-02566-6_53146504.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/d41586-026-02566-6_53146504.png 300w, https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/d41586-026-02566-6_53146504-150x150.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Artificial intelligence is reshaping the world in front of our eyes. The concerns around AI, however, extend beyond the uncertainty and disruption that accompany any other radical technological change. They stem in part from the direction AI development has taken: many leading companies are engaged in a single-minded pursuit of artificial general intelligence (AGI).<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">AGI is generally understood as an AI system that can match or exceed human capabilities on most economically valuable tasks. In such a world, the automation of work would not be limited to specific industries or routine jobs. Instead, machines would take over many forms of work, including highly skilled professions. The consequences of this displacement of human labour would be unparalleled.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">To draw attention to this urgent public-policy challenge, I joined thousands of economists and AI researchers in signing\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/digitaleconomy.stanford.edu\/news\/wemustactnow\/\" data-track=\"click\" data-label=\"https:\/\/digitaleconomy.stanford.edu\/news\/wemustactnow\/\" data-track-category=\"body text link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">We Must Act Now<\/a>, a statement urging policymakers and technology leaders to steer AI towards complementing, rather than replacing, human labour.<\/p>\n<p>More <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/d41586-026-02566-6?utm_source=Live+Audience&amp;utm_campaign=afd108215b-nature-briefing-daily-20260824&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_-33f35e09ea-51328812\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by <a href=\"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/support-3qd\">donating now<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Daron Acemoglu in Nature: Artificial intelligence is reshaping the world in front of our eyes. The concerns around AI, however, extend beyond the uncertainty and disruption that accompany any other radical technological change. They stem in part from the direction AI development has taken: many leading companies are engaged in a single-minded pursuit of artificial&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5918],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-310283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recommended-reading","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310283"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":310286,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310283\/revisions\/310286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":310295,"date":"2026-08-25T13:25:37","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T17:25:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/?p=310295"},"modified":"2026-08-25T12:32:06","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T16:32:06","slug":"a-new-round-in-the-free-will-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/3quarksdaily\/2026\/08\/a-new-round-in-the-free-will-debate.html","title":{"rendered":"A New Round In The Free Will Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>George Scialabba\u00a0at <em>The Hedgehog Review<\/em>:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-310296 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/download-1.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"188\" height=\"257\" \/>The disagreement between Sapolsky and Mitchell can be put succinctly. Mitchell shows how our reasoning power evolved over billions of years, through a sequence that was wholly accidental but profoundly logical, and that\u00a0<em>acting for reasons\u00a0<\/em>is our defining property and another name for free will. Sapolsky\u2019s rejoinder is simple:\u00a0<em>Where do reasons come from?<\/em>\u00a0They come, he answers, from milliseconds before making our choice, and also from seconds, minutes, hours, days, years, and decades before that\u2014from adolescence, childhood, and fetal life; from our genome, our ancestral culture, and our species history. At every point, experiences lay down traces in our brain that affect our present choices, and in measurable fashion\u2014Sapolsky cites a tremendous array of studies from the behavioral sciences over the last several decades. It\u2019s a rare intellectual confrontation: both sides deeply informed, fair-minded, incisively argued. My intuitions are with Sapolsky, but Mitchell makes a stronger case for free will than I would have thought possible.<\/p>\n<p>more <a href=\"https:\/\/hedgehogreview.com\/issues\/the-varieties-of-travel-experience\/articles\/free-at-last\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by <a href=\"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/support-3qd\">donating now<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>George Scialabba\u00a0at The Hedgehog Review: The disagreement between Sapolsky and Mitchell can be put succinctly. Mitchell shows how our reasoning power evolved over billions of years, through a sequence that was wholly accidental but profoundly logical, and that\u00a0acting for reasons\u00a0is our defining property and another name for free will. Sapolsky\u2019s rejoinder is simple:\u00a0Where do reasons&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5918],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-310295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recommended-reading","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310295"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":310298,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310295\/revisions\/310298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":310280,"date":"2026-08-25T12:45:37","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T16:45:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/?p=310280"},"modified":"2026-08-25T10:07:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T14:07:22","slug":"florence-knoll-the-designer-who-shaped-the-modern-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/3quarksdaily\/2026\/08\/florence-knoll-the-designer-who-shaped-the-modern-office.html","title":{"rendered":"Florence Knoll: The Designer Who Shaped the Modern Office"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/S7h9LqPoRw0?si=M3AzlQvQmMRn-gKX\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by <a href=\"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/support-3qd\">donating now<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\ufeff Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by donating now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5918],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-310280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recommended-reading","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310280"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":310282,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310280\/revisions\/310282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":310291,"date":"2026-08-25T12:20:46","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T16:20:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/?p=310291"},"modified":"2026-08-25T12:20:46","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T16:20:46","slug":"renaissance-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/3quarksdaily\/2026\/08\/renaissance-men.html","title":{"rendered":"Renaissance Men"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Brooke Allen at the <em>Hudson Review<\/em>:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-310292 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/images-1-360x360.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"360\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/images-1-360x360.webp 360w, https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/images-1-150x150.webp 150w, https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/images-1-300x300.webp 300w, https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/images-1.webp 493w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 360px) 100vw, 360px\" \/>English life in the later sixteenth century was of a bleakness and violence that is hard to credit now. Middle-aged people had lived through a whiplash-inducing series of political and religious about-faces, from Henry VIII\u2019s break with the Catholic church and dissolution of the monasteries, to his son Edward\u2019s stricter Protestant regime, to \u201cBloody\u201d Mary\u2019s return of the country to the Catholic fold, to the nine-day reign and then the execution of Lady Jane Grey, to Elizabeth\u2019s accession and attempts to establish a sustainable middle ground. Each change of regime, it goes without saying, was accompanied by \u201cdark waves of conspiracies, suspicions, arrests, and executions, all on top of the ordinary punishments meted out in a brutally punitive society\u201d and brought about \u201cunbearable stress and danger\u201d in the population. Culturally England was a backwater, on the very fringe of European society. The universities were hidebound. The most popular entertainments in London were animal fights.<b> <\/b>And then, in the years after 1580, it all changed: \u201ca constellation of brilliant poets, the greatest dramatists in the English language, extraordinary advances in navigation, astronomy, and mathematics, the first attempts to establish English colonies in the New World, and in intellectual life, the speculative and experimental daring that led Francis Bacon to declare that \u2018knowledge itself is power.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>more <a href=\"https:\/\/hudsonreview.com\/2026\/07\/renaissance-men\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by <a href=\"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/support-3qd\">donating now<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Brooke Allen at the Hudson Review: English life in the later sixteenth century was of a bleakness and violence that is hard to credit now. Middle-aged people had lived through a whiplash-inducing series of political and religious about-faces, from Henry VIII\u2019s break with the Catholic church and dissolution of the monasteries, to his son Edward\u2019s&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5918],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-310291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recommended-reading","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310291"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":310294,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310291\/revisions\/310294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":310276,"date":"2026-08-25T11:45:38","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T15:45:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/?p=310276"},"modified":"2026-08-25T10:05:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T14:05:13","slug":"the-ruthless-efficiency-of-ultrapotent-street-drugs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/3quarksdaily\/2026\/08\/the-ruthless-efficiency-of-ultrapotent-street-drugs.html","title":{"rendered":"The Ruthless Efficiency of Ultrapotent Street Drugs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Matt Richtel at the <em>New York Times<\/em>:<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-12m5bll evys1bk0\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-310277\" src=\"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/00HS-DRUGS-BALTIMOREnew-fpo-superJumbo-360x270.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"360\" height=\"270\" srcset=\"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/00HS-DRUGS-BALTIMOREnew-fpo-superJumbo-360x270.png 360w, https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/00HS-DRUGS-BALTIMOREnew-fpo-superJumbo-1024x768.png 1024w, https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/00HS-DRUGS-BALTIMOREnew-fpo-superJumbo-768x576.png 768w, https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/00HS-DRUGS-BALTIMOREnew-fpo-superJumbo-1536x1152.png 1536w, https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/00HS-DRUGS-BALTIMOREnew-fpo-superJumbo-300x225.png 300w, https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/00HS-DRUGS-BALTIMOREnew-fpo-superJumbo.png 1822w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 360px) 100vw, 360px\" \/>Since the early 2000s, the number of fatal overdoses in the United States has soared. And the rate in Baltimore \u2014 110 deaths per 100,000 residents, according\u00a0<a class=\"css-povzk\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/projects\/us-drug-overdose-deaths\/?fips=24005\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">to a recent analysis<\/a>\u00a0by the San Francisco Chronicle<strong class=\"F_p3NG_bold\">\u00a0<\/strong>\u2014 is the highest among cities with a populations of a half-million or more.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-12m5bll evys1bk0\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">The initial cause was prescription opioids, then heroin, and then, starting a decade ago, a new generation of synthetic opioids, mainly fentanyl. Now, new combinations of ultrapotent lab-made drugs reach the street almost daily, making the narcotics supply \u2014 in Baltimore and beyond \u2014 more dangerous, polluted and unpredictable than it has ever been.<\/p>\n<p>More <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/08\/24\/science\/drugs-opioids-fentanyl-baltimore.html?unlocked_article_code=1.8FA.NCcY.tYgXEuFmDZDO&amp;smid=url-share\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by <a href=\"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/support-3qd\">donating now<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Matt Richtel at the New York Times: Since the early 2000s, the number of fatal overdoses in the United States has soared. And the rate in Baltimore \u2014 110 deaths per 100,000 residents, according\u00a0to a recent analysis\u00a0by the San Francisco Chronicle\u00a0\u2014 is the highest among cities with a populations of a half-million or more. The&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5918],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-310276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recommended-reading","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310276"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":310279,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310276\/revisions\/310279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":310270,"date":"2026-08-25T09:45:21","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T13:45:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/?p=310270"},"modified":"2026-08-25T09:45:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T13:45:21","slug":"can-ai-ever-be-conscious-the-question-stems-from-a-misconception","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/3quarksdaily\/2026\/08\/can-ai-ever-be-conscious-the-question-stems-from-a-misconception.html","title":{"rendered":"Can AI ever be conscious? The question stems from a misconception"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Abeba Birhane in\u00a0<em>Nature:<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-310271 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/d41586-026-02571-9_53134452-360x301.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"360\" height=\"301\" srcset=\"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/d41586-026-02571-9_53134452-360x301.webp 360w, https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/d41586-026-02571-9_53134452-1024x856.webp 1024w, https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/d41586-026-02571-9_53134452-768x642.webp 768w, https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/d41586-026-02571-9_53134452-300x251.webp 300w, https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/d41586-026-02571-9_53134452.webp 1248w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 360px) 100vw, 360px\" \/>What does it mean for a machine to be intelligent, sentient or conscious? Can the idea of legal rights for machines ever be meaningfully justified? Those were once esoteric research questions; they have now moved into public debate. Such discussions usually start from the presumption that questions of human cognition, intelligence and consciousness are settled. But that\u2019s far from the case.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px\">In\u00a0<i>Intertwined Creatures<\/i>, cognitive scientist Anthony Chemero explains how much of the buzz around the consciousness of artificial intelligence is built on, at best, reductive notions of cognition and consciousness and, at worst, a misconception of what human minds are and do.<\/p>\n<p>More <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/d41586-026-02571-9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by <a href=\"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/support-3qd\">donating now<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Abeba Birhane in\u00a0Nature: What does it mean for a machine to be intelligent, sentient or conscious? Can the idea of legal rights for machines ever be meaningfully justified? Those were once esoteric research questions; they have now moved into public debate. Such discussions usually start from the presumption that questions of human cognition, intelligence and&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5918],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-310270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recommended-reading","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310270"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":310273,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310270\/revisions\/310273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":310253,"date":"2026-08-25T08:25:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T12:25:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/?p=310253"},"modified":"2026-08-25T09:48:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T13:48:28","slug":"these-20-words-are-worth-a-thousand-pictures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/3quarksdaily\/2026\/08\/these-20-words-are-worth-a-thousand-pictures.html","title":{"rendered":"These 20 Words Are Worth a Thousand Pictures"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>AO Scott and Aliza Aufrichtig in\u00a0<em>The New York Times:<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"g-text svelte-wbgwfj\" style=\"padding-left: 40px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-310254 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/00TBR-pound-02-superJumbo-360x288.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"360\" height=\"288\" srcset=\"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/00TBR-pound-02-superJumbo-360x288.jpg 360w, https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/00TBR-pound-02-superJumbo-1024x819.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/00TBR-pound-02-superJumbo-768x614.jpg 768w, https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/00TBR-pound-02-superJumbo-1536x1229.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/00TBR-pound-02-superJumbo-300x240.jpg 300w, https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/00TBR-pound-02-superJumbo.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 360px) 100vw, 360px\" \/>Let\u2019s say you\u2019re riding public transportation \u2014 maybe on your daily commute to work, or an excursion in an unfamiliar city \u2014 and something catches your eye, something about the urban horde surging around you that you hadn\u2019t noticed before. The impression sticks in your head, and eventually you write it down.\u00a0That\u2019s more or less what happened to the poet Ezra Pound one day in 1911. His record of what he saw, first published in Poetry Magazine in 1913, is one of the shortest great poems in the English language.<\/p>\n<div class=\"stanza svelte-t5804\">\n<div class=\"line svelte-t5804 selected-line\" style=\"text-align: center\"><strong><span class=\"word svelte-1hln89u title\"><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">I<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">n<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"word svelte-1hln89u title\"><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">a<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"word svelte-1hln89u title\"><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">S<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">t<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">a<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">t<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">i<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">o<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">n<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"word svelte-1hln89u title\"><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">o<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"word svelte-1hln89u title\"><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">t<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">h<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">e<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"word svelte-1hln89u title\"><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">M<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">e<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">t<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">r<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">o<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"word svelte-1hln89u author\"><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">b<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">y<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"word svelte-1hln89u author\"><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">E<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">z<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">r<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">a<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><span class=\"word svelte-1hln89u author\"><strong><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">P<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">o<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">u<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">n<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">d<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"stanza svelte-t5804\">\n<div class=\"line svelte-t5804 selected-line\" style=\"text-align: center\"><span class=\"word svelte-1hln89u\"><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">T<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">h<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">e<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"word svelte-1hln89u\"><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">a<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">p<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">p<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">a<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">r<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">i<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">t<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">i<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">o<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">n<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"word svelte-1hln89u\"><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">o<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"word svelte-1hln89u\"><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">t<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">h<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">e<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">s<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">e<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"word svelte-1hln89u\"><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">f<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">a<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">c<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">e<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">s<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"word svelte-1hln89u\"><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">i<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">n<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"word svelte-1hln89u\"><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">t<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">h<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">e<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"word-group svelte-t5804\"><span class=\"word svelte-1hln89u\"><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">c<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">r<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">o<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">w<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">d<\/span><\/span><span class=\"word svelte-1hln89u\"><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">;<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"line svelte-t5804 selected-line\" style=\"text-align: center\"><span class=\"word svelte-1hln89u\"><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">P<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">e<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">t<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">a<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">l<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">s<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"word svelte-1hln89u\"><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">o<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">n<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"word svelte-1hln89u\"><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">a<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"word-group svelte-t5804\"><span class=\"word svelte-1hln89u\"><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">w<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">e<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">t<\/span><\/span><span class=\"word svelte-1hln89u\"><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">,<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><span class=\"word svelte-1hln89u\"><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">b<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">l<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">a<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">c<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">k<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"word-group svelte-t5804\"><span class=\"word svelte-1hln89u\"><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">b<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">o<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">u<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">g<\/span><span class=\"letter svelte-1hln89u pound-effect-fadein\">h<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>More <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2026\/08\/24\/books\/ezra-pound-poem-station-metro.html?unlocked_article_code=1.8FA.NCd_.Jk8OkY8CXA1e&amp;smid=url-share\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here.<\/a><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by <a href=\"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/support-3qd\">donating now<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AO Scott and Aliza Aufrichtig in\u00a0The New York Times: Let\u2019s say you\u2019re riding public transportation \u2014 maybe on your daily commute to work, or an excursion in an unfamiliar city \u2014 and something catches your eye, something about the urban horde surging around you that you hadn\u2019t noticed before. The impression sticks in your head,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5918],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-310253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recommended-reading","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310253"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":310275,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310253\/revisions\/310275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":310247,"date":"2026-08-25T07:41:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T11:41:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/?p=310247"},"modified":"2026-08-25T07:41:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T11:41:18","slug":"tuesday-poem-514","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/3quarksdaily\/2026\/08\/tuesday-poem-514.html","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Poem"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Immigrant Confession<\/h2>\n<p>The Cherokee are not originally from Oklahoma. Settlers forced<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong>them to disappear west, into air and sky, beyond buildings,<br \/>\nbeyond concrete, beyond the rabid land hunger. There was<br \/>\na trail. There was despair. Reservations carved out of prairie<br \/>\ngrass, lost space and sadness in the middle of flat dirt. We landed<br \/>\nin March 1980. We knew nothing about the Cherokee.<br \/>\nSettlers from the South, driven by opportunities and education,<br \/>\nlooking for the gold and gifts of immigration, we hid our Spanish,<br \/>\nthe shame of accents and poverty, immersed ourselves in cowboy<br \/>\nways. In school we learned English, read about open, endless<br \/>\nland, a territory there by divine right for those willing, chosen<br \/>\nto till and build, for those exiled, broken out of other lands.<br \/>\nEvery spring the second grade celebrated the land rush. Half of us,<br \/>\nimmigrants flung across the globe, we wanted to be part of the story.<br \/>\nWe gathered in costume behind the chalk line in a field across from<br \/>\nWestbury elementary. Girls in calico skirts, bonnets, ruffled blouses.<br \/>\nBoys in straw hats, borrowed cowboy boots, chaps strapped with toy guns.<br \/>\nParents and picnic lunches waited on the sidelines. The cap gun popped.<br \/>\nThe second grade scattered wild, stakes in hand running, ready to claim<br \/>\nour piece of promised land. My parents celebrated the land rush twice,<br \/>\ntwo of us old enough to live into the strange alchemy of assimilation.<br \/>\nI learned later our stakes professed death, bloodied limbs, hacked up<br \/>\nhearts, bodies crushed, taken from the arid land with the wave of a flag,<br \/>\nthe pulsing stampede of wagons, the firing of the starting gun,<br \/>\ndisappeared with every second-grade spring picnic.<br \/>\nTwo million acres of territory taken in the first land rush.<br \/>\nMy immigrant confession: I have ached for my Oklahoma childhood,<br \/>\nmy territory story, when the land gave again, held a promise of country<br \/>\nafter exile. I have mourned the second-grade land rush, the look on<br \/>\nmy parents\u2019 faces as we galloped into yellow grass, screaming breathless<br \/>\nin joy and wildness, when they imagined an America big enough,<br \/>\nwide enough, whole enough to let us in, whole enough not to break us.<\/p>\n<p><em>by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.splitthisrock.org\/poetry-database\/search\/search&amp;poem_author_text-exact=M.%20Soledad%20Caballero\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">M. Soledad Caballero<\/a><\/em><br \/>\n<em>from<\/em> Split This Rock.Org<\/p>\n<p><strong>Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/support-3qd\">donating now<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Immigrant Confession The Cherokee are not originally from Oklahoma. Settlers forced them to disappear west, into air and sky, beyond buildings, beyond concrete, beyond the rabid land hunger. There was a trail. There was despair. Reservations carved out of prairie grass, lost space and sadness in the middle of flat dirt. We landed in March&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5918],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-310247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recommended-reading","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310247"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":310250,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310247\/revisions\/310250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":310055,"date":"2026-08-25T06:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T10:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/?p=310055"},"modified":"2026-08-24T01:30:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T05:30:07","slug":"in-this-corner-a-writer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/3quarksdaily\/2026\/08\/in-this-corner-a-writer.html","title":{"rendered":"In this corner, a writer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>by Dilip D&#8217;Souza<\/b><\/p>\n<p>August 15 is India&#8217;s Independence Day &#8211; this year, it was our 80th (1947, our first). This year, we were reminded by various government channels that the previous day, August 14, is <em>Vibhajan Vibhishika Smriti Diwas<\/em> (&#8220;Partition Horrors Remembrance Day&#8221;).<\/p>\n<p>This particular &#8220;Remembrance Day&#8221; is an annual memorial. Which may make you think this year was also the 80th such Day that we&#8217;ve observed. But no, it&#8217;s only the sixth. For it was first announced only in 2021, by Prime Minister Modi.<\/p>\n<p>To be clear: Of course we should remember the horrors of August 1947. Partition was a bloodbath, a horrific blot on the birth of two countries. But you&#8217;ll forgive me if I am just a little sceptical of the motives of the regime we have in India, in announcing such a memorial. Hostility and hatred killed over a million in 1947. Today, there is great political capital in keeping that hostility alive.<\/p>\n<p>Stuff like this, it gets me down. But then I remember how I once travelled across a large island, a country by itself, to meet a favourite and famous author. About how he wrote about murderous hostility. About how he made me feel.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_310064\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-310064\" style=\"width: 279px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-310064\" src=\"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Cal-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"279\" height=\"417\" srcset=\"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Cal-1.jpg 626w, https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Cal-1-241x360.jpg 241w, https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Cal-1-201x300.jpg 201w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 279px) 100vw, 279px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-310064\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">&#8220;Cal&#8221; &#8211; the edition I own<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Someone once asked for a list of my favourite books. It was a charm to compile. Just looking at the names brings memories floating in. The finely-detailed, beautifully-told slice of Roman history, the searching examination of pro basketball in the USA &#8230; and an exquisite novel set in Northern Ireland&#8217;s Troubles.<\/p>\n<p>Bernard MacLaverty&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.penguin.co.uk\/books\/360493\/cal-by-maclaverty-bernard\/9781807845148\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Cal<\/a> is about Marcella, a young widow, and Cal, the awkward post-teen who falls in love with her. Simple? But there are complications. For this is Northern Ireland, which is nearly explanation enough. Marcella and Cal come from opposite sides of the bloody chasm there, so reminiscent of chasms in our parts. Cal helps in a murder, and that, without revealing more, draws him to Marcella, wrapping him in grieving, remorseful love. Eventually, a measure of redemption destroys him.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Their story is so tender, so tragic, and MacLaverty writes with such shimmering beauty, that I was thoroughly drained when I finished <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Cal<\/span> &#8211; but still, inspired by his craft. This, I knew, is how I want to write. This is a story like I want to tell, about themes in my own country I want to explore. I may never write like him, but MacLaverty set the bar high enough for me that there remains plenty of satisfying terrain below.<\/p>\n<p>In England for some weeks some years ago, I knew I had to meet him. I wrote to his publisher asking how to get in touch with him. A few days later, a note arrived from MacLaverty himself, inviting me to visit him in Glasgow. (Though he was born in Belfast, MacLaverty is part of a large Irish emigr\u00e9 community in Glasgow.)<\/p>\n<p>Quickly, I planned a trip there, even managing to call it work. Then again, at the time &#8220;work&#8221; actually consisted of learning all I could about Northern Ireland, its religious wrangles and the parallels to India and Pakistan. (All the way to this odd parallel: In Belfast, there&#8217;s a Kashmir Road.)<\/p>\n<p>MacLaverty fit right in.<\/p>\n<p>Reading <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Cal<\/span>, I had imagined MacLaverty as a thoughtful man with a feel for both the tragedies and the absurdities of life; a twinkle-eyed soul who somehow would make it seem entirely natural to combine great sadness with quiet but sharp humour. I had all that in mind as I found my way to MacLaverty&#8217;s airy ground-floor flat with its graceful bay windows. Me the awestruck fanboy, MacLaverty the gracious host &#8230; we sat in the alcove formed by one of those windows and chatted: about the Troubles, writing, the Irish, how hatreds corrode people, enmity and love, India, nationalism that projects onto football and cricket. And he was much like the impression of him I had arrived with. He had those twinkling eyes, he thought through whatever he said, he spoke softly yet firmly, he had that gentle sense of humour.<\/p>\n<p>And there was the way he made me feel. As if he was even more honoured to meet me than I was to be with him. As if I was the famous author. I was floored. And moved.<\/p>\n<p>Later, Bernard &#8211; &#8220;Call me Bernard, eh?&#8221; he told me sternly at one point &#8211; stood and said, &#8220;Enough talking, let&#8217;s get a beer!&#8221; So we strolled through the neighbourhood, me and this famous son of Glasgow, nobody paying us the slightest attention. At a nearby bar, we got our drinks and sat on the slope of a hill behind, surrounded by sunning students also not paying us the slightest attention. Later still, he said, &#8220;Look, I&#8217;ve got to get home and go to a concert, but why don&#8217;t we meet again afterwards, eh? At night?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So I dined somewhere forgettable by my lonesome and returned to meet Bernard and his wife Madeline at a smoke-filled bar that had me coughing. They looked delighted that I had come back. He walked me around the place introducing me to various friends, some of them stars of the Scottish literary firmament. &#8220;That one&#8221;, said Bernard, pointing to a graying goateed man asleep on his cheek at his table, &#8220;now that one, believe me, he&#8217;s Scotland&#8217;s finest writer ever.&#8221; Alasdair Gray, author of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lanark:_A_Life_in_Four_Books\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lanark: A Life in Four Books<\/a>\u00a0&#8211; &#8220;<em>one of the great novels of our time<\/em>,&#8221; one blurb calls it, &#8220;<em>a surreal mural of unsettling images and ideas vigorously coloured with anarchic humour<\/em>&#8221; &#8211; rose slowly to his feet when Bernard woke him, shook my hand with an old-world dignity, then sat back down, gently put his cheek back on the table and closed his eyes again.<\/p>\n<p>The surreal part was my presence here, surrounded as I was by celebrated literary talent that had enveloped me right away in laughter and friendship. Smoking, coughing friendship, but no less felt for that.<\/p>\n<p>The hours passed in a blur, or more appropriately, a beer- and cigarette-laced haze. Well into the night, Madeline and Bernard walked me part of the way to where I was staying, then hugged me goodnight and turned back toward their home. I had in my hands a copy of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.penguin.co.uk\/books\/355367\/walking-the-dog-and-other-stories-by-bernard-maclaverty\/9781409042266\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Walking the Dog<\/a>, a collection of his short stories, and <a href=\"https:\/\/thebookerprizes.com\/the-booker-library\/books\/grace-notes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Grace Notes<\/a>, his beautiful third novel that Arundhati Roy pipped to the 1997 Booker, both autographed. I had in my heart a fullness of the spirit that lasted for days. An exhilaration that came from the generosity a marvellous writer had shown a mere unabashed admirer from half the world away.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Cal<\/span>\u00a0spoke to me of what tears people apart, but what writing about it does. MacLaverty&#8217;s warmth &#8211; Bernard&#8217;s warmth! &#8211; that day said things about the simple, genuine humanity of the man. It came to me that night: it was no surprise that this man wrote that book.<\/p>\n<p>No surprise that he looked at a fierce divide, at the price we pay for our manufactured hostilities &#8211; but then found threads that, nevertheless, link us all. I think about all that every August. Every &#8220;Remembrance Day&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Dilip D&#8217;Souza August 15 is India&#8217;s Independence Day &#8211; this year, it was our 80th (1947, our first). This year, we were reminded by various government channels that the previous day, August 14, is Vibhajan Vibhishika Smriti Diwas (&#8220;Partition Horrors Remembrance Day&#8221;). This particular &#8220;Remembrance Day&#8221; is an annual memorial. Which may make you&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1841,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3260],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-310055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mondaymagazine","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1841"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310055"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":310154,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310055\/revisions\/310154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":309838,"date":"2026-08-25T05:00:40","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T09:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/?p=309838"},"modified":"2026-08-24T01:22:45","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T05:22:45","slug":"speech-is-who-we-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/3quarksdaily\/2026\/08\/speech-is-who-we-are.html","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Speech is Who We Are&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>by Steve Szilagyi<\/strong><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_309886\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-309886\" style=\"width: 360px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-309886 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Throat-image-3-360x303.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"360\" height=\"303\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-309886\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>The ruined voice box was replaced with an entire donor larynx, plus part of the donor\u2019s pharynx and trachea, thyroid and parathyroid glands. Nerves and blood vessels were reconnected. (Medical illustration.)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I was cleaning my office the other day and came across some notes for a book I\u2019d been commissioned to write many years ago. The topic was remarkable surgical cases. The book never got finished; the publisher went out of business. But there were a lot of notes for one chapter in particular, and I thought I might try and work them up. So here we go:<\/p>\n<p>The story begins with a young head and neck surgeon named Marshall Strome removing a man\u2019s voice box. It\u2019s a common treatment for some advanced cancers of the larynx that removes the cancer along with the voice box. The downside is loss of the natural voice.<\/p>\n<p>It was only Strome\u2019s second total laryngectomy. He felt pretty good about it. Before the operation, the patient had been facing certain death from cancer. Now the man could look forward to years of life.<\/p>\n<p>Three weeks later, the patient\u2014who had no previous history of mental problems\u2014jumped to his death from a bridge.<\/p>\n<p>The surgeon was shaken.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI realized then that people were willing to die because they could not speak,\u201d Strome told me when I interviewed him 22 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>The deeper Strome looked into the problem, the more troubling it became. Depression is a well-recognized consequence of total laryngectomy, and suicidal thinking has long been a concern among patients struggling with the loss of their natural voice. Strome believed women were particularly vulnerable. In his experience, some women even refused the operation, preferring the risk of death from cancer to life without a natural voice.<\/p>\n<p>As a head and neck surgeon, Strome knew he would be facing this issue for the rest of his career. Was it possible to find a treatment for advanced larynx cancer that allowed patients to retain the power of speech?<\/p>\n<p>It hadn\u2019t been long since Christiaan Barnard had become a surgical superstar by performing the first heart transplant. Caught up in the excitement, Strome began contemplating something equally momentous.<\/p>\n<p>A human larynx transplant.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>In the back of his mind, Strome began constructing the ideal patient for this untried procedure: someone young and strong who had lost his voice box through accident or trauma, not cancer. Someone psychologically stable and otherwise healthy. Someone who loved life but was reckless enough with his luck to risk death in an experimental operation for the chance to speak again.<\/p>\n<p>Did such a person even exist?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Shortcut to Disaster<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>On the morning of June 11, 1978, 22-year-old Tim Heidler climbed onto his motorcycle and headed for volunteer firefighter training in central Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy friends called me \u2018Mr.\u00a0Edge,\u2019\u201d he told me. \u201cBecause that\u2019s where I like to live.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Heidler decided to take a shortcut down a dirt road that crossed private property. Motorcyclists had used the road often enough to anger someone involved with the property, who had strung a strong steel cable across it.<\/p>\n<p>Heidler raced toward it at 40 miles per hour. At the last moment he saw the cable and tried to lay the bike down. Too late.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt caught me right across the throat and head,\u201d he said. \u201cIf I\u2019d have been wearing a helmet with a face mask, it would have torn my whole head off.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The cable crushed his larynx and hurled him backward.<\/p>\n<p>Lying on his back, Heidler stared up into a clear blue sky.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI tried to scream. Nothing came out. It was getting hard to breathe. I thought I was going to die.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His body was battered. It was agony for him to move any part of it. But he was all alone in the woods. There was no choice but to get up and walk.<\/p>\n<p>His firefighter friends were practicing at the local elementary school when one of them noticed a figure making its way across the ball field, wearing a motorcycle helmet and walking with the stiff gait of a corpse from <em>Dawn of the Dead<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen they saw me coming,\u201d Heidler said, \u201cthey fell off the building and came running.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He spent eight hours in emergency surgery that day. Whatever food he had eaten that morning was the last food to cross his lips for the next year. Whatever casual remarks he had made to his wife and six-month-old son were the last sensible sounds they would hear from a larynx that was now a mash of tissue and cartilage.<\/p>\n<p>Heidler left the operating room breathing through a hole in his neck.<\/p>\n<p>Then things got worse.<\/p>\n<p>He developed pneumonia, staph infections and pancreatitis. Infection spread to his brain, and he fell into a coma that lasted two and a half months. He lost more than 100 pounds.<\/p>\n<p>Then he woke up.<\/p>\n<p>Three months after the accident he was transferred to Pittsburgh, where he underwent 29 more operations. Surgeons repeatedly tried to make surgical sense of his larynx. Nothing worked.<\/p>\n<p>A year after the accident, the robust, rambunctious young man who loved the sound of his own voice was wan, silent and scrawny. Rehabilitation specialists had to reteach him the elementary activities of life.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually he returned home. He tried to resume volunteer firefighting by driving a truck, but a driver who couldn\u2019t shout warnings or directions was a liability.<\/p>\n<p>His firefighting days were over.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSpend a day with a piece of duct tape over your mouth,\u201d he said. \u201cSee what it\u2019s like.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Heidler learned to use an electronic larynx, which created a buzz that he could sculpt into words with his lips, tongue and teeth. The resulting speech was understandable but robotic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy own son was afraid of me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Years passed.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Waiting for Medicine to Catch up with Him<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Then, in the mid-1990s, Heidler began dating an emergency-room nurse. The nurse knew transplant medicine was advancing rapidly.<\/p>\n<p>Something, she thought, had to be going on somewhere that could help this man.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Something was.<\/p>\n<p>Marshall Strome had spent years experimenting with larynx transplantation. Dogs hadn\u2019t worked the way he wanted. Sheep were too big. Finally he settled on rats.<\/p>\n<p>Under a microscope, using needles as small and curving as an eyelash, he removed their larynxes and replaced them with those of other rats.<\/p>\n<p>In 1992, Strome and his colleagues published a paper describing a successful rat model for vascularized laryngeal transplantation.<\/p>\n<p>But rats can\u2019t talk. Strome needed something larger.<\/p>\n<p>Something that could tell him how the experiment was going.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA big rat,\u201d joked Timothy Heidler. \u201cThat\u2019s what I am. The big experimental rat.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>By then Strome had left Harvard, where he felt his transplant ambitions were not taken seriously. \u201cThey thought I was crazy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>In Cleveland he found someone who didn\u2019t: Floyd Loop, the heart surgeon who was then chairman and CEO of the Cleveland Clinic.<\/p>\n<p>In 1993, Loop recruited Strome to head the Clinic\u2019s Department of Otolaryngology.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe gave me everything I needed to make it happen,\u201d said Strome.<\/p>\n<p>Strome began rehearsing transplant surgery in earnest. But the technical problems were only part of the challenge. There was an enormous ethical question.<\/p>\n<p>A heart transplant patient risks death because the alternative is death. But the larynx is not a vital organ. You can live without one. A transplant recipient would undergo major surgery and then face the lifelong hazards of immunosuppressive drugs: infection, malignancy and other potentially fatal complications.<\/p>\n<p>Was it ethical to risk someone\u2019s life merely to give him a voice?<\/p>\n<p>Strome believed it was.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSpeech is who we are,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He had never forgotten the patient who jumped from the bridge.<\/p>\n<p>After repeated appearances before the Cleveland Clinic\u2019s institutional review board, Strome received approval. LifeBanc, northeastern Ohio\u2019s organ procurement organization, put out the word: the Cleveland Clinic wanted a larynx.<\/p>\n<p>The call reached Nason Hospital in Roaring Spring, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n<p>Heidler\u2019s emergency nurse girlfriend heard it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wanted to do it for Tim as a Christmas present,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>She called Cleveland.<\/p>\n<p>At first, the Clinic thought she was offering a donor organ. Then she explained: \u201cI have someone here who might make a good <em>recipient.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Clinic invited them to Cleveland.<\/p>\n<p>Most importantly, Heidler had never had cancer. A cancer patient receiving immunosuppressive drugs risked recurrence. A trauma victim avoided that danger.<\/p>\n<p>A team of specialists subjected Heidler to a gauntlet of physical and psychological testing. Then came the final interview.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe essentially did everything in our power to talk him out of it,\u201d said one of the physicians involved. \u201cWe were brutal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Strome told Heidler to go home and think about it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI remember turning to a colleague and saying, \u2018That\u2019s it. We\u2019ll never see him again.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Heidler returned to Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n<p>Then he called.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ll do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Now all they had to do was wait for someone to die.<\/p>\n<p>The donor was a healthy 40-year-old man from southern Ohio who suffered a catastrophic cerebral hemorrhage just after New Year\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>At seven one evening, Strome\u2019s telephone rang.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have a match,\u201d they said. \u201cThe perfect donor.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Strome turned to his wife.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is it,\u201d he said. \u201cIf this fails, they\u2019ll call me a lunatic. It will impact you. It will impact our son.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He asked what she wanted him to do.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGet on that plane,\u201d she said. \u201cIf something goes wrong, we\u2019ll find an island to live on.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Strome and surgeon Raymond Esclamado flew south through a violent storm to harvest the organ. Eventually they removed the larynx, most of the pharynx, six tracheal rings, thyroid and parathyroid glands and placed the assemblage in a cooler.<\/p>\n<p>Strome looked at it.<\/p>\n<p>It seemed awfully big.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile Heidler\u2019s pager went off in Pennsylvania. <em>They found a donor!<\/em> His bag was already packed. A chartered plane waited at the Altoona-Blair airport.<\/p>\n<p>By 5:30 the next morning, the surgical team had assembled at the Cleveland Clinic.<\/p>\n<p>Before removing Heidler\u2019s ruined larynx, Strome did something he himself called \u201ccrazy.\u201d He laid the donor organ next to Heidler\u2019s neck and temporarily hooked it to his blood vessels.<\/p>\n<p>He removed the clamps.<\/p>\n<p>The donor larynx fairly feasted on Heidler\u2019s blood, the first it had tasted in almost ten hours.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI had to see if it would perfuse,\u201d Strome said. \u201cIf I\u2019d taken the old one out and discovered that the new one didn\u2019t work, we would have seriously jeopardized the patient.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It worked.<\/p>\n<p>Now came the size problem.<\/p>\n<p>The donor larynx was much bigger than Heidler\u2019s. It simply wouldn\u2019t fit.<\/p>\n<p>The surgeons divided into two camps: tight-fitters and loose-fitters. Most wanted to trim away enough muscle to make the new organ fit tightly. Strome worried that a tight fit might make the suture line leak, inviting catastrophic infection in an immunosuppressed patient.<\/p>\n<p>He overruled the majority and left more muscle.<\/p>\n<p>The operation lasted about 12 hours.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs I finished sewing the larynx in, I thought, \u2018Oh God, the thing is alive. It\u2019s working.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Technically, the transplant had succeeded.<\/p>\n<p>Now Heidler had to survive it.<\/p>\n<p>He was given powerful immunosuppressive drugs to prevent his body from rejecting the foreign organ. Strome hardly slept during the first month.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThinking about the patient all the time, I lost close to ten pounds.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Biopsy after biopsy showed no rejection.<\/p>\n<p>But two questions remained.<\/p>\n<p>Could Heidler speak?<\/p>\n<p>Could he swallow?<\/p>\n<p>The doctors expected it might take five months before he could produce his first syllable.<\/p>\n<p>Three days after surgery, Strome walked into Heidler\u2019s hospital room.<\/p>\n<p>The patient was grinning.<\/p>\n<p>Strome suggested he try to say something.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHello,\u201d Heidler said.<\/p>\n<p>Now Strome was grinning.<\/p>\n<p>Heidler tried again.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHi Mom!\u201d He grinned.<\/p>\n<p>A dead set of vocal cords now buzzed with new life.<\/p>\n<p>Heidler\u2019s new voice was lower than his old one. It was not the donor\u2019s voice. He retained the same central Pennsylvania accent and personal vocal inflections he\u2019d had before his accident. The transplanted larynx supplied the sound; the architecture of his mouth and head, and the habits of a lifetime, made the voice his own.<\/p>\n<p>He could even sing, though not particularly well.<\/p>\n<p>There was still the question of swallowing. The doctors thought this might be harder than speaking. Swallowing requires numerous structures to work in precise coordination, and much of Heidler\u2019s throat had been transplanted.<\/p>\n<p>The doctors intended to proceed cautiously.<\/p>\n<p>Heidler did not.<\/p>\n<p>Three months after surgery, he decided his throat was working pretty well. He sat down and ate a meal of pot roast, salad and a dinner roll.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt could have killed him,\u201d Strome said. \u201cHe could have aspirated.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But it didn\u2019t. The transplanted mechanism worked.<\/p>\n<p>Heidler could eat.<\/p>\n<p>He could talk.<\/p>\n<p>He had his voice back.<\/p>\n<p>Strome waited three years before publishing the results in the <em>New England Journal of Medicine<\/em>. He wanted to make sure the transplant had truly taken. When the results appeared, network news programs, CNN, <em>Time<\/em> and newspapers around the world descended on the story.<\/p>\n<p>Heidler spoke to them all.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAny voice is better than no voice,\u201d he told me.<\/p>\n<p>And there, more or less, my old notes ended.<\/p>\n<p>They ended at exactly the place such stories usually end: with the breakthrough accomplished, the patient restored, the doctors celebrated, and everybody looking expectantly toward the future.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What Happened After the Miracle. <\/strong>Looking at my notes 22 years later, I found myself wondering what that future had actually brought.<\/p>\n<p>I recall that first flush of excitement when everyone thought that larynx transplant was going to be a &#8220;next big thing.&#8221; It didn\u2019t turn out that way. There&#8217;s no international registry for the procedure, but by my count barely more than a dozen have been attempted since Strome&#8217;s, and only about half of those with known outcomes could be called successful.<\/p>\n<p>Strome had always imagined the operation&#8217;s real beneficiaries would be cancer patients \u2013 not accident victims like Heidler. But there was a built-in problem: the last thing patients with circulating cancer cells need is the kind of immunosuppression that you need for a successful transplant. (In 2024, a team in Arizona successfully transplanted a donor organ into a patient with active cancer \u2013 but that patient was already immunosuppressed from an unrelated kidney transplant.)<\/p>\n<p>So despite Strome\u2019s hopes, larynx transplant sputtered. But it produced a priceless body of knowledge \u2013 quietly improving the art of transplant, microsurgery, patient selection and more. And it\u2019s now on that list of elective procedures \u2013 face transplant, hand transplant, bariatric surgery, sex-change, etc. \u2013 that are a growing challenge for medical ethicists weighing real risk against no survival benefit.<\/p>\n<p>As for Heidler, he had no doubts about the value of his long ordeal. In 2011, he told CNN the operation had changed his life &#8220;dramatically,&#8221; and that he&#8217;d do it again despite a lifetime on immunosuppressants.<\/p>\n<p>But his destiny took another dramatic turn only one year later. Slow, chronic rejection had taken a toll on Heidler\u2019s now not-so-new larynx. Doctors recommended that it be removed for the patient\u2019s own good. Heidler agreed, and for a second time, his voice was taken away from him. This time, there was no replacement waiting by the table.<\/p>\n<p>Since then, I can find nothing about him online and in the media.<\/p>\n<p>A kind of silence has fallen. I wish him the best.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by <a href=\"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/support-3qd\">donating now<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Steve Szilagyi I was cleaning my office the other day and came across some notes for a book I\u2019d been commissioned to write many years ago. The topic was remarkable surgical cases. The book never got finished; the publisher went out of business. But there were a lot of notes for one chapter in&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":492,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3260],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-309838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mondaymagazine","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/492"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309838"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":310152,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309838\/revisions\/310152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}]