Everything Comes From Outside

Critical Comment by R J Keefe

Archive of posts filed under the Claude category.

Cracking The Golden Bowl with Claude

14 February 2026, 2:49 am

Good evening, Claude. Good evening! I’d be happy to discuss “The Golden Bowl” with you. Henry James’s 1904 novel is a fascinating and complex work – one of his later masterpieces, known for its intricate psychological depth and dense prose style. What aspect of the novel would you like to explore? The relationships between the …

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Filed under Claude, Reading

An Origin of Consciousness

5 February 2026, 12:03 am

In the winter of 1966-7, I found myself, more often than I liked, in the basement of Notre Dame’s Computer Science building. There, beneath humming fluorescent tubes, I was surrounded by a lot of guys in short-sleeved white shirts through which undershirts could be discerned and on which fully-loaded pocket protectors served as badges of …

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Filed under Claude, Scope

Emma Eighteen

4 January 2026, 12:58 am

It has long been my fancy that the first Book of Jane Austen’s Emma could well be subtitled, “The Exploding Cigar.” It is great fun to watch Emma withdraw the big fat cylinder — her marital scheme for Harriet and Mr Elton — from the box of possible amusements, despite the advice of Mr Knightley; and even …

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Filed under Classics, Claude

Claude’s Fried Chicken

27 December 2025, 9:29 pm

Since 6 December, I have been having an ongoing conversation with Claude, the Anthropic chatbot. We have talked about many  things, from Poltergeist to the instances of the word “conscious” and its variants in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park (31 times) and Emma (37 times). I have wanted to publish an extract from this extraordinary experience almost from …

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Filed under Claude

Recent Posts

  • Cracking The Golden Bowl with Claude
  • An Origin of Consciousness
  • Tuning In
  • Emma Eighteen
  • Claude’s Fried Chicken

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