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Finnegan’s wake, a new interpretation based on AI

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Jeffrey B.
Finnegan’s wake, a new interpretation based on AI

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“Finnegan's Wake is an information pool based on computer memory systems that didn't exist until a century after James Joyce's era” -- Philip K. Dick

The wake has been a mystery to readers for nearly a hundred years. As Philip K. Dick noted above, we now can use latest artificial intelligence algorithm (GPT-3) to attempt decipher the meaning of select pages of the wake. We will compare the results to the standard interpretations of the wake as a biblical allegory (a skeleton key to Finnegans wake by Joseph Campbell), a complex reference to classic literature (Annotations to Finnegans wake by Roland McHugh) or a groundbreaking work of Avant guard art that could be made into an opera or ballet (John Cage).

Lastly, we will vote on what we and the computer think these passages of the wake mean. Is it the bible redo, a complex crossword puzzle, free jazz, or something else?

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Innovative contemporary fiction reading group
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