from Uncle Ben

****
Lev's Visit to Maryland in April 2010

Though Lev and I never lived nearby each other, we saw each other at
least once a year, sometimes more. Most recently he had spent (almost)
a week at my house (in Rockville Maryland) in April 2010 -- 3 months
before his death. It was a great visit, with some fascinating
conversations as well as lots of video games, frisbee, hiking,
rock-climbing and so forth.

All 3 of my kids really enjoyed the visit, but Lev and my daughter
Scheherazade (now 13) have long been [damn, I guess I should say
"were"...] particularly close and always enjoy [enjoyed...] each
others company especially.  Although when  my sons and I wrestled with
Lev, Scheherazade refused to participate.  She loved Lev but didn't
trust him not to squash her !!!

On a visit to the Cacoctin Mountains, Lev was particularly impressed
with my rock-clambering capability -- and I semi-tried (but failed) to
convince him to do some dangerous things, like a leap over a deep 3
foot crevasse... and a difficult climb down another crevasse, which
involved wedging your body between the two sides and lowering yourself
bit by bit for 15 feet or so.  But he seemed to vicariously enjoy my
reckless risking of my own life, though he was more conservative with
his own safety!!!

I was struck by how fast he was growing up all of a sudden. Lev had
always been a smart and inquisitive kid, but on this visit he was more
interested to carry out lengthy intellectual chats -- about DNA, time
travel, AI and so forth. He also showed a deep knowledge of history
and politics, with an insight into Western history complementing my
own sons' recent study of Japanese and Mongolian history. We even
discussed the possibility of immortality via technological means, and
he was all in favor.

Lev was a devout heavy metal head, and particularly a devotee of
Metallica.  I like metal OK, but on a long car drive I tried to
convert him to jazz fusion (played on the car stereo) ... and I failed
-- though he admitted that some of it sounded a bit like music.

One thing that strikes me looking back on that visit are the
unfinished conversations.  As we chatted about AI and pharmacological
immortality and eugenics and unified physics and all sort of stuff,
lots and lots of conversational threads were left dangling, which I
figured would get picked up next time we saw each other.   I'm a big
fan of ongoing multi-year conversations, and seeing how peoples' views
on issues change as they learn and evolve.