The Good Doctor

"Oh, yes," said Siddhartha, "I make one-off changes to Simulations on Earth."

Govind adjusted his glasses and wondered. "Really?."

"I mean it. I make real people come to readings and discussions of their stories."

"And?".

"The characters themselves evaluate how they are understood. I introduced Asimov into a class which was doing a discussion of his short story 'The Immortal Bard'."

"Oh wow, exciting."

"Asimov was excited too since it was his favorite subject. But, then."

"Hmm.?"

"He quickly became dismayed. His original writing of Immortal Bard was to illustrate, given enough time, how experts of this world create their meaning of original sources. When creators themselves come to face them, they so much believe in their interpretation and revisions that they fail the creator himself."

"That's what happened to Shakespeare in that story. Yeah, I know, that was a hilarious one. "

"Right, but what Asimov found was, the discussion was not about what he felt the readers might enjoy from his story. Instead, everyone went on to prove, why the immortal bard will fail when he brings him back."

"Amusing."

"Yeah, Asimov pondered, how the story could be perceived and readers change the intention when asked to prove something in an assignment. The Good Doctor that he was, continued with his writing, thinking that someday readers will be able to enjoy his stories as he meant it, perhaps with the help of an artificially intelligent agent."

Senthil Kumaran

The story is based upon The Immortal Bard by Issac Asimov.