The Origins of "Grok."

[MineralMan]

It occurs to me that not everyone knows where the word "Grok" comes from. It originally was used by Robert A. Heinlein in 1961 in his SciFi novel, Stranger in a Strange Land. Originally it had the meaning of "to understand something intuitively and deeply." The word sort of entered the everyday vocabulary of a lot of people who were taken by Heinlein's point of view. Over time, it sort of fell out of common usage. When Elon Musk used it as part of the name of his AI product, it was reintroduced into vocabulary, but with a somewhat different meaning. Personally, I feel like Musk doesn't grok Heinlein's concept very well.

Anyhow, if you're interested, you can learn more at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok

[ForgedCrank]

1. Ok, I got

this was messed up. All this time, I thought he named it after the alien robot from the movie :The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951).
But I just looked it up and that robot or whatever you want to call it was named Gort.

[Swede]

2. I did not enjoy that story, had to slog through it.

I can't remember why it didn't click with me.

[MineralMan]

6. A lot of his stuff was complicated and erratic.

Still, interesting, as I remember.

He had some real flaws, though, in his approach to things. Rooting those out was part of reading what he wrote.

[nilram]

23. In my opinion, he wrote two stories in his career.

The first part of Stranger in a Strange land was the interesting one. The latter part of that book, and all the other novels, were tedious and repetitive.

[erronis]

28. I'd guess it was assigned reading. I was at the U in the mid 60s. A lot of profs thought Heinlein

was the cat's meow (or cradle.)

[Orrex]

37. That's Vonnegut

[erronis]

39. Of course. Glad you noticed.

[Orrex]

51. I figured you knew, but I couldn't resist geeking out

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. Heinlein became libertarian, even if he still had some compassion. The Wikipedia article has a section

which pretty much allows anyone to apply any meaning to 'grok' as long as it includes "completely understand":

Descriptions in Stranger in a Strange Land

Critic David E. Wright Sr. points out that in the 1991 "uncut" edition of Stranger, the word grok "was used first without any explicit definition on page 22" and continued to be used without being explicitly defined until page 253 (emphasis in original).[3] He notes that this first intensional definition is simply "to drink", but that this is only a metaphor "much as English 'I see' often means the same as 'I understand'".[3] Critics have bridged this absence of explicit definition by citing passages from Stranger that illustrate the term. A selection of these passages follows:

Grok means "to understand", of course, but Dr. Mahmoud, who might be termed the leading Terran expert on Martians, explains that it also means, "to drink" and "a hundred other English words, words which we think of as antithetical concepts. 'Grok' means all of these. It means 'fear', it means 'love', it means 'hate' — proper hate, for by the Martian 'map' you cannot hate anything unless you grok it, understand it so thoroughly that you merge with it and it merges with you — then you can hate it. By hating yourself. But this implies that you love it, too, and cherish it and would not have it otherwise. Then you can hate — and (I think) Martian hate is an emotion so black that the nearest human equivalent could only be called mild distaste.[4]

Grok means "identically equal". The human cliché "This hurts me worse than it does you" has a distinctly Martian flavor. The Martian seems to know instinctively what we learned painfully from modern physics, that observer acts with observed through the process of observation. Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed — to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science and it means as little to us as color does to a blind man.[4][5]

The Martian Race had encountered the people of the fifth planet, grokked them completely, and had taken action; asteroid ruins were all that remained, save that the Martians continued to praise and cherish the people they had destroyed.[4]

All that groks is God.[6]

Heinlein's politics:

In truth, Heinlein’s shift to the right took place over a decade, from 1948 to 1957. In the early 1950s, the Heinleins travelled around the world. The writer was already a Malthusian and a eugenicist, but the trip greatly exacerbated his demographic despair and xenophobia. “The real problem of the Far East is not that so many of them are communists, but simply that there are so many of them,” he wrote in a 1954 travel book (posthumously published in 1992). Even space travel, Heinlein concluded, wouldn’t be able to open enough room to get rid of “them.” Heinlein treated overpopulation as a personal affront.

Heinlein had caught a bad case of the Cold War jitters in the late 1940s. He accused liberal Democratic friends, notably the director Fritz Lang, of being Stalinist stooges. With Heinlein's great talent for extrapolation, every East-West standoff seemed like the end of the world. “I do not think we have better than an even chance of living, as a nation, through the next five years,” he wrote an editor in 1957. The USSR's Sputnik launch in 1957 and Eisenhower’s moves toward a nuclear test ban the following year both unhinged Heinlein, who called Ike a “slimy faker.” By 1961 Heinlein concluded that even though it was a “fascist organization,” the John Birch Society was preferable to liberals and moderate conservatives.

The turning point came in 1957. After that year, Heinlein's books were no longer progressive explorations of the future but hectoring diatribes lamenting the decadence of modernity. A recurring character in these books—variously named Hugh Farnham, Jubal Harshaw or Lazarus Long—is a crusty older man who's a wellspring of wisdom. “Daddy, you have an annoying habit of being right,” runs an actual bit of dialogue from Farnham’s Freehold (1964). In the worst of Heinlein's later books, daddy not only knows best, he often knows everything.

Only on the issue of sex did Heinlein remain faithful to the radicalism of his youth, with some of his late books portraying a future where bisexuality is the norm. Yet even on sex, late-period Heinlein is an untrustworthy guide. Many readers have been disturbed by the pro-incest arguments found in such books as Farnham’s Freehold, Time Enough For Love (1973), and To Sail Beyond the Sunset (1987). Perhaps the best that can be said on Heinlein’s behalf is that incest served as an objective correlative to his libertarianism and solipsism. What better way of being an independent free agent than by sleeping with your closest kin

https://newrepublic.com/article/118048/william-pattersons-robert-heinlein-biography-hagiography

[MineralMan]

4. I didn't get into Heinlein's personality or politics at all.

I read his novels. He wandered around in the world of philosophy and ended up who knows where. I always figured that I would not like him as a human being, but he explored some new ground in his writing. So, like a lot of people, I tolerated his sometimes bizarre ideas for the sake of his creativity.

It's easy to see, though, that Musk was probably a fan of his writing. That's true for a lot of libertarians. He was certainly in that mindset.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. Thanks for the link. The writer is pretty balanced but is harsh on Heinlein's flaws, as he should be.

In recent years it has become a sport to deride Heinlein as some kind of weird extreme loathsome creature we have to deal with. Jeet Heer does a good job of admiringly highlighting at various points aspects of Heinlein's towering imagination, his intellect, his wide-ranging mind. But he also minces no words when needed to point out negatives. For example, he says Farmham's Freehold is an anti-racist novel (very true) that only a Klansman could love (also true, one of my least favourite books of his).

Heinlein is always thought-provoking and well worth the time because he also is a master story teller. It's worth starting with The Moon is a Harsh Mistress or the Future History collection or Time Enough for Love or Red Planet.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

5. I recommend this thread :)

[eShirl]

7. everyone should read Stranger in a Strange Land at least once, IMHO

glad I read it as a teen, I should reread one of these days

[genxlib]

10. Thumbnail avatars aside

I suppose we disagree here.

Although "must read" is not necessarily the same thing as "enjoyable read"

It is just funny to see Max Headroom side by side in posts.

[MineralMan]

12. I was an avid reader of "hard" science fiction in the 50s and 60s.

It was good exercise for my imagination. I couldn't stand the sword and sorcery stuff. Guys flying in spaceships and fighting with swords and magic spells just didn't make any sense to me. I started with Isaak Asimov in the 50s and kept reading in that genre until I was in my 20s. It was Asimov who led me into a career of nonfiction writing. He was just about the best explainer I have ever encountered. I never reached his level of popularity, but I managed to help many people understand technical stuff. Heinlein always annoyed me in a political sense, but he was a good story teller.

[HeartsCanHope]

20. What was so wonderful about Asimov is that he wrote a wide variety of topics both in fiction and nonfiction.

He was truly one of the great minds.

[MineralMan]

21. Yes. He was one of the most prolific non-fiction writers ever.

I read pretty much all of his writings, and learned a great deal from them. He wrote about history in multiple volumes. He explained the Bible in detail. He wrote books targeting lay people on just about ever branch of science.

His genius was being able to explain complex concepts in relatively simple language. His logic always tracked smoothly and he was an expert at leading the reader along the path he wanted them to take to get to the information.

I think it was about when I turned 16 that I realized that I needed to study how he wrote, so I could try to emulate his long career. I never went as far, but I did follow his principles of story-telling. That worked for me to create a writing career that went across multiple topics. He has my thanks.

[HeartsCanHope]

26. My background is in library science. Asimov was able to reach his readers at their level.

From children's books to adults, Asimov was able to provide education and entertainment in equal measure. He remains a favorite of mine, and I'm glad he inspired you to follow in his footsteps.

[erronis]

31. I think what you're describing is the difference between science fiction, and science fantasy.

Of course they are blended over and over. But too much "fantastical" thinking will make me stop reading. I want a logical explanation of how something works, not another deus ex machina.

[Emrys]

54. I think I'd describe science fiction as

relying on plausible scientific explanations, rather than strictly logical.

By that I mean explanations that were satisfying to a younger me and the extent and limits of my knowledge to the point that I didn't get hung up on them too much to be able to move on and follow the story's plot.

You can see this writ large in some of the more pop end of science fiction, like Star Trek, where specialist writers were drafted in to fill plot exposition gaps with technobabble.

I can't recall the book or author, but one example of this involved the ability to achieve communication speeds exceeding the speed of light by directing two crossing radio beams, like a pair of scissors. The idea was that the intersection of the two rapidly moving beams travelled faster than light. It was an intriguing concept, but not one I ran by my high school physics teacher.

He and I had a low-key run-in one day when he asked the class, "What features of other planets in the solar system can we see from Earth?" I put my hand up and replied, "The canals of Mars." For some reason, he chose to make an example of me, and countered categorically, "There are NO canals on Mars. There is no water on Mars."

I didn't choose to argue with him. The terminology I used was commonplace in the astronomy I'd read. And now, well, we have scientific proof there IS water on Mars (in what quantity and whether it formed "canals" is another matter ...). How'd you like me now, Mr Green?

[erronis]

61. I like your viewpoint. And as you said, it depends on where we are in our intellectual development.

(Well, you didn't say it that way - that's what I've inferred.)

Fairy tales and wishful thinking are good for the very young. Romance novels are good for people who don't want intellectual stimulation.

I do think as I've aged I've become a lot more skeptical of declared facts - or someone's "alternate facts". But the con artists rely on conning their audiences with hokum and older people seem to be prime targets.

[Emrys]

64. Pure fantasy writing has never been a major interest of mine

I rebelled against reading The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings when I was being pressured into doing so on the cusp of my teens because I was very precocious at English (something my secondary education did very little to nurture, though I've made a reasonable living from tinkering with words for the rest of my life, basically on the strength of that more or less innate ability).

I think some of the science fiction I've enjoyed has bordered on fantasy - one book that comes to mind is Gordon R. Dickson's The Alien Way, which I keep meaning to get hold of and read again. The alien episodes in the narrative are quite fantastical, but he intersperses it with hard science on the lifecycles of bears, which anchors it.

Another example is Anne McCaffrey's The Ship Who Sang. I don't think it's ever been filmed, though it would lend itself to it very well. McCaffrey is sometimes classed as a fantasy writer because of her other output. It brought themes of feminism and disability into science fiction, and did it very well.

[GJGCA]

35. The "Golden Age of Science-Fiction"...

...I remember someone wrote (in Analog?), is 14... 'strue for me--when the world was young and we with it, as I no doubt misquote

[highplainsdem]

62. That's usually attributed to H.L. Gold.

[slightlv]

58. despite the book disappearing from my library

at various points of time (due to moving across country a couple of times, as well as a few copies never returned after loaning it out), I've always kept a copy in my library. I recently decided I need to read it again... I've forgotten as much now as I've remembered of it! I read it as a teen in high school... and it made enough of an impact that I vowed I'd always have a copy to refer back to. Very few books are like that to me. One other book I've bought copy after copy, after "losing" it from my library is "Good Omens: the Nice and Accurate Predictions of Agnes Nutter, Witch"... I've bought more than a few copies of that over the years! And strangely, the 2nd book in a trilogy of books on Numerology, based on the Divine Triangle method. I guess that method resonates with those of us who are into Numerology! (LOL)

[genxlib]

8. I hated that book

And a big reason was the overuse of that word.

It was ponderous to read and I just came away from it annoyed

[MineralMan]

13. An acquired taste, I guess.

I didn't like that word, but I liked his imagination.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

14. I rate it in the middle part of his works, above average. But he has lots better.

It is a bit ponderous, moving slowly in some parts, but for me in some ways the most disappointing part was the ending. That is a literary disappointment I have with a number of his works that seem to either peter out or go out in a gaudy almost non-sequitur way.

[MineralMan]

22. That sounds about right. I had scifi writers I liked a lot better than Heinlein.

However, all of them were influenced by him. It's interesting to look back on and think about.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

30. I think Heinlein is the most American of all SF writers and the best story teller too. Others are more lyrical

Some writers are even more firmly in the science / tech end of things. Some excel at philosophy. Others are more adept at character development.

None of them combined those elements as well as Heinlein, and he did it in an American way. He expressed great love for freedom and free-thinking, for the entrepreneurial force strong in Americans and for the grittiness of American culture. I get the impression that he would have been a great hitch--hiker to pick up heading out of California through the dry parts of Nevada and Utah. Equally, he would have been a great guy to have working beside you at a desk in an engineering firm or managing an animation studio. There is a wonderful photo of him with Asimov and L Sprague de Camp while doing engineering for the US WW2 war effort. I get a feeling he would be tough and a bit abrasive but I see him in my mind as having a smile and joy about him more than any other feeling or sensibility.

Perhaps Heinlein's most redeeming quality is that as with Mark Twain (who greatly influenced him as a writer) he loved cats.

[FBaggins]

40. Not a surprise that you would think so professor

What duty does a character owe to his creator after all?

Of course - you happen to be correct.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

42. Thank you. . . . nt

[LudwigPastorius]

11. ...and, Grok is powered by the largest AI supercomputer in the world, Colossus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_(supercomputer)

The origins of that name are quite a bit more sinister.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project

[MineralMan]

15. Yes, indeed.

It is, however, good to know those origins, I think.

[muriel_volestrangler]

34. Have they said which Colossus they named it after?

There is the far more benign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer , used to break the German Lorenz cipher (just in time for D-Day).

[Maeve]

16. There were buttons that said "I grok Spock" back in the day

The book was really big in the early--mid-1970's when it was out in paperback

[MineralMan]

17. Yes, I remember that. The word sort of dropped out of use, though,

for quite a long time. Musk is about at the age where it was in use in his younger years. I'm old enough to have encountered it when it first showed up. Now, it is getting a new batch of users. Very interesting, and somewhat alarming at the same time.

Heinlein was a libertarian. Elon Musk is, as well. Libertarian philosophy is not the friend of humanity, in my opinion. I don't like it one bit.

[hunter]

47. For a libertarian Musk has certainly sucked up a lot of taxpayer dollars.

He is, perhaps, the world's most successful grifter, which is why I knew he and Trump wouldn't last long as a couple.

Trump hates coming in second.

[forgotmylogin]

18. I and my friend used to frequently use the term "grok".

Basically we used it as "you understand what this means and I don't need to explain it". But now there's no point since I'm sure "grokking" a topic will infer searching it with that software like "googling" a topic.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

19. Musk has a childish (in good and bad senses) fascination with the Red Planet

Red Planet is the name of one of Heinlein's best books. A gripping yarn littered with bits of science and political philosophy through and through. Thoroughly grounded in the best scientific understanding of Mars at the time, he got it right about how the atmosphere was very thin and the climate very cold. True to his strength as a writer, he was very imaginative in weaving that in with well considered aliens and delving into their alien-ness while conveying a sense that humans would still be able to connect.

It was written as the third of his young adult novels 1947-1958 (one a year), and I read it as 5th or 6th grader. I re-read it for the first time in decades a couple of years ago, and I couldn't put it down.

Muck uses a retro 40s/50s imagining of a "pressure suit" and helmet as his avatar sometimes, such as might have been used on Heinlein's 1949 Mars, and consistent with the kind of illustrations in the hardcover. I have no info, but I don't doubt for an instant that he has read Red Planet in his youth. I thought that before the name Grok came up for his AI chat bot.

[MineralMan]

25. Your use of the word "gripping" made me think of

"The Gripping Hand," a novel by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven. I have met Jerry Pournelle many times and chatted with him. He's a strange character, but was part of the whole computer industry growth at the same time I was writing about computers. I always ran into him at COMDEX and we sometimes talked about Science Fiction and the authors we enjoyed. That was in the late 80s and early 90s.

I just wish I had met Isaac Asimov.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

32. Pournelle has politics many here do not like. He wrote good hard science SF but has PhD in Political Science. . . . . nt

[MineralMan]

38. I'm not surprised.

I don't remember ever talking about politics with him, though.

[highplainsdem]

45. Jerry didn't handle political arguments well.

[MineralMan]

52. No. I never talked politics with him.

He drank a bit, too. So, you never knew right away where a conversation would go. We weren't friends. Just casual acquaintances.

[highplainsdem]

53. My previous post was a statement, not a question.

But yes, he drank. Which never helps anyone when they're debating something.

[MineralMan]

55. A lot of people saw him as a laughing stock.

I took him with a grain of salt, as I do most people.

[highplainsdem]

57. He was very intelligent and could be very nice and helpful. But he tended to be wrong on politics,

and as I said, he didn't handle political arguments well.

[MineralMan]

63. Sounds like you knew him better

Than I did. We had a few conversations at COMDEX.

[flashman13]

24. Neither eLoon nor tRump have the ability to Grok anything.

Like so many things to come from sci-fi writers, a great deal of what Stranger predicted has come true. For the uninitiated you might find it an interesting read, but be sure to get the uncensored version.

[Hekate]

59. "Uncensored version"? Do tell -- I read the first paperback as a teenager mid-60s. What's the history?

[rsdsharp]

66. There are some Heinlein books and stories that he toned down for publication.

Stranger is no among them. His original draft was, if memory serves, about 220,000 words. He laboriously cut it to 160,000 words for publication. The editing didn’t change the story in any material way. Heinlein himself referred to what he cut as “lubrication.” I’ve read both versions multiple times. I prefer the longer, but the shorter version isn’t sanitized or censored in any way.

[Hekate]

69. Ahh. Thank you.

[Karasu]

27. You mean "MechaHitler?"

[Ocelot II]

29. I've used "grok" in its original sense for decades.

I was a big Heinlein fan when I was a kid. Grok is a great word, too bad Musk co-opted it.

[Mossfern]

33. I was an avid Sci-fi reader in my twenties

I read almost all of Heinlein as I tend to go through authors.
As I matured I soured on him as I realized that his attitude toward women was demeaning... quite sexist.
My contemporaries used the term "grok" with its original meaning. To "grok" something is to more than understand it. My husband and I still use that term when appropriate.

Even though my opinion of Heinlein has changed over time, I still found it pretentious for Musk to use it for his little AI endeavor.

[Noodleboy13]

36. Huge Heinlein fan. Although his political leanings were obvious in his fiction early on The Moon is a Harsh Mistress etc

He and Elon both liked em young. Some of Heinlein's female characters bordered on the Heberophilic.

[rsdsharp]

68. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress was 1966; pretty much the midpoint of his career.

His first published work was the short story, Life-Line, in 1939. His last was the novel, To Sail Beyond The Sunset, published in 1987, about a year before his death on Mother’s Day 1988.

[Noodleboy13]

70. My exposure to Heinlein is all through XMas gifts from my uncle. Who was head of polisci at creighton in omaha.

It was X-mas vacation, I was stuck in Council Bluffs for a week or so. I devoured these books. Also the Stainless Steel Rat series by Harry Harrison.

Peace,
Noodleboy

[rsdsharp]

71. Heinlein's juvenile novels were always timed for the Christmas trade.

So was Starship Troopers, but Scribners rejected what was intended as the 13th juvenile. He would have liked that you read him over the holidays.

[Noodleboy13]

72. But the movie was freaking awesome!!!!!

Doogie Houser? Michael Ironsides? " You're some kib of smart bug" " The only good bug is a dead bug" Paul Verhooven masterpiece.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

41. I knew that

Read the book about 40 years ago. It's the only place I've heard the word used.

[irisblue]

43. Well then, thank you for teaching me today

[rsdsharp]

44. Heinlein's political views tended to track those of his wives.

His second wife (he was married briefly right out of Annapolis, but they lived together for only a few weeks before divorcing after a year), Leslyn, was a socialist. Heinlein had been pretty much apolitical until their marriage. He became active in leftist politics in California, especially in the EPIC gubernatorial campaign of Upton Sinclair.

After the war he divorced Leslyn and married Virginia Gerstenfeld, an organic chemist and biochemist he met while working at the Naval Air Experimental Station in Philadelphia during the war. Ginny was very conservative, and he began moving toward her political views.

More closely related to this thread, she often urged him to write a story based on Kipling’s Mowgli — which ultimately became Stranger. After Heinlein’s death in 1988, she began publishing previously unseen works, including the uncut version of Stranger. She had also okayed the publication of the unedited draft of I Will Fear No Evil in 1970, while Heinlein was recovering from peritonitis. I think it’s the weakest of his books — including the weird stuff he wrote in the 1980s.

[highplainsdem]

48. I have a relative who's changed political views based on her husbands' views. Always struck me as

very strange. She's gone from very liberal in her first marriage to more centrist in her second to rightwing in marriage 3.

[highplainsdem]

46. Musk has referenced other SF writers as well, and IMO never really understood them.

[Warpy]

49. It was Heinlein's second sexual adolescence

his first having been overshadowed by the Great Depression, WWII, and the stifling and regimented 1950s. It was also a relentlessly funny book to a bunch of irreverent young teenagers in the early 60s who couldn't wait to get away from Mom & Dad & the burbs so we could kick all The Rules into the nearest garbage can, where they belonged.

No, Musk doesn't grok that book, he wasn't there.

[Godot51]

50. Heinlein...

Arthur C. Clark, Issac Asimov, and Robert A. Heinlein were the "holy trinity" of science fiction in the late 40s, 50s, and 60s. Their work belongs within their era, within their society, and within their lives.

We are free, all these years later, to criticize, to dislike, and to complain about their perspectives, their use or misuse of society as a mirror, and their inability to truly see the future in all ways.

However what they wrote was when, where, and how they lived, and saw "things". This is neither good nor bad but it should not be changed, or rewritten.

Reading all three writers and others of that era was both educational, informative, speculative, and entertaining for me. Perhaps this shows my own weakness as an undeveloped "modern" man. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to separate "art" from ourselves.

I've always appreciated the way Heinlein described our current, "future" society in the early 80s:

“A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.”

― Robert A. Heinlein, Friday

[Mossfern]

65. I'm currently reading

Prelude to Foundation at the suggestion of my son.
I was a bit too preoccupied with raising 4 "highly spirited" children at the time it was written - standard reading then was Goodnight Moon.

[Earl_from_PA]

56. I knew it s Linux command

To parse system log files.

[GAJMac]

60. Thank you!

As a Heinlein fan, I've always hated Musk's co-opting of Heinlein's term. That sonofabitch has no clue about innate understanding of ANYTHING.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

67. I loved Stranger in a Strange Land

I am offended by the use of "Grok" by Musk. Musk clearly does NOT understand this term