James Bennett Gordon

On August 19th, 2021 Dad died shortly after turning 80 shortly after a brief illness in Oklahoma City. He was a wonderful husband of 59 years to my mom, Ruth, and he was the best father to me. He left behind a family who loved and cherished his brilliant, beautiful mind along with the bad jokes and puns.

He was born in Muskogee, OK and for most of his life lived in various places in Oklahoma as well as Des Moines, Iowa for four years. The latter half of his life was in the OKC metro area where he and Mom made a home at First Unitarian Church for nearly 40 years. During those years he served in various roles including a year as church president. What he loved most were the times he led small groups on any of a variety of topics in philosophy, theology, and religion. On a handful of occasions he did a summer service at the church. He was an intellectual gadfly who cherished learning more with each passing day.

In his professional life he was a pioneer in the world of computers and artificial intelligence. Among his numerous accomplishments: He was the recipient of the National Westinghouse Award for his part in the development of an AI program called “Darwin” - known for its ability to “learn” and get better over time at finding the fastest truck routes across the nation saving companies millions of dollars in travel costs. He also worked with a team of researchers at OU during the early days of artificial intelligence (in the 1980’s) developing computer programs to both diagnose cancer as well as how to “read” human handwriting – a precursor to the AI in Siri and Alexa that we all use today. While only possessing a bachelor’s degree in psychology, he was given special permission in the 80’s to help teach doctoral AI courses for OU. (Someone had to be among the first to teach a degree that didn’t exist yet.)

His family knew him as a kind and gentle man who could be both nerdy and prolific with puns. He experienced magic and beauty in the human language beyond what most of us ever feel. He saw connections and patterns in science and nature and the world at large, that were far above what most people could fathom. And he never forgot humor in the mundane moments of life.

He left behind his wife, Ruth, his son, David, his daughter in law Tracey, and two grandkids – Hannah and Liam. Also carrying so many fond memories of him are his brother, Lee, and his sister, Denise. He was preceded in death by his younger son, Mickey who died in 1976. He was preceded in death by his parents, Leland Porter and Lucille Bennett Gordon.

For those of you who didn’t know him, he offered in a recent writing, a great summary description of who he was. He left behind voluminous writings, essays, and quotable quotes that could fill an encyclopedia. In a very recent comment a month or so ago, he said, “If Starman and Forest Gump had a child it would be me! StarGump.” And this is so perfect. He was StarGump.

His favorite movies included: Starman, A Field of Dreams, and The Shawshank Redemption. He was a prolific connoisseur of philosophers such as Karl Popper, Alfred North Whitehead, Paul Diehl, Bertrand Russell and so many more. He studied with a passion diverse topics such as Buddhism, quantum physics, the history of science, artificial intelligence, psychology/sociology as well as poetry, history, and anthropology. He was a self-made renaissance man. He approached the pursuit of knowledge with the curiosity of a child and worried less about being “right” while focusing more on being open to being wrong and going down new paths when one came before him. For dad, it was more important to be open and honest than it was to naively be “right.”

He once said “You can be brutal or you can be honest – but there’s no such thing as brutal honesty.” He felt that honesty never needed to be divorced from kindness or love.

Toward the end he experienced the cruelty of dementia but he accepted it with the poise and grace of a champion. On his “good” days we talked and danced in his happy place of ideas and wonder. He somehow kept a childlike mind that most of us lose as we “grow up.” Even until the very end he was pursuing his love of learning.

If you knew my dad, you probably know that you are a better person for it. I know I am and will miss him greatly.