deep thoughts: Tamagotchi and Phillip K. Dick
Russell Miller
Tamagotchi are currently the new toy rage. They are tiny, egg shaped
devices with digital screens. An animal appears on the screen, and
you have to feed it, medicate it, and play with it, or it dies. They
have a natural lifespan of a few weeks. Tamagotchi have become a
major hit in Japan, and it seems they may evoke the same reaction in
the U.S. They have been banned from public schools because some
teachers have noticed that their students become so devoted to their
pets that they can no longer do their schoolwork.
PKD believed that the true test of humanity was empathy. One of his
novels features a toy similar to Tamagotchi--a small creature trapped
in a maze, and you try to help it escape. There is a similar
situation in DODAOS, in the humanity test. This is why Tamagotchi
seem like such a science fictional item to me. Is this another
signpost on the way to the singularity?
Russell Miller
p.s. The Japanese have also recently debuted virtual idols--female
singers that exist solely in cyberspace.
-----------
Apocalypse isn't cool until
you've seen it on tv
I saw the end of everything
while watching channel 3
TooSketchy
Dogs show empathy. This does not make them human. The true test of
humanity is the ability to use abstract reasoning. Another test of
humanity is the ability to sucker thousands of consumers into purchasing
an electronic "pet" in the form of a keychain (at U.S.$20.00 a pop!).
Mark Townsend
TooSketchy <toosk...@aol.com> wrote in article
<19970523101...@ladder01.news.aol.com>...
> Dogs show empathy. This does not make them human. The true test of
> humanity is the ability to use abstract reasoning. Another test of
Have you ever seen a dog flinch when you've struck your thumb with a
hammer? "Ouch, that hurt," the dog thought.
That's the first definition of empathy in my dictionary: the power of
understanding and imaginatively entering another person's feelings. The
next definition goes: the attribution to an object, such as a work of art,
of one's own emotional or intellectual feelings about it.
There's that dog again in the art gallery, looking at Munch's _The Scream_
.. "Mmmm," the dog thinks, "Roog? Roog!"
I don't think there's any simple test of humanity, be it empathy or
abstract reasoning -- there are clearly people who lack one or both of
those attributes
--
Mark Townsend
mark...@netspace.net.au
L. Shelton Bumgarner
rus...@mit.edu (Russell Miller) wrote:
>Tamagotchi are currently the new toy rage. They are tiny, egg shaped
>devices with digital screens. An animal appears on the screen, and
>you have to feed it, medicate it, and play with it, or it dies. They
>have a natural lifespan of a few weeks. Tamagotchi have become a
>major hit in Japan, and it seems they may evoke the same reaction in
>the U.S. They have been banned from public schools because some
>teachers have noticed that their students become so devoted to their
>pets that they can no longer do their schoolwork.
I don't see why this is such a big deal. I remember way back when
playing a game on my C64 which let you "keep" a human that lived in a
cutaway house. If you didn't feed it n stuff it died. (or at least got
very sick.) Being the 12-year-old that I was I eventually grew tired
of the game and worked hard to kill the sucker off. The last time I
played the game (the name of which eludes me) I recall seeing the
little fella in bed, gravely ill.
lee
--
L. Shelton Bumgarner -- Keeper of the Great Renaming FAQ
[Please remove "REMOVETHIS" from my email to respond to my posts]
Klyfix
In article <5mdish$psm$2...@nw001.infi.net>, bum...@removethis.infi.net (L.
Shelton Bumgarner) writes:
>
>I don't see why this is such a big deal. I remember way back when
>playing a game on my C64 which let you "keep" a human that lived in a
>cutaway house. If you didn't feed it n stuff it died. (or at least got
>very sick.) Being the 12-year-old that I was I eventually grew tired
>of the game and worked hard to kill the sucker off. The last time I
>played the game (the name of which eludes me) I recall seeing the
>little fella in bed, gravely ill.
>
>
"Little Computer People"
One would think that something far more sophisticated could be done on
modern machines; has any company tried? Hmm, actually, I suppose that the
"Warcraft" game some friends of mine play has some qualities like "LCP";
the characters go about whatever business you set for them to do and
respond to situations in the game and ask for help and all that. But is
there perhaps something along the lines of a story with characters that
interact with you while going about their business in the fictional world?
V.S. Greene : kly...@aol.com : Boston, near Arkham...
aznin
Klyfix <kly...@aol.com> wrote in article
<19970527085...@ladder02.news.aol.com>...
> In article <5mdish$psm$2...@nw001.infi.net>, bum...@removethis.infi.net (L.
> Shelton Bumgarner) writes:
>
> >
> >I don't see why this is such a big deal. I remember way back when
> >playing a game on my C64 which let you "keep" a human that lived in a
> >cutaway house. If you didn't feed it n stuff it died. (or at least got
> >very sick.) Being the 12-year-old that I was I eventually grew tired
> >of the game and worked hard to kill the sucker off. The last time I
> >played the game (the name of which eludes me) I recall seeing the
> >little fella in bed, gravely ill.
> >
> >
> "Little Computer People"
>
> One would think that something far more sophisticated could be done on
> modern machines; has any company tried?
I missed most of this thread and fear someone has mentioned this before,
but anyway, here goes.
Little Computer People was a very primitive, though very cute, attempt at
artificial life. Primitive because it was basically just an animation of a
character. Apart from the fact that it (vaguely) looked like a man, it had
nothing in common with "life".
A new program called "Creatures", which has been released in Europe
already and will soon be released in the US (July 15th), does a much better
job of imitating "life". Without going into too much detail, the makers of
this program have managed to give the "simulated" beings a nervous system,
a primitive metabolism, a mind capable of learning and getting to
understand 14 categories, and even a genetic system (DNA) which makes it
possible to breed them. Owners of the program receive "eggs", and are then
supposed to raise, educate and breed the "Norns" (as they are called).
Whole papers have been written about the scientific implications of this
program. If interested, check
http://www.cyberlife.co.uk/cyberlife_new_papers.htm for more info.
Most people agree that the Tamagotchi also looks very primitive compared
to Creatures. However, since I haven't seen any of the things yet, I can't
judge here.
Anyway, for more info on Creatures (including the "Early Adopters"
program, which selected 250 people to testdrive Creatures for the American
market), check out http://creatures.ssionline.com/main.html and/or
alt.games.creatures .
--
Aznin
***
"Shoot, son, come over to the dark side ... It'll be a hoot!"
***
az...@hotmail.com
Nancy Lebovitz
In article <33852f05....@news.mit.edu>,
Russell Miller <rus...@mit.edu> wrote:
>
>Tamagotchi are currently the new toy rage. They are tiny, egg shaped
>devices with digital screens. An animal appears on the screen, and
>you have to feed it, medicate it, and play with it, or it dies. They
>have a natural lifespan of a few weeks. Tamagotchi have become a
>major hit in Japan, and it seems they may evoke the same reaction in
>the U.S. They have been banned from public schools because some
>teachers have noticed that their students become so devoted to their
>pets that they can no longer do their schoolwork.
>
>novels features a toy similar to Tamagotchi--a small creature trapped
>in a maze, and you try to help it escape. There is a similar
>situation in DODAOS, in the humanity test. This is why Tamagotchi
>seem like such a science fictional item to me. Is this another
>signpost on the way to the singularity?
>
another statistic for the Fermi Paradox. (The Paradox is: the
galaxy is so large: where are the aliens? I suggest that the
toys get too good.)
Tamagotchis remind me of Kornbluth's "The Education of Tigress
McCardle"--a remote controlled robot baby is used to demonstrate to
prospective parents that children are too much work.
In fact, I believe that Tamagotchis are used in the real world
to show young teenagers that babies are a great deal of work.
(This is true, but the parallels are unnerving.)
Play is mostly work under unrealistically good conditions.
You can get "The Education of Tigress McCardle" and much other
good stuff in _His Share of Glory_, the NESFA collection of
Kornbluth's short solo fiction.
--
Nancy Lebovitz (nan...@universe.digex.net)
October '96 calligraphic button catalogue available by email!
yon lew
nan...@universe.digex.net (Nancy Lebovitz) writes:
>Tamagotchis remind me of Kornbluth's "The Education of Tigress
>McCardle"--a remote controlled robot baby is used to demonstrate to
>prospective parents that children are too much work.
>In fact, I believe that Tamagotchis are used in the real world
>to show young teenagers that babies are a great deal of work.
>(This is true, but the parallels are unnerving.)
"Tamagotchis"?
Don't tell me this that phrase is worming its way into the common
parlance, especially considering that "tamagotchi" means chicken-something.
Ben Rasmussen
L. Shelton Bumgarner (bum...@removethis.infi.net) wrote:
: rus...@mit.edu (Russell Miller) wrote:
: I don't see why this is such a big deal. I remember way back when
: playing a game on my C64 which let you "keep" a human that lived in a
: cutaway house. If you didn't feed it n stuff it died. (or at least got
: very sick.) Being the 12-year-old that I was I eventually grew tired
: of the game and worked hard to kill the sucker off. The last time I
: played the game (the name of which eludes me) I recall seeing the
: little fella in bed, gravely ill.
: lee
: --
: L. Shelton Bumgarner -- Keeper of the Great Renaming FAQ
: [Please remove "REMOVETHIS" from my email to respond to my posts]
I've been up for too many day straight, and cut off from any online
experiance for months now, where do I find myself... reading posts from
the bizarest corner of the net. Now I feel like I belong... I remember
that 'game'. I think you even got to name him, and he had a dog and you
could make him happy or upset... I think I spent a few too many hours
trying to piss off a 'lil electronic person as a child... Worst of all, I
think I still have it in a shoe box somewhere.
David Goldfarb
yon lew <le...@netcom.com> wrote:
)"Tamagotchis"?
)
)Don't tell me this that phrase is worming its way into the common
)parlance, especially considering that "tamagotchi" means chicken-something.
I'm not sure I understand your objection to the phrase.
From what I've read, just by the by, it's a combination of
"tamago", "egg", and "wattchi", a transliteration into Japanese of
the English "watch". I.e., a creature born from an egg that exists
in a wristwatch-like device.
David Goldfarb <*>|"Anything that can be destroyed by the truth
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | should be."
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu |
aste...@slip.net | -- P. C. Hodgell, _Seeker's Mask_