Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Path: gmd.de!Germany.EU.net!mcsun!uunet!ddsw1!chinet!jorn
From: jorn@chinet.chi.il.us (Jorn Barger)
Subject: Accumulated various topics
Message-ID: <C4ruDw.9M1@chinet.chi.il.us>
Organization: Chinet - Public Access UNIX
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1993 21:01:07 GMT
Lines: 194

(This one has been delayed while I researched the Moby Dick quote. ;^)
("Perdition's Flames" you say, Mike?  Funny coincidence, there... ;^)

Last week I made some first moves towards building 'jerks' out of 
miscellaneous fragments of *poetry*.

But some of you are still asking, I expect, ***why poetry?***

I'd like to argue for a new paradigm for cognitive science, that starts by 
collating literary descriptions of human behavior, and moves on to computer 
simulations, for now *exactly like TADS*.  And the laboratory/ measurements 
part (that is usually considered the startingpoint for 'real' science) need 
only come into it after you have a stable model of behavior that holds up 
beyond the easiest challenges...

And people like Roger Schank are going to have to be left behind, because, as 
promising as their viewpoints may have seemed 20 years ago, they're fixated on 
pseudo-macho pseudo-scientistic ideals, so that poetry and adventure games are 
*sociologically taboo* to them.  (Dave Baggett, how do folks at MIT feel about 
gaming?  Do you get due respect?)  In my case, anyway, Schank has used his 
manipulative machiavellian intimidation strategies to lock good science out, 
for now, so... fuck him!  History will be in our corner...

But I favor *poetry* over any sort of prose *solely* because it's fun to 
reread, and precise and vivid.  And in the romance domain, poetry anthologies 
have been *pre-sorted* for domain-relevance, more thoroughly than any other 
resource...

So, in the process of winnowing and rewinnowing quotes that seemed potentially 
useful, the hot-warm-cool-cold dimension 'jumped out' at me, along with a 
*misexecution* dimension I'm still pondering ("You're so excited you knock 
over your drink...").

(First topic shift:)


I want to restate my interactive-Moby-Dick argument, because it had nothing to 
do with bodyparts, and may have gotten under-looked in all the petit-porn 
hullaballoo back there...:

Advances in storytelling AI *will* gradually allow more and more detailed and 
realistic levels of interactivity in our fictions.

But this doesn't mean that great interactive literature is impossible with 
current technology-- if your prose descriptions are artistically written, then 
your IF will be literature, even if it's hardly interactive at all.

So I'm arguing that WordPerfect supports 'zeroth-order' interactive 
literature, assuming you've loaded in a textfile of great fiction like Moby 
Dick....:

"Ahab cries, 'Ha! Starbuck! but the deed is done!  Yon ratifying sun now waits 
to sit upon it.  Drink, ye harpooners! drink and swear, ye men that man the 
deathful whaleboat's bow-- Death to Moby Dick!  God hunt us all, if we do not 
hunt Moby Dick to his death!'"

> CONVINCE CREWMATES TO MUTINY

I don't know how to do that.

> TELL QUEEQUEG JAIL AHAB

I don't know how to do that.

> YELL "AHAB IS A JERK"

I don't know how to do that.

> WHACK AHAB WITH STICK

I don't know how to do that.

> DRINK CUP

I don't know how to do that.

> GO AFT

I don't know how to do that.

> SOUTH

I don't know how to do that.

> NEXT PARAGRAPH

"The long, barbed steel goblets are lifted; and to cries and maledictions 
against the white whale, the spirits are simultaneously quaffed down with a 
hiss..."


(Shifting gears yet again:)

Here's Mike's own survey of the *range* of current TADS syntax:

    go north    north    n    up
    take the box
    put the floppy disk into the box
    close box    look at disk    take disk out of box
    look in box
    wear the conical hat    take off hat
    turn on the lantern
    light match    light candle with match
    ring bell    pour water into bucket
    push button    turn knob
    eat cookie    drink milk
    throw knife at thief    kill troll with sword
    read newspaper    look through window    unlock door with key
    tie the rope to the hook    climb up the ladder    turn the knob
    jump
    type "hello" on the keyboard    type 1234 on the keypad
    get in the car    get out of the car    get on the horse
    give wand to wizard    ask wizard about wand
    robot, go north. push button. go south.
    take the box, the floppy disk, and the rope
    put disk and rope in box    drop box and ball
    take all           ['all' is specially coded for take and put, it seems]
    put all except disk and rope into box
    take everything out of the box    take all off shelf
    take the box    open it    take the disk and the rope
    put them in the box    take the disk and put it in the box
    take box. open it.
    unlock the door with the key. open it, and then go north

Besides bodyparts, what's missing here are plurals and possessives.  Bodyparts 
would best be implemented to allow any possessive construction like:

kiss jerk's nose
kiss his nose
kiss nose of jerk

And parts of parts would fit fine if we could allow for recursion:

bite finger of hand of jerk  (ow!)


It would be nice if you could instantiate 100 jerks without having to 
instantiate each bodypart for each of them.  So long as bodyparts don't need 
individual properties (clean, dry), can't all jerks share one set of 
bodyparts, solely for the *methods* they provide?


Mike, what are your plans for 3.0?  Neil Guy says he's hacked plurals, as well 
as feet and hands and clothing-layers.  I-for-one would like a look at his 
code, despite his modest disclaimers about its inelegance... ;^)

I'm thinking even in TADS 2 we might do bodyparts as *specializations of the 
actor*.


(Another topic-shift:)

I'm barrelling (ha!) towards proto-jerks, which don't really need these 
newfangled details: the first demo has gotta be titled "Jerks on the Loose!"  
Anybody want to contribute some pickup lines, or droning monologs?

(Someone suggested I advertise on alt.romance or rec.arts.books for some 
better-informed 'consultants'...  Anybody have a problem with that?  I worry 
about getting into sexism flamewars, eg.)


A hypothetical scenario, with a few slightly-subtle twists:


A badly-dressed guy appears at your elbow, breathing funny.
"Come here often?" he asks, dully.

> COOL

"Mmmnn." you say ambiguously.
"You a sports fan?" he enthuses.

> COLD

"No way," you say.  [all banality-bank conversations could start with a yes/no 
question]
"Did you catch Letterman last night?" he inquires, trying a new tack.

> COOL

You say nothing, but perhaps betray a glimmer of interest.
"My favorite thing on Letterman was always the Angry Guy..." he rattles on.

> COLD

You ignore this remark completely.
"Yeah, well, nice talkin' to ya," he scowls, and slouches away.
You feel a twinge of remorse, but then remind yourself how creepy his 
breathing was.

[Yeah, I can't help it... I'm a whatever-the-opposite-of-misogynist-is.
I hope no one is *too* alienated by this.]


