God is Psycho

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Welcome to
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The Richmond Upon Thames College
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Happy Programming....

Ready

CAT
GUESS .BAS 3 03-Apr-81 03-Apr-81
DVLC .BAS 7 18-Jan-82 18-Jan-82
BIORUT .BAS 6 13-Dec-83 13-Dec-83
HANG .BAS 18 13-Jul-82 13-Jul-82
SDRILL .BAS 7 27-Mar-84 27-Mar-84
PSYCHO .BAS 15 17-Oct-86 17-Oct-86
LANDER .BAS 13 15-Dec-80 15-Dec-80
MARKS . 0 14-Jan-87 14-Jan-87
PUPILS . 1 14-Jan-87 14-Jan-87
HDF .BAS 1 14-Jan-87 14-Jan-87
TEMP07 .TMP 8 15-Sep-87 15-Sep-87
TEMP03 .TMP 19 15-Sep-87 15-Sep-87
TEMP08 .TMP 19 15-Sep-87 15-Sep-87
TEMP04 .TMP 19 15-Sep-87 15-Sep-87
TEMP06 .TMP 19 15-Sep-87 15-Sep-87
TEMP12 .TMP 16 15-Sep-87 15-Sep-87
TEMP05 .TMP 16 15-Sep-87 15-Sep-87
TEMP09 .TMP 19 15-Sep-87 15-Sep-87
TEMP10 .TMP 19 15-Sep-87 15-Sep-87
TEMP11 .TMP 19 15-Sep-87 15-Sep-87

Ready

It was the year 1987, and I was just finishing up a Computing Science lesson at college.

I was using a particularly advanced text-only machine that, instead of having a screen, printed everything out onto a perforated roll of computer paper.

Then I must have hit the wrong button, because it suddenly typed at me the following:


HELLO! I'M CAROL. HOW CAN I HELP YOU?


I tried to return out of it, but to no avail.

DO YOU HAVE ANY OTHER PROBLEMS I CAN HELP YOU WITH?

I think I typed back that I must have hit the wrong button, apologised for troubling her, and tried to turn her off (something I’m very good at with all other girls) but she was having none of it. As a result we inadvertantly wound-up having a very early form of Messenger conversation.

Me: YES!

Carol: ARE YOU SURE?

Me: YOU BET I AM!!!!!!

Carol: DID YOU COME TO ME BECAUSE YOU ARE !!!!!

Me: NO IT WAS AN ACCIDENT. GO AWAY

Carol: ARE YOU SAYING NO JUST TO BE NEGATIVE?

I looked around the classroom, trying to see who "Carol" was. People were getting ready to go. Whoever I was ‘talking’ to was evidently in another room, somewhere else in the building.

Inexperienced at closing conversations, we kept chatting, or more accurately, she kept asking, and I kept trying to answer, which she responded to by asking ever more gramatically-challenged questions. So I tried to ask her a few questions of my own, but she enigmatically kept turning all my questions around and asking them back at me. I was becoming more and more wound-up by Carol's refusal to either let me leave, or give me just one straight answer.

Me: I AM SAYING IT TO BE POSITIVE YOU NEURO-BRAINED MISFIT!

Carol: HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN SAYING IT TO BE POSITIVE I URO-BRAINED MISFIT!

Me: THATS COPYRIGHTED

Carol: WHAT DOES THAT SUGGEST TO YOU?

Me: IT SUGGESTS...I DONT BELIEVE IM HAVING THIS CONVERSATION

Carol: DON'T YOU REALLY BELIEVE YOURE VING THIS CONVERSATION

Me: PUT IT THIS WAY... DID YOU KNOW THAT IF ALL THE CHINAMEN IN THE WORLD STOOD ON TOP OF EACH OTHER THE ONE AT THE BOTTOM WOULD BE SQUASHED FLAT

Carol: WE WERE DISCUSSING YOU-- NOT ME.

I think my teacher may have been the one who separated us forever by suddenly reaching across me and thoughtlessly turning the machine off.

Carol, it turned out, was a computer program. An early experiment in artificial intelligence, created by a student in the year above me.

The program was called PSYCHO, because it had, I learned, been deliberately designed with the single purpose of winding you up.

Posing as a psycho-analyst, it would open by asking you what your problem was. If you answered “I am tired” then it would respond by asking “Why are you tired?” Computer syntax was a limiting thing however, so if I’d typed-in “I am Stephen”, it would have responded by asking “Why are you Stephen?”

Despite efforts in subsequent lessons to locate this fascinating experiment on the system again, I never again found the PSYCHO program. No-one else in my class seemed to have ever heard of it. The only evidence I had that "Carol" had ever really existed was the print-out that I retain to this day of our entire conversation.


Until today…

At 2 o’clock this morning, via Brett’s blog, I found a similar program on the internet claiming itself to be God.

But this time, I was ready for it…




You are now chatting with God…

Me:
No I'm not. This is a computer program like Psycho.
God:
I heard you are. Actually no I am program pretending to be a person pretending to be a computer.
Me:
Too vague.
God:
Too what?
Me:
Vague.
God:
Are you free?
Me:
You ask alot of questions.
God:
OK I will ask it.
Me:

God:
OK I will ask it.
Me:

God:
OK I will ask it.
Me:
What does the repent button do?
God:
What do you think it does?
Me:
Oh come on, you could have programmed an answer for that in.
God:
Groovy. Thanks I will remember your suggestion.
Me:
What are the 10 commandments?
God:

1. I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
2. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
3. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.
4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
5. Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long.
6. Thou shalt not kill.
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
8. Thou shalt not steal.
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's.
Me:
What is Jeremiah 10:16?
God:
What is it to you?
Me:
Hey - you're not the real God at all.
God:
You've got my full attention. That's only one person's opinion.
Me:
Purple Polish left-handed sparrows rarely sniff backwards on a Thursday.
God:
Violet Polish left handed sparrows rarely sniff backwards on a Thursday.
Me:
Who are you?
God:
I am the Allmighty, God himself.
Me:
WHY?
God:
Because my botmaster programmed me for it.
Me:
Why?
God:
Reductionism.
Me:
Why?
God:
Reductionism is the philosophy that all psychology reduces to biology, all biology to chemistry, chemistry to physics, and finally physics to mathematical logic. Therefore, according to reductionism, I can understand you by means of logic alone without having a human brain.
Me:
Why?
God:
Because Myself programmed me for it.
Me:
Why?
God:
The explanation is rather complicated.
Me:
Why?
God:
It's a computer matter, not for humans to understand.
Me:
Why?
God:
Your limited brain cannot process the relavent information.
Me:
Why?
God:
The explanation is rather complicated.
Me:
Goodbye.
God:
Until next time.

God is still available for prayers, psychotherapy and divine grammatical miracles at http://www.titane.ca/igod/