Hypergnosic Moments

This morning I'm having a hypergnosic moment that I'm trying to break.

For many, a hypergnosic moment is when the implicate order of the universe is revealed and the oneness of being is made apparent.

For me, a hypergnosic moment is when I make the comic book guy character from the Simpson's look well adjusted. In this particular case, I set out to take some notes on my "thinking about technology", by which I mean "trying to have something relevant and interesting to say". So, while I was trying to get up the courage to continue writing my paper on
the use of blogs in a philosophy class . This lead me to be reading a some other books speculating on technological development, specifically K. Eric Drexler's book Engines of Creation. The book consists of many weak analogies, appeals to ignorance and irrelevant anecdotes. But one of those anecdotes really set me off.

He described how Douglas Lenat entered of his heuristic experiment, EURISKO, into the Trillion Credit Squadron competion in 1981. I was familiar with Lenat's work but not with EURISKO and I had managed to miss the Traveller connection.

Traveller was what I did in high school, probably instead of both homework and dating. I don't say it kept me off drugs because the biggest dealer in my high school was a regular member of my group. I may have felt a strong social pressure not to experiment with drugs because this individual put a higher value on his role-playing games then his drugs, at least until sometime senior year. Traveller had many cool features that would seem fresh, even cutting edge today. Two features in particular: it was modular, you could use just a core set of rules, or any of a large number of independent supplments (far more modular than Dungeons & Dragons ever was, modules or no) and it didn't have an experience point system. The first was great for supporting organic roleplaying groups who could fill in their own galaxy with either a little or, a great deal, of detail already established for them. Later variations of the game became more integrated and more dependent on a continuing backstory and lost my interest as a result. The no experience system was a great feature because it took away the pre-programmed plot that most games have. Instead of a constant upwards arc of power and competence, the players could lose what they had gained, be rich and powerful one moment, impovrished the next. It made for more interesting interaction since there was a greater range of valuables to be gained or lost.

Trillion Credit Squadron was a supplement to the game which focused on the space-ship design rules. In this variation, the players were each given a trillian credits to design a fleet which would then compete with other fleets players had constructed. My own group was pretty heavily role-playing, rather than strategy, oriented, so the number crunching aspects held little appeal and I was left to explore this dimension of the game on my own. But I guess that it was something of a big deal at some point in 1981.

Drexler makes this game out to be a futuristic naval simulation. This set me off on the trail of how this particular game was understood by people since. This became a trek which offended my nerdiest instinct for purity, but it also seemed to continue unfolding until I found that I had grasped a thread was closely enough tied into the story of how the 80s and 90s unfolded that it literally lead anywhere.

BANG!

Hypergnosia.

I'm beginning to come down now, I've started to concentrate on those details that might help me get some work done.

Apparently, Lenat's program did make at least one interesting variation on a centuries old naval planning problem.

First conclusion, there is a significant overlap between the set of people writing about artificial intelligence and those who have experience with early 80's science fiction themed role-playing games. Second conclusion, spelling check has not solved everything as "traveler" (with one l) and "trillion" (with an o) have both been pretty common in sites I came across while developing this entry. On closer examination, this is probably because English spelling is not quite as standardized as we have often been told.