You Are a Cat, and Cyber-Brained Gods

back in the 80s i read a lot of choose your own adventure books. part of the appeal was the variety – every story could be set anywhere/anytime, and be about anything, real or imagined. and they could get weird. ‘You Are a Shark’ started off with you having some kind of shamanic experience then becoming (and surviving as) a series of different animals. I believe the goal was to get back to human form.

i was thinking about pets whose owners leave home to go to work or school. for many pets it must seem as though the owner disappears, but they quickly get used to it and figure out he or she will reappear in the same spot at roughly the same time every day.

when the entirety of someone’s day-to-day world is the inside of a house, probably any interaction with something which appears to be from beyond that world will stick out in the mind. enough to be studied so it can be predicted. like the ancients tracking eclipses and other rare celestial events.

its hard to imagine what life will be like once computer-enhanced humans become a widespread thing. maybe the people who can’t afford the technology will be like the pets and the people who can afford it take on a sort of owner role in the family.

imagine someone from your household disappearing and later returning every day – making sure everyone is doing alright and everyone’s social and nutritional health needs are being met. it can take care of everyone with minimal effort even while it goes about living a life the pets could never understand.

orig. posted on November 12, 2015