What I Learned About the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This year I’m adventuring with Douglas Adams’ science fiction series, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I just started the fifth book in the “increasingly misnamed trilogy.” I now appreciate just how handy a towel can be, and I share in the relief that “DON’T PANIC,” is written in reassuring letters on the cover of the encyclopedic tome that gives the series its name, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

During one of our recent reading sessions, my husband noted that The Hitchhiker’s Guide is a precursor to a modern technology so ubiquitous it has become a household word: Wikipedia is essentially a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Criticism of collaborative knowledge repositories abounds, but no matter the pros and cons of Wikipedia, there’s no doubt its presence has changed our reality.

As I researched the parallels between Wikipedia and the science fictional Hitchhiker’s Guide, I learned that author of the series, Douglas Adams, actually founded an online collaborative encyclopedia based on the Guide. Here is his vision statement of what he hoped to create with the Earth Edition of the Hitchhiker’s Guide:

“A collaborative guide, one that was written and kept up to date by the people who use it, in real time.”

He also wanted to h2g2.com to be:

“A place to share knowledge and celebrate the things you love by writing about them.”

Adams’ vision became a reality in 1999, two years before the launch of Wikipedia.

It’s so cool to look back and see what science fictional technologies have now become part of our everyday lives. But it’s a rare thing, indeed, to see an author reach beyond his fictional creation and bring his ideas into the practical world.

htg2.com has had its ups and downs, and its inspirational founder is no longer alive. But The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition is still up and running. Recent entries include The Beatles Blue Album and The Potato Dumpling War of 1967. htg2.com looks like a wonderful source to learn all kinds of things I never even knew I didn’t know.

Philip K. Dick, Robotic Pets, and What is Love, Anyway?

I’m a cat fanatic. I share my life with an adorable Siamese. I love reading about cats, seeing pictures of cats, hearing friends talk about cats. I think you get the picture.

A couple weeks ago an article titled Will Robots Replace Cats? grabbed my attention via the Cat Channel. The article talked about how robotic pets are already making a splash in Japan, and posits that in the future, owning a live pet animal may be something only a privileged few can afford. Robotic cats and dogs may replace living, breathing animals.

Although the article didn’t make the connection, Philip K. Dick had this idea way back in 1968 when he wrote Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, a fantastic SF novel which later inspired the film, Blade Runner.

In the novel Philip K. Dick describes a society where owing a live animal is the ultimate in status. People save up to make a downpayment on having, say, a real live chicken. For those who can’t afford a live animal, having a robotic pet is as critical to folks as having a smart phone is to us today. One character, a robotic pet vet tech, is called to save a dying robotic cat.

Pet death is gut wrenching. I’ve been through it recently. To me the biggest benefit of a robotic pet isn’t that it won’t poop or cost me money to feed, but that it never dies. But, no, says Philip K. Dick, and no says the Cat Chanel article. The expert interviewed for the article said:

“In Japan, people are becoming so attached to their robot dogs that they hold funerals for them when the circuits die.

The Cat Channel article asks, if humans can become this attached to a robotic pet, what does this mean about our attachment to our flesh and blood pets?

if robotic pets trigger feelings in humans of attachment, then does that mean the bond pet parents experience with their animals mean it doesn’t really exist? Perhaps that “bond” is really just humans projecting their emotions onto animals.

This question is not unique to the human-animal bond. Is the love we feel toward our human loved ones anything more than a projection of our own emotions? Isn’t love the emotion of care for the other, and hope that it’s reciprocated?  Can android humans (or android pets) feel empathy, feel care? If they can’t, does it matter to the people who love them?

If you’re interested in my review of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? you can check it out, it’s short and sweet.