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"The best fuzzy rules, the best knowledge, deal with the turning points of the system. If a race-car driver teaches you how to drive, you don't need him to show you how to drive on the straightaway. It's how he handles the curves that matters."
- Bart Kosko
 |
| Psychotropic House | ||
| Buildings designed to sense, and mirror, the psychological state of their owners. |
Shopping for just the right home in Vermillion Sands is complicated by the fact that houses are psychotropic; there is always something left of the previous owners.
| ...it consisted of six huge aluminum-shelled spheres suspended like the elements of a mobile from an enormous concrete davit. The largest sphere contained the lounge, the others successively smaller and spiraling upward into the air, the bedrooms and kitchen...
Stamers, the agent, left us sitting in the car... and switched the place on (all the houses in Vermillion Sands, it goes without saying, were psychotropic). There was a dim whirring, and the spheres tipped and began to rotate, brushing against the undergrowth. ...I got out and walked over to the entrance, the main sphere slowing as I approached, uncertainly steering a course toward me, the smaller ones following. ...As I stepped forward, it jerked away, almost in alarm, the entrance retracting and sending a low shudder through the rest of the spheres. It's always interesting to watch a psychotropic house try to adjust itself to strangers, particularly those at all guarded or suspicious. The responses vary, a blend of past reactions to negative emotions, the hostility of the previous tenants... ...Stamers was fiddling desperately with the control console recessed into the wall behind the door, damping the volume down as low as possible... He smiled thinly at me. "Circuits are a little worn. Nothing serious..." |
| From The Thousand Dreams of Stellavista,
by J.G. Ballard. Published by Amazing Fact and Science Fiction in 1962 Additional resources -
|
Some psychotropic houses also had full control of their internal shape, due to the use of plastex, sort of a combination of plaster and latex.
As houses become more complex in our modern era, with programming to control heating, lights, security, media shown on screens and music played in rooms, it seems possible that, when you walk into a previously owned home, it will indeed reflect some of the personality of the previous owner.
If you are fascinated with the idea of a house that responds to its owner, check out the float home from Frank Herbert's 1969 novel Whipping Star.
Compare to the adjustable house from Gather, Darkness! (1943) by Fritz Leiber.
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