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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
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| Mechanotherapy | ||
| A mechanism or device-based therapy that cures (or palliates) alcoholism. |
Elwood Caswell has a number of problems, but sales clerks have their own ideas.
| "Now this," the clerk said, "is the new Alcoholic Reliever, built by IBM and advertised in the leading magazines. A handsome piece of furniture, I think you will agree, and not out of place in any home. It opens into a television set."
 (Mechanotherapy devices from 'Bad Medicine') With a flick of his narrow wrist, the clerk opened the alcoholic receiver, revealing a 52 inch screen. "I need-" Caswell began. "Therapy," the clerk finished it for him. "Of course. I just wanted to point out that this model meet never cause embarrassment for yourself, your friends or loved ones. Notice, if you will, the recessed dial which controls the desired degree of drinking. See? If you do not wish total abstinence, you can set it to heavy, moderate, social or light. That is a new feature, unique in mechanotherapy." |
| Technovelgy from Bad Medicine,
by Robert Sheckley. Published by Galaxy in 1956 Additional resources -
|
Perhaps a session with one of these computer therapists would do you a world of good; consider the Sigfrid von Shrink from Frederik Pohl's 1970 novel Gateway, Dr. Smile from Philip K. Dick's 1965 novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and the machine psychologists from James Blish's 1957 novel Cities in Flight.
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'The crawling... object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'
'Joe got out the gravity-simulator harnesses...'
'You couldn't have the capstone without the pyramid to hold it up.'
'the unobtrusive inspections with tiny remote-cast snoopers...'
I'm hoping that this procedure becomes a normal part of medical practice!
'... nothing was perfected until M. Pantalon announced the completion of his automatic valet.'
'...its streets were of remarkable width, with few or no buildings so high as mosques, churches, State-offices, or palaces in Tellurian cities.'
