#56 - In Search of Intelligent Life

In Search of Intelligent Life

2/27/05 (#56)

The answer eluded me. I knew the answer---what was the movie with Robin Williams as a prep school teacher who enlightens his students with poetry and enthusiasm and who is foiled by an extremely stone-faced Red from That 70's Show---but I could not fish the name from the expansive pool of album titles, book covers, movie posters and television shows that slosh around on the the floor of my mental living room. You are likely thinking, "You couldn't remember Dead Poet's Society?", and if so, yes, that's exactly what I couldn't remember. Where were you when I needed you?

The remedy to my short-term amnesia came from an online search engine. I typed in "robin williams teacher movie poet" and the answer was returned in 0.22 seconds. In fact, 36,000 answers were returned in 0.22 seconds, but I had what I needed from the first subject line alone. The search engine has proven to be invaluable help to me for questions that have gnawed at the edges of my memory, for those bits of trivia that lodge in the head like a grain of sand in an oyster, the irritation alleviated before it becomes a space-hogging pearl in my psyche. Search engines reach the mental itch that cannot otherwise be scratched. A few strokes of the keyboard and I learn that it was Gerry Rafferty singing on "Stuck in the middle with you", but the band was called Stealers Wheels, or that tryptophan is the correct spelling of the rumored sleep agent in turkey. Forget Tryptophan----search engines help me to sleep better.

But despite its ability to sift through a billion sources in under a second, A.I. has a notable chink in its armor: It lacks conceptual thinking. If I type in "robin williams teacher movie poet", it's not going to come back and say, "Robin Williams also played a teacher in Good Will Hunting, which is generally agreed upon as the last good movie that Ben Affleck made."

THAT kind of information only comes from a more direct conduit, hardware fashioned by years of vigorous use---from the brains of your friends. And while I celebrate recent advancements in information availability, I mourn what has been lost to the ubiquitous digital database, that intangible network of like-minded synapses that allows you to dial the phone and say, "What nationality was the chef on Benson?" and hear in a groggy voice, "German. Her name is Gretchen Krauss, fercrissake."

Regis Philbin knew about the power of this intangible network. Look at Who wants to be a Millionaire, the popular trivia game show. Regis offers three "lifelines"----one of which is infinitely more powerful than the others:

50/50? No, they inevitably eliminate the ones you have already dismissed as viable options, so you gain nothing.

Ask the Audience? Helpful on a pop culture question, and trust them to answer correctly if the query involves Bruce Willis. But if the question concerns Rene Descartes and you ask the audience, don't be surprised if the masses confidently declare Rene Descartes to be the shortstop for the Cleveland Indians.

Phone a friend? Aaaaahhhh, the holy grail of Regis Philbin's offerings. Intrinsic in the rules of the lifeline is that you get to choose one of several folks from your list of candidates. Being able to call your smartest friend is a great help, but getting to decide between your Dad ("Who was president during the Korean War?") or your sister ("What is the life expectancy of a thoroughbred horse?) or your son ("How many career home runs did Roger Maris hit?") is the difference between winning and losing.

The phone-a-friend is the 20th century version of the Search Engine. If you needed the answer to a question at an odd hour, why wait? Just dial up the person who you know has the answer. In the first week of dating my wife, we were sitting at her apartment one night and she couldn't remember a particular song that she had sworn she would never forget, and she exhibited all of the classic info-starved symptoms: Shortened attention span, a tendency to steer every conversation back to the topic in hopes that coming at it from a new angle would shake loose the song title, inability to focus on anything else except the one thing that isn't there to focus on. Steph picked up the phone, waking her cousin Jill from a sleep to ask the one person who could alleviate her suffering.
Question asked.
Question answered.
Jill went back to sleep cussing about bloodlines and Steph was able to relax and cease her mantra of "What was that song? What was that song?"

I've been on the receiving end of those calls: "Sorry to bother you, but what are some of Badfinger's well-known songs?" In the brighter hours, such things are a delightful break from the day---"Well, let's see, there's 'Day after Day' and 'No Matter What', but there was that earlier one, that McCartney wrote (quietly sings)if you want it, HERE it is---'Come and Get It', that's it!" * If the phone rings in the darker hours, I might grumble that 2 AM is an hour reserved for "who died?" calls, but then I think back to the times in my life when I have been on the dialing-end of such a call and I feel privileged that I can repay a cosmic debt by dispensing the midnight remedy.

My favorite part of the information booty call is that it lacks all formality. Should the need arise for you to make such a call, it's important to remember that this is all business: no small talk, no "while I've got you" additions, no addendums unless they apply directly to the question and/or answer. For instance, here is a sample transcription from a late-night caller who simply wants to take advantage of the other person's curvaceous brain:

"Hello?!"

"Johnny, sorry to bother you, but I can't recall the name of Karl Hungus' band in The Big Lebowski.** Something German, I know, but..."

"Autobahn. And you should be ashamed."

"Yes! I know, tail inserted appropriately between legs. Thanks. You the man. I'll talk to you soon."

"Bye."

You don't need to apologize for brevity. If you owe a person a phone call, this is not the time to make restitution. This is a function-over-form activity---if you call up and say, "Hi, How are you?", then try to extract yourself from the conversation 12 seconds later, you come across as socially inept. (Or worse.) But if, instead, you say, "What kind of animals were the old TV characters the Banana Splits?", it is intrinsic in the question that you will momentarily be hanging up the phone to gloat (or lament) to your friends that it was a dog, a lion, an elephant and a gorilla. (Though Bingo was undoubtedly a difficult-to-pin-down gorilla.)

If I get such a call, I usually have the answer because the caller wisely selected me from the network of people who could answer the question. If they'd wanted to know how many square feet are in an acre, I'd have been a bad choice; but names of members of Aerosmith? I'm the speed-dial-du-jour for that one. *** The problem is that so many of my friends sit so close to computer screens---36,000 answers available in a quarter of a second. This obviously impacts the vitality of the aforementioned neural network of interconnected brains---each time we go to the search engine, we fail to give a friend the opportunity to exercise their memory for the answer; as a result, our friend's brains are getting lazy. Heck, MY brain is getting lazy---I couldn't think of Dead Poet's Society?

So next time you need to know something, phone a friend. Sure, you might learn that Cary Grant was the star of Gone with the Wind, or that Joe Perry sang for Journey during their pop heyday, but who says the search engine is providing more reliable information? Newspapers printed "Dewey Defeats Truman!" on the night of Truman's victory, and the Internet uses those same typesetters. Besides, who are you to judge the veracity of the answer? You're the one making the call: won't any answer scratch that annoying itch?

©2005 wpreagan

* As if to prove the exception to the rule, I learned from a search engine that "Without You", a song made famous by songwriter Harry Nilson, was actually penned by the songwriting team Evans/Ham, the brains behind Badfinger. (Though I bet one of the Veysey boys could have answered that one by phone.)

** Johnny Hollywood can answer any trivia question in regard to The Big Lebowski. That's right, nobody fucks with the Jesus.

*** As if anyone doesn't know Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Brad Whitford, Tom Hamilton and Joey Kramer. Bad example.

(Answers to the unanswered questions in this column: Truman; 18 to 25 years; 275; 43,560; Clark Gable starred in Gone with the Wind; Steve Perry sang for Journey, Joe plays in Aerosmith.)