Hermes-of-the-Internet

January 21st, 2003

As nifty and full of phallic symbolism as
Apollo’s Delphic
oracles may have been, I was always more fond of how one petitioned prophesy
from Hermes.
You left money at an image of Hermes, whispered your question into its ear,
covered your ears and then walked into the middle of the marketplace. The first
words you hear after uncovering your ears is the oracle’s answer.

So I’m curious, has anyone try doing this with the internet? Specifically
with Google. You know, type in a question in the
search field and then hit “I’m Feeling Lucky.” It’s
a big internet—I wouldn’t be surprised if someone has.

I gave it a whirl, with the fairly innocuous “What’s Up?”
And wouldn’t you know, all
it could talk about was the weather.

Filed under Culture & Not |

5 Responses to “Hermes-of-the-Internet”

  1. Ampersand on January 22, 2003 2:17 pm

    Jenn, you might want to check this out.

  2. jemale on January 23, 2003 3:14 am

    Thanks for the link Barry!

    Though it really isn’t much of an oracle per se, that is, where as it could tell me where France is, it won’t answer the question “Will I go to France?”

    Instead of “The Oracle of Google”, it really ought to be called “The Quizmaster Google” or “Professor Google.”

  3. Charles on January 23, 2003 9:57 pm

    I asked it if I should go to France, giving it the options of “yes I should go to France”, “maybe I shouldn’t go to France”, “I will never go to France”, and “Someday I will go to France.” It said that “maybe I shouldn’t go to France.” While the requirement of having to specify a limited set of answers makes it a little restrictive, it definitely works as an oracle. For a truly open ended oracle, you would need something half way between the Oracle of Google and Googlism.

  4. jemale on January 23, 2003 10:40 pm

    hmmm….

    I just supplied “yes” , “no” and “maybe”, and it had no comment. And I’m not big on supplying answers, I guess.

    I would want something more googlism, that can be nicely odd.

    But just hitting “I’m feeling lucky” gives some nice surreal responses, closer, I think, to Hermes-of-the-Marketplace, where you really struck gold if the words you you heard came from a child or an idiot.

  5. Emily Care on January 24, 2003 12:52 pm

    I’ve thought of what you describe as “webomancy” for a while. Somebody or other threw the term my way. It reminds me of bibliomancy, which a friend of mine does with Wuthering Heights. Just flip to a random page.

    I like to practice “omnimancy”. If you are looking for insight, you can pretty much find answers wherever you look, you just have to be open to finding the answers. Yes, this does sound a little mad, but really, you’ve got to be a bit potty to look to cards or painted stones to give you advice. I tend to look to the natural world. Every day I look at crows (cause there’s always crows about), and reflect on what their actions might tell me.

Comments are closed.