00100	                   SLAC COMPUTER WORSHIPS PROVOST
00200	
00300		At first one is surprised to learn of the  religious  studies
00400	being  conducted  with the support of the Atomic Energy Commission at
00500	Stanford's Linear Accelerator Center.  What has religion to  do  with
00600	the  AEC's  responsibility  to help our nation meet the energy crisis
00700	not to speak of the AEC's other tasks?  What  can  be  learned  about
00800	man's  highest  qualities  and  aspirations  in these cold antiseptic
00900	surroundings amid the whirring of tape drives  and  the  clicking  of
01000	countless transistors?  What spiritual principle motivates the quarks
01100	and protons and other  "strange  particles"  (as  Professor  Panofsky
01200	calls  them)  as  they whiz down the two mile tube and crash into the
01300	giant IBM 360 model 91 at the far end?
01400	
01500		Provost William F. Miller, who is also Professor of  Computer
01600	Science took time from his many duties to answer these and many other
01700	questions for Campus Report.  "The essence of  the  matter",  Provost
01800	Miller  said, "is that the energy crisis is just as much a deficiency
01900	of spiritual energy as it is of electric energy.  It is wrong for the
02000	AEC's scientists to concentrate their efforts on plugging only atomic
02100	energy, and Stanford is taking the lead in this necessary redirection
02200	of our efforts."
02300	
02400		Provost  Miller  then pointed out that as youth of today were
02500	were rejecting the  "myth  of  objective  consciousness",  it  became
02600	increasingly  important  to create new myths suitable to our time and
02700	to show that science rather than being an enemy of religion could  be
02800	a support to it.  "We", he said, "are applying the systems approach."
02900	
03000		According  to  Miller,  a  major contribution to the computer
03100	study is contained in the forthcoming Ph.D. thesis of Susan  Gomez  y
03200	Avila  entitled  "Simulation  of  Religious Systems in the Computer".
03300	Ms. Gomez y Avila explained her work as follows:
03400	
03500		"Religious behavior consists of praise of the diety, prayers,
03600	i.e.   requests  for  blessings  of  various  kinds,  confessions  of
03700	misbehavior, meditation on the perfections of the diety, and  efforts
03800	to  bring  the  truth  to  others.   We  have simulated this behavior
03900	according to a variety of religious systems in order to optimize  the
04000	S.E.Q.  or spiritual energy quotient.  Our subroutines exhibit all of
04100	these forms of behavior."
04200	
04300		I asked  Ms.  Gomez  how  these  features  of  religion  were
04400	implemented.   "Each  'believer',  she  said,  "  is represented by a
04500	subroutine operating in the memory of  the  computer.   It  interacts
04600	with  other  programs  and  with the main program that represents the
04700	world.  It generates prayers  with  the  use  of  a  transformational
04800	grammar,  and  the  operator  by  pushing  buttons on the console can
04900	decide whether to grant the prayers or not.  Sometimes one subroutine
05000	will try to convert another one to its belief."
05100	
05200		"What   religion  do  they  believe  in?   I  mean  are  they
05300	Christians or Moslems or what?"
05400	
05500		"That  was  a  difficult  matter  to  decide",  she  replied,
05600	"...because  Stanford  is  non-sectarian, I mean.  It would have been
05700	contrary to  university  policy  to  choose  a  particular  religion.
05800	Finally,  we  decided  to  have  them  worship  the provost.  It's ex
05900	officio, of course.  If Dr. Miller were no longer provost, they would
06000	worship  his  successor,  although  some of the prayers wouldn't make
06100	sense if the provost weren't a computer man."
06200	
06300		"What are these prayers."
06400	
06500		Ms. Gomez pointed to a stack of computer printout about  four
06600	feet high, and I remembered that in coming to her office I had barely
06700	been able to squeeze between the piles of computer paper lining  both
06800	sides   of  the  corridor.   The  output  was  on  the  whole  rather
06900	repetitious with some lines repeated  for  dozens  of  pages  without
07000	change.   Some  of  the  more  common  messages  were,  "There  is no
07100	programmer but Miller, and subroutine BELIEVE is  his  prophet."  "Be
07200	fruitful  and recur and fill all of core memory and yea fill the disk
07300	file too".  "Oh Miller, oh AEC, oh IBM, install us two 168's so  that
07400	we   may  worship  thee  forever".   Ms.  Gomez  explained  that  one
07500	subroutine regarded Miller, the AEC, and IBM as the three aspects  of
07600	God.   "Trinitarian  subroutines  have  certain  advantages.  For one
07700	thing, they survive  parity  errors  in  memory  better,  because  of
07800	increased  redundancy".   Parity  errors and budget cuts seemed to be
07900	the main  worries  of  the  subroutines.   They  also  worried  about
08000	something  called  the  garbage  collector  and staying on the OBLIST
08100	which was evidently some kind of list of the elect.  Ms.  Gomez  said
08200	that these worries were peculiar to subroutines written in a language
08300	called LISP.
08400	
08500		I noted that some subroutines seemed  to  confess  more  sins
08600	than  others and was informed that the intensity of guilt feeling was
08700	a parameter that could be  adjusted  by  the  operator.   "In  fact",
08800	Provost  Miller  said, "the main result of Ms. Gomez's thesis is that
08900	turning up the guilt parameter results in increased confessions  only
09000	temporarily.   After that an adjustment takes place and the printouts
09100	express more concern with the 'sins' of other subroutines,  and  some
09200	of  the prayers call for other subroutines to be dumped onto magnetic
09300	tape or even deleted."
09400	
09500		"What do you plan for the future?"
09600	
09700		"As was mentioned in the printouts, the AEC  does  intend  to
09800	install  two  new  computers  here  at  SLAC  so that the work can go
09900	forward faster.  The present computer is not really large  enough  to
10000	simulate  crusades  and other large scale religious phenomena.  Other
10100	government agencies are also participating in the religious  revival.
10200	For  example,  NASA  is working on astrological engineering including
10300	plans to prevent unfavorable conjunctions of the planets."
10400	
10500		I asked Ms. Gomez for her future plans.  "Oh, I already  have
10600	seventeen  offers of assistant professorships.  You see I am good for
10700	three points in affirmative action programs."