Criteria for Interactive Divination
In the process, we have discovered that there are 3 primary Interactive Divination Criteria that define the medium: 1) mathematical authenticity, energetic authenticity and experiential authenticity. Synchronicity and its successor I-Ching program, Oracle of Changes embody all three (as does Visionary's new Tarot Magic program). Perhaps there are one or two others that manifest two of these criteria, but almost nothing of what we've seen that purport to be interactive divination programs -- on floppy disks, CD-Roms and especially on the Internet -- have more than one, and most don't have a single one.
Let's examine the three criteria.
- means that the process accurately embodies the mathematical odds of the physical method it is based on. This is not as easy as it might seem, especially in the case of Tarot, or any deck of cards, which demand very sophisticated algorithms to capture the mathematical properties of shuffling, cutting, etc.
- means that, even if the math is right, there must be some mechanism whereby the user is responsible for the process of casting the coins or shuffling the cards -- that the user's energy or timing is somehow determinant of the result. A program or website is not energetically authentic if the computer is doing the deed -- i.e. by means of a random number generator that it runs in its own way, when the user tells it to (by hitting the Enter key, etc.). Some would argue that on some cosmic level there are no accidents and that it all amounts to the same thing, whether you let the computer do it when you tell it to or whether you do it yourself using the computer. We don't agree.
- is the most subjective criteria of the three. It refers to the skillful use of multimedia to successfully create an ambience -- art, animation, music, sound effects and most subtle of all, the psychology and programming of the interactivity itself. This is an art form which we are consciously trying to master, on a continuum of hopefully increasing skillfulness which will never end. One can only marvel at new possibilities that will arise as computers and Internet bandwidth become fully capable of supporting full-screen video and animation.
All of Visionary Networks' divination programs fulfill all three of the defining criteria for true interactive divination.
