Coda

Penelope: Do you think that Roomba dreams? What would he dream of?

Duncan: Electric sheep?

Roomba: You better get out of the way tomorrow, Big Dog.

Free Will

Setting: The front room, a summer day.

Roomba: Help! I am stuck under the sofa again!

Penelope: Every day you get stuck under there. Why don’t you just avoid it and then you can finish your job without having to cry for help?

Roomba: But I’m programmed to go this way. Everything I do is on a program. You know that yourself. When you see me coming, you know that I don’t slow down or try to go around you, so you move out of my way.

Duncan: Not always. Sometimes when I am in a deep sleep you bump into me and then you turn away.

Penelope: This is true. When Mommy wants you to go in a different direction, sometimes she will stand in your way so that when you run into her toes you will turn.

Roomba: But that’s also part of my program. I was made to sweep the floors no matter what obstacle was put in my way. My tenacity has no parallel. My makers just didn’t factor in the problem of the low-sitting sleeper sofa.

Stray Kitty: Looking in from the window. Poor Roomba! Poor dogs in the house! You don’t have the freedom that I have! You are slaves, and I am not.

Duncan: That’s not entirely true, Stray Kitty. The Lady Who Dotes bought Little Dog with money when she was a puppy, so she is a slave. But I, like you, was a stray. I ran away from the first Guy Who Fed Me and found this new one. I liked the new one better, so I stayed. I did it by choice.

Penelope: I stay by choice! I am charming and all the people love me so I could go with whomever I choose! Big Dog, sometimes you treat me like I’m such a puppy.

Roomba: You are all mistaken. Don’t you know that you have programs just like I have? You are carbon-based so programs are encoded in your DNA, while mine is on my silicon microchip. But they still function the same way.

Stray Kitty: I am not “programmed,” Roomba.

Roomba: But you are! Don’t you get hungry? Don’t you get sleepy? Don’t you want affection? Don’t all of these things happen like clockwork? When you see a mouse, you chase it, just like when Duncan sees you he chases you.

Duncan: I can’t help it.

Stray Kitty: But you don’t follow the exact direction that you are programmed to, Roomba. Like the dogs said, you make allowances for obstacles, at least. It’s just like when I am in a yard with a fence, I climb the fence and can move out on the open road.

Penelope: I would like to be able to do that, but I do not climb like you, Stray Kitty. Dogs don’t do that.

Roomba: Dogs are not programmed to do that. Neither are they constructed to do that. Just like me -- I am not constructed to handle word processing. I have no keyboard. The computer up there on the desk has no vacuum. It is not constructed to clean the floors.

Stray Kitty: You say all of this, Roomba, from your position stuck under the sofa. For my part, I am going to demonstrate my freedom by saying goodbye and finding a sunbeam to lie in. She starts to leave.

Roomba: At least I know where my next meal comes from, Stray Kitty. I’ll get it when I go back to my power source in the kitchen.

Stray Kitty: No, I don’t know where the next mouse is, or if a neighbor will leave food for me on the porch. This is true. It is also true that I don’t know what other cats I’ll meet tonight, and if they will want to fight or how I will make out if we do fight. But my life has a flavor that none of yours has. I’m like that girl in the opera. I live la vie boheme. You Roomba, dogs, are slaves to bourgeois entitlement. Here in your comfortable home, you limit yourselves.

Duncan: I have always wanted to light out for the territory ahead. I did that once and I came upon the Guy Who Feeds Me. I did it another time and after three days the Guy Who Feeds Me found me. I did it a third time and got hit by a car.

Penelope: I am a princess.

Roomba: I am still stuck.

Stray Kitty: Au revoir! She runs away.

Duncan: Jumping at the window screen. Oh! I always do that when she runs!

The Unexamined Life

Socrates says that the unexamined life is not worth living.

I disagree.

I, Poppy, live a wholly unexamined life. I do not question who walks by the house and whether they are a threat. I do not question my reputation in the neighborhood as a barker. I do not question my parents' reputations as poor disciplinarians. I simply bark. I can because the humans I live with are omnipotent, with the powers of treats and leashes, thumbs, fences, doors, locks, and keys. When they walk into the room, the lights turn on! When they come home in the winter the heat goes up! I can bark at the passersby because these immortals are on my side. When the stranger comes to the door, I can always stand behind the person who comes to answer it.

Is this unexamined life not worth living? What is so bad about lying spread-eagle on the tile floor to stay cool in the summer? What is so bad about sitting at the door and sniffing the breeze? What is so wrong about licking the salt off of human legs? What is so wrong about sleeping in a sunbeam all day long? Are these activities worth nothing because I do not ask myself, "Poppy, are you righteous?"

Witness Roomba. He toils daily but does not complain. When he gets stuck under the sofa he waits quietly until freed. He does not wonder about his destiny or his free will. When he is tired he returns to his dock to recharge. He does not ask himself, "Roomba, are you righteous?"

What does Socrates know?

Roomba

There is a new pet in our house. It is called Roomba. Every morning Mommy lets it loose to dust the floors. But mostly it sits in its dock and bothers no one. Duncan and I treat it the way we treat each other. Mostly, we ignore it.

Sometimes it comes straight towards us. It doesn't really like to go around things until it bumps into them. Such behavior is no problem for me because I am a little dog and I spend approximately 25% of my time avoiding getting stepped on or run in to. I am quite agile as a result.

Duncan is a big dog so he doesn't worry about being stepped on. He takes it for granted that people will move around him. He is very stubborn that way. Sometimes, even when asked to move, he won't, so Mommy and the Big Guy have to drag him out of the way. I either step on him or jump over him.

Occasionally, Roomba will bump into Duncan causing him great surprise. He is so surprised that he will look at Roomba with wonder but will not move. Roomba will back up but it is stubborn, too. It will bump into him again. By this time Duncan will be struggling to get up. He is all legs and on a wood floor he looks like Bambi on ice. Roomba will back up one more time, but it really wants to continue going forward, so it does. Duncan is big, and does not move quickly. Roomba will bump into his foot and Duncan will trip out of its way.

Mommy likes Roomba because it is productive. It picks up a lot of hair. But I am not jealous. I think, who is really the true producer? The pet who picks up the hair or the pet who creates it?