As the resident “god in the machine-code” (terrible analogy of the actual definition of ‘deux ex machina’ but fun to read nonetheless) …febrile minds inquire as to how you associate ‘likes’ and ‘dislikes’ into your creations.
Do you use common ‘human’ associations? (i.e. chocolate tends to be favorable in humans due to the chemical Theobromine)
Do you use your own personal associations? Or other real-world animals as a base?
Just curious how you code food/liquids as ‘agreeable’ / ‘non-agreeable’ /stimulating / non-stimulating…etc. AND if subsequent effects (vomiting/ill-feeling/ or euphoria/post-orgasm chemical flood) affect initial responses.
…obviously this would apply to any sort of interaction…be it with food/liquids or inanimate/animate objects. I couldn’t edit my initial post so here this is an addendum.
I’ll try my best to answer this one too, hopefully I can be helpful, I’ll try and be concise as well.
Consider how you personally discern desirability from aversion. For example, humans the world over love sweetened chocolate, however I’ve only ever known a couple of adults that indulge in the pure dark variety.
This is because we seem to all have the common instincts to seek sugars, fats, and carbs. This gets the chocolate into your mouth in the first place but it’s not until after you’ve had it a few times that you begin to learn how much the theobromine gives you a lift and sharpens your senses.
It’s presumably this change in brain chemistry that actually tunes our initial instincts for sugars into a desire for chocolate over time as we come to associate to metabolic changes with ingesting the food (we went from tired and hungry to hyperactive.)
Have you ever eaten something that made you sick and not known what caused it? It’s often not until you try that food again that you can actually learn not to eat it.
These creatures have a simulated pseudo-mammalian brain. They are born as blank slates save for a few instincts to encourage them to start figuring out how to survive(like how it might be a good idea to try sticking things in your mouth once in a while to learn about food). They learn everything through trial and error much as we had to do as babies.
They have a number of different drives which inform their brains via chemical signals what state the body is in (hungry, tired, lonely, randy, etc.)
These drives are mostly bipolar, meaning that they range from -1 to +1 usually with the most comfortable place to be around 0, right in the middle. Too hungry or too full is going to be uncomfortable and we would rather be full than too full, if you follow my meaning.
I’ll admit, I’m unsure about taste receptors, but my understanding is that interacting with objects (eating or playing with a ball) can cause a ‘puff’ of chemicals to be emitted into their system, whereupon their physiological state changes and then from there it’s up to them to make their own associations, whether the change was good or bad.
*Edit*
AND if subsequent effects (vomiting/ill-feeling/ or euphoria/post-orgasm chemical flood) affect initial responses.
Absolutely! Kind of. They have a limited ability to reflect back in time, to retrace their steps if you will, and every experience helps to shape their future responses. I’d love to see a creature develop Munchausen syndrome, making itself sick so that it could be soothed by another.
I think such things are theoretically possible, we just need to stay vigilant and watch out for the serial killers among them (it’s always the quiet ones.)
I’ll admit, I’m unsure about taste receptors,
talked with steve about those when i was observing feeding behaviours of my smew and his first interactions with fish and a wild stream.
I assume the tastebuds are one if the things that will change. And will be implemented, just don’t know if it is the next build or later one?
I was curious about what template is used. (human likes/dislikes or perhaps an ox template, or alpaca. Or was it Steve’s choice) I actually also wonder if textures are something that will be considered in some long distant version. Obviously in humans texture is a consideration. I myself do not like ‘slimy’ textures (oysters, fats, etc.) And other animals also have shape or smell or texture bias’.
Yes it would be giving Steve a ton of more work…having to encode texture or smell or taste in every interactional object. Even just 2 distinctions…say ‘prickly’ or ‘soft’would be time-consuming. And ‘prickly’ might not always be viewed as a negative. As in ingestible it might be a negative…but I imagine a rabbit in a briar patch being quite content that the pricklies protect him from predators.
But getting back to the original thought…obviously these are hooved quadruped. If Steve is going for a real-world simulation then these creatures would have herd instincts, most likely would have a pack-leader, etc. If these creatures are more phantasmagorical well then the sky is the limit.
Consider how you personally discern desirability from aversion. For example, humans the world over love sweetened chocolate, however I’ve only ever known a couple of adults that indulge in the pure dark variety.
Not only do I prefer dark chocolate, I also love the unsweetened baker’s chocolate!
I was curious about what template is used. (human likes/dislikes or perhaps an ox template, or alpaca.
the taste will be mammal based but partly inspired by ducks, because i happen to observe a few very rare feeding interactions that i reported to steve.
Witch animal exactly will be the base, will be determined by the genes if the creatures itself. Since this sense is partly programmed into the world and partly into the genetics. By deactivating a single taste bud or how it is interpredted by the brain (genetical level) you could turn a carnivore into a herbivore (ofcourse there was more tobthat in the case of the panda, but that was a very big one)
it will also depend on the stuff the creatures learn, for example i forgot how bread tastes (i am gluteen intollerant and avoid it compleatly) – once i ate bread on accident and spit it out, because i compleatly forgot how hread tastes like and that triggered an emergancy disgust signal.
On the other hand, i learned to love the taste of raw calf liver, needed around half a year until i truly enjoyed it. At the beginning it was a fight against my gag reflex.
Consider how you personally discern desirability from aversion. For example, humans the world over love sweetened chocolate, however I’ve only ever known a couple of adults that indulge in the pure dark variety.
before corona i loved dark chocolate and hated the lighter versions, specially those with high sugar concentrations. During corona i lost my tastebuds (multiple times) but i was able to figure out how to regain them (high amounts of maca) but they where never the same, each time i regenerate them, they are a little bit weaker than before…
…but that cured my (dark 70%+ coco) chocolate addiction
@finnius Me too! My favorite is Ecuadorian chocolate, I highly recommended it if you can find it. I’m also driven to lots of other bitter things that put people off. I love burned grains and grapefruit rinds too.
@foggygoofball bitternes is something i despise, somehow the bitternes of dark chocolate is different. I got an exra taste bud that reacts to bitternes most other humans have lost. Salat is something i don’t like because of the bitternes, beer and whine are the same, olives, some of the (cheap) cheese, a lotofplants. hat’s why i partly enjoy when i lose my taste buds and delay the reactivation sometimes, because i can drink beer like a propper german! Specially if a big drinking event/fest is around the corner!
