{"id":875,"date":"2018-03-23T11:26:43","date_gmt":"2018-03-23T19:26:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/?p=875"},"modified":"2018-03-23T11:26:43","modified_gmt":"2018-03-23T19:26:43","slug":"name-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/name-things\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthropomorphization &#8211; narcissism, or just a lack of imagination?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"TweetButton_button\" style=\"float: right; margin-left: 10px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/share\" class=\"twitter-share-button\"  data-url=\"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/name-things\/\" data-text=\"Anthropomorphization &#038;%238211; narcissism, or just a lack of imagination%3f\" data-lang=\"en\">Tweet<\/a><br \/>\n<script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,\"script\",\"twitter-wjs\");<\/script><\/div>\n<p>Damn, I ask a lot of questions.<\/p>\n<p>People like to anthropomorphize things around us. \u00a0Yes, I said &#8220;us&#8221;. \u00a0I am a people, too. \u00a0An-thro-po-mor-phize &#8211; attribute human behavior or characteristics to non human things. \u00a0Why do we do it? \u00a0Is it narcissism, or just a lack of imagination?<\/p>\n<p>We customarily name inanimate things like storms and ships, we humanize products or services for marketing purposes. \u00a0Excessively so, in my opinion. \u00a0The pharmaceutical industry seems especially fond of this marketing angle, what with cartoon bladders and actors wearing \u00a0colon costumes. \u00a0Fortunately no anthropomorphized representations of erectile dysfunction &#8211; <em>yet<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/name-things\/ready-kilowatt\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2270\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-2270\" src=\"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/ready-kilowatt-1024x1019.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"267\" height=\"266\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/ready-kilowatt-1024x1019.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/ready-kilowatt-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/ready-kilowatt-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/ready-kilowatt-768x764.jpg 768w, https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/ready-kilowatt-270x270.jpg 270w, https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/ready-kilowatt-50x50.jpg 50w, https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/ready-kilowatt.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 267px) 100vw, 267px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Is this a mechanism we use to try to understand certain concepts, and if so, why? \u00a0Does it further our understanding of tropical storms to think of them as angry women with a grudge against certain Carribean islands and coastal cities? \u00a0Do we really need dogs to speak to us for us to know that they like bacon?<\/p>\n<p>What started me down this particular trail of thought was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/science-nature\/what-will-extraterrestrial-life-look-180950029\/\">this article in Smithsonian Magazine <\/a>entitled <em>What will Extraterrestrial Life Look Like? \u00a0<\/em>It seems that<em>\u00a0<\/em>the way we imagine extraterrestrial life (at least in the movies) to be very much like us is kind of like the way we anthropomorphize the things around us<em>.<\/em> \u00a0In this instance\u00a0the<em>\u00a0<\/em>illustrator goes out of his way to avoid anthropomorphization by using a combination of science and imagination to come up with several possible life forms &#8211; none of which resemble humans in the least. \u00a0It&#8217;s as if he hasn&#8217;t seen Star Trek or Star Wars and doesn&#8217;t know all life forms are at the very least bipedal. \u00a0Of course I am being facetious &#8211; we all know the depictions of extraterrestrials in those shows are reflections of budgetary restrictions. \u00a0The same reason all the visited planets have Oxygen rich atmospheres. \u00a0But I digress (as usual).<\/p>\n<p>To me, it&#8217;s one of those aspects of human nature that don&#8217;t make sense to me, but seems so universal that it must be built in and therefore there must be an underlying purpose that is served. \u00a0What it is I don&#8217;t know &#8211; do you?<\/p>\n<p>I said I asked a lot of questions &#8211; I didn&#8217;t say I had a lot of answers.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tweet Damn, I ask a lot of questions. People like to anthropomorphize things around us. \u00a0Yes, I said &#8220;us&#8221;. \u00a0I am a people, too. \u00a0An-thro-po-mor-phize &#8211; attribute human behavior or characteristics to non human things. \u00a0Why do we do it? \u00a0Is it narcissism, or just&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=875"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2290,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875\/revisions\/2290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}