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Humans seem to naturally anthropomorphize anything which exhibits systematic yet unpredictable or capricious behavior: Pets, machines, mountains, oceans, weathe

Humans seem to naturally anthropomorphize anything which exhibits systematic yet unpredictable or capricious behavior: Pets, machines, mountains, oceans, weather, planets, ex-wives, etc. We give them names and project a sense of agency to them, because they must obviously act certain ways some times on purpose. It's the reason we have gods, fairies and superstitions. It's why we name our cars and our storms. It's just what we do. So to me, it makes sense that as we understand something more, being able to predict what and why it does something, the less likely we are to think of it as having some sort of inner being.

anonymouskimmer 3y ago
> So to me, it makes sense that as we understand something more, being able to predict what and why it does something, the less likely we are to think of it as having some sort of inner being. Pretty much the opposite with respect to pets and humans we are acquainted or intimate with. The sheer speed with which computers change (the modern automated update cycles) might be a counter to any impulse we have to anthropomorphize them. Even with animals we are much more likely to anthropomorphize longer-living animals than shorter living ones. This could even be something like a survival mechanism - don't become emotionally attached to something with you only a brief while.