When you talk to other people, why you do that?

Suppose you're having lunch with your significant other and you ask them if they could pass the salt. You said that because you expected a certain behaviour from them. Having heard your request, they're probably going to just pass you the salt (or else, if you forgot it's their birthday, for example, they may object and throw a fit to show how insensitive you are). In that case, when you speak to someone, you expect them to understand. Otherwise, given how complicated speech is, you'd just grunt and point to the salt all the time you want it (granted, this does happen, but this says more about the grunter than about grunting).

But, why do people talk to cars, electronic devices, and other inanimate objects? Are we talking to ourselves, or are we overgeneralising? When the car doesn't start, and you don't know how to fix it, do you say "come on, start" as a last resort so you feel you're doing something?

By the way, if you think you don't do that, feel free to click away from this thread and pay close attention to your behaviour during the next couple of days, and watch some films (pretty much any kind of non-fantastical film works -- talking to Herbie is sure different from talking to an ordinary Ford Pinto). Then report back.

Edit: There you go, iTranscendence

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Last edited by Lira on Sep-06-2009 at 20:30

Because speech in one of the main, if not the primary, way in which we've learned to express our feelings and emotions.
\thread, ain't I awesome?!

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quote:

Originally posted by Meat187 Because speech is one of the main, if not the primary, way in which we've learned to express our feelings and emotions. \thread, ain't I awesome?!

But why express your emotions to something that is indifferent to your pain? This is the point. The ATM is unlikely to do anything if I insult its mother

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quote:

Originally posted by Lira But why express your emotions to something that is indifferent to your pain? This is the point. The ATM is unlikely to do anything if I insult its mother

Isn't the point of expressing emotion... well expressing emotions. You don't expect and answer or reaction from the object, you just let out what you feel and want to happen the same way you make a disgusted face when seeing goatse.

But while we're in a Lira-thread, why the hell do the French count like idiots?!?!
74 = sixty-fourteen
85 = fourtwenties-five

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Seriously? They're French.

Looks like they use 20s instead of 10s, not that hard

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It's not much more than an emotional release. When you're going through a pile of CDs looking for one to listen to, and you're passing the CDs you don't want to hear while saying "No... No... Eh, naaaah..." You're doing the same thing.

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Captain Planet is gey.
Water, Fire, Earth, Wind, Heart???
These forces are supposed to combine to create Captain Planet?
Bullshit.
Those forces combine to create a soaking, boiling mudstorm on Valentine's Day.

Do you ever think that some things aren't worth this much thought/analysis?

because I'm hoping the designer or engineer will walk by, hear my insults, and rectify the problem.

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quote:

Originally posted by Meat187 But while we're in a Lira-thread, why the hell do the French count like idiots?!?! 74 = sixty-fourteen 85 = fourtwenties-five

I've heard just one descent explanation for that. If you compare French to most other Latin languages (and, sometimes, other dialects of French), you'd expect "70", "80", and "90" to be "septante", "huitante", and "nonante", respectively. And, guess what? These words do exist, though they're restricted to Belgium and Switzerland.

So, why not stick to it?

Most likely, it's a matter of linguistic contact. Breton, for example, has a vigesimal numerical system: that is, instead of counting in 10's, they count in 20's. It's natural to suppose this may have had something to do with the numbers now used in Metropolitan French, because 30 and 50 are exceptions (50 is "half hundred" and 30 is a number related to 3). Languages don't necessarily borrow words directly - they can also borrow "meanings" and then translate them.

If you're sceptic about it, just show some mitleid. Or, should I say com-passion? (with-suffering)

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quote:

Originally posted by jennypie Do you ever think that some things aren't worth this much thought/analysis?

Yes, I don't think that much about health, diseases, and dick pumps. I leave that to doctors and nurses

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I think it probably comes back to "Theory of Mind" - that is, our innate capacity to attribute agency to other entities - and the fact that this capacity has evolved to be somewhat promiscuous in the sense that it's better to tricked by a false positive (i.e. assuming there is an agent present when in actual fact there isn't) than to be tricked by a false negative (i.e. assuming there isn't an agent present when in actual fact there is). It's a similar phenomenon to "pareidolia", where the evolutionary need to detect even the smallest change in facial expression has produced a kind of hyperactive facial-detection system in the brain, prone to detecting faces where they do not exist, like in the moon or emoticons like this -> .

For what it's worth, I think this innate tendency towards hyperactive agency detection also goes some way to explaining religious beliefs, where the mind is capable of effortlessly attributing an anthropic intellect to inanimate objects like mountains, or trees, or bronze idols or (more commonly among modern religions) a kind of free-floating agency that exists unattached to anything earthly at all. I suppose a less emotionally salient form of that kind of thinking is capable of giving rise to a belief (no matter how fleeting or subconscious) in things like "stubborn" cars, "theiving" ATMs and "stupid" toasters that can and should be verbally reproached as the need arises.

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Last edited by Renegade on Sep-06-2009 at 18:11