The Mac who loved me

For this article, I would like to depart from the normal (?!) subject matter of hardware and software compatibility and function, and instead offer a bit of philosophy (your BS detector may be going on overload right about now; bear with me. I promise if nothing else to give you something to think about- and I promise it has something to do with Macs :)

For some reason, I’ve been a bit obsessed recently over a post I read in the Deal-mac forum (http://dealchat.com/mac/read.html?id=102642&thread=102642) where the author wrote a dissertation of why the Mac was important to him and made some sweeping generalization about everything from the benevolence of Apple Computer, Inc, to "Being a Mac User is a show of enlightenment." While I responded in my usual cynical quasi-objective tone (those who read my past article can no doubt guess as to what the response was ;) this is not the subject that interested me. Somehow along the thread the discussion shifted to the assertion that Macs have more personality; Are more humanistically compatible, and shifted to a rather interesting diatribe regarding the nature of personality, personification, and the importance of these on human interaction with devices. One author made a rather impassioned and well-written analysis on how all objects around us have personality. The assertion was as follows:

"All manufactured items have variables in them. It is a part of the process of manufacturing to try to MINIMIZE variables and seek uniformity. However, the imperfect world being what it is, this is a goal, not a possiblity. Given two manufactured items that are, on their face, identical, each will be unique in an a manner that may or may not be readily descernable. The more complex the item becomes, the harder uniformity becomes to acheive and the greater the differences.

That undefineable characteristic, we generally refer to as "personality" It gives a texture, a flavor, something that one cannot readily define, yet it is there." (for the whole article, please see http://dealchat.com/mac/read.html?id=103747&thread=102642)

Some of the other posts were cruder, more adamant insistences that their Macs are analogous to pets- but the context remained: Computers can be formed humanized relations with, and some are more personable then others. I cannot stress enough how much I disagree with this notion. As the word implies, *PERSON*ality refers to humans, although it applies to creatures with higher brain functions too (humanism is term perhaps prejudicial to dogs, I suppose ;)

An animal has personality because it is the shape of the response it has to its environment based on its own wholly unique biology. a manufactured device is IMPERFECT when it does not conform to its design. we tend, as human being, to bestow so called "personification" to inanimate objects, because it is how we as humans naturally want to relate to the world around us. inanimate objects don't "respond." they have no sentience or free will to HAVE personality.

That said, inanimate objects can reflect the personality of a sentient being they are in contact with. A yard with destroyed toys may reflect an ill tempered pet, for example. Your computer's desktop may be organized in a fashion reflecting its owner. When a manufacturer that mass markets products such as computers recognizes the importance of allowing the user to fashion the User Interface to his or her liking, it makes for a more humanly relateable (I think that’s a word :) object. The misconception (self delusion?) of many Mac owners is that the fact they bought a Mac makes them in some way superior to others, where in fact they simply found this tool to be more compatible with themselves. PCs have come a long way since 1984 in this respect; perhaps its time for the zealots to experience the "dark side"; perhaps their own zealotry has crippled their ability to use different tools...