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[evilcherry]

For some reason I suddenly want to see what F(charcoal) will yield.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The expected outcome should be Bincho-tan.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Though I can't answer the north pole question except by pointing out that no compass will be able to pinpoint the thing to even a few meters in radius, I can say how it is possible to go deeper into the woods when you're at the center of the forest. You can "go" in time. Whether forward or back, depending on whether it was expanding or shrinking before, the forest will grow and you will end up deeper into it than you were. Easier with a growing one, and only really impossible if you're on a planet 100% covered with incredibly dense forestation.

[Neruz]

Though I can't answer the north pole question except by pointing out that no compass will be able to pinpoint the thing to even a few meters in radius, I can say how it is possible to go deeper into the woods when you're at the center of the forest. You can "go" in time. Whether forward or back, depending on whether it was expanding or shrinking before, the forest will grow and you will end up deeper into it than you were. Easier with a growing one, and only really impossible if you're on a planet 100% covered with incredibly dense forestation.

That's not really a valid answer; the direction 'deeper' is not one that applies to temporal locomotion.

[Sean Mirrsen]

You can, if you like, go around one spot in the center of the forest. Time will pass regardless of where you walk, and the area of the forest will naturally increase with time, therefore you will keep "going deeper into the forest", in the sense that the distance to its edge will keep increasing as you go. I'm simply trying to overthrow the metaphor, not the original point, since there really is no way to move closer to a goal when you're standing right on it.

[Outcast Orange]

I disagree. If the forest is getting thicker, than you are getting deeper, by most definitions of deepness,
 at least pertaining to forests.

I think this logic could apply to our anthropomorphic issue in a very interesting way:
Humans are not fully human, if your definition of human occurs in a time other than now.
So humans could potentially become less human if preserved in some way,
 but they would not be capable of becoming more human.
If you follow so far, than the next jump is small.
To be the human of the future, is to not be the human of the present.
So you can never be more human than human, even using the deeper forest logics.

Basically, a useless tangent, but fun to think about anyways.

[Vector]

...

You called for more nerdiness?


If we're talking about the anthropomorphizing function still, why don't we think about it as a closure operation on a partially ordered set, where the ordering is ranked by humanness?

Verifying axioms...

1. f(f(wolf)) = f(wolf) => wolfman == f(wolfman) makes sense to me, because wolfman is already anthropomorphized.

2. wolf < f(wolf) = wolfman.  Check, a wolf is less human than a wolfman, as it should be tautologically for any of the members of our set, given that we're talking about an anthropomorphizing function.

3. animal1 < animal2 => f(animal1) < f(animal2), in general, because I can't imagine the anthropomorphized version of more-human thing being less human than that of the "lower beasts."

Good.  So we have a closure operation on partially ordered sets.  Now I'm wondering if it gives us a topology... well, that's the case if f(empty set) = empty set, OR if the closure preserves the supremum.

...

Can anyone think of a way to anthropomorphize nothingness?  I'm having a pretty hard time here.

Hm, I end up wondering if it's metrizable, or if it's anything better than Kolmogorov.  We might be able to do calculus on this set, that would be cool...


Oh, and by the way... I'm of the opinion that you can't get more human than human.

Partially because it makes the math work better, and partially because humanness is defined by whatever human is.

[Protactinium]

Well, I would probably think of it as a caricature of humans. That is to say, the most prominent and noticeable features of humans that are the most different from other creatures would be overemphasized even moreso. Our hair would be thicker and longer, leg muscles larger, thumbs more angular, etcetera.

[Vector]

Well, I would probably think of it as a caricature of humans. That is to say, the most prominent and noticeable features of humans that are the most different from other creatures would be overemphasized even moreso. Our hair would be thicker and longer, leg muscles larger, thumbs more angular, etcetera.

Hmm, I see.  That's an interesting idea.  The problem is that any direction you go away from human gets closer to some other sort of animal--e.g., longer hair -> lions, less hair -> naked mole rats.  I'm not really sure if there's a good definition for "more human" lying around out there, in that sense.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Our thumbs would be so opposable, they wouldn't be able to get near each other!

[smjjames]

Lemme give this thing a try.

F(Vulcan)=Spock

How about F((Hyena)(Pig)(Bear))=one of Dr. Moreaus beasts (one of the antagonists in the movie I think).

Although Dr. Moreaus beasts were anthromorphosized to the point of bieng near human. Even to the point of bieng slightly altered humans. I remember that two of the seemingly human characters were actually a highly evolved (or whatever) big cat of some kind and I think, a dog. I only have the movie to reference from though, not the book.

Edit: How about something that is as far from human as you can get? F(Spider)=??? (and don't say Spiderman, lol)

F(jellyfish)+(lobster)+(Anomalcaris)=Something pretty damn alien.

[CobaltKobold]

Sir that is the opposite of opposbale.

Dr. Moreau's creatures [in the book] were, generally, not all that human,  though all were intelligent, from what I recall.

Also, note that F(fish) != merperson...

[smjjames]

@CobaltKobold: Well, I only had the movie to reference from, and even then, they had to resort to human actors. It was made before CGI became the mainstay it is now.....

Anyways, read my edit, of which I requoted my own post for.

Lemme give this thing a try.

F(Vulcan)=Spock

How about F((Hyena)(Pig)(Bear))=one of Dr. Moreaus beasts (one of the antagonists in the movie I think).

Although Dr. Moreaus beasts were anthromorphosized to the point of bieng near human. Even to the point of bieng slightly altered humans. I remember that two of the seemingly human characters were actually a highly evolved (or whatever) big cat of some kind and I think, a dog. I only have the movie to reference from though, not the book.

Edit: How about something that is as far from human as you can get? F(Spider)=??? (and don't say Spiderman, lol)

F(jellyfish)+(lobster)+(Anomalcaris)=Something pretty damn alien.

The last one would be something that would barely be anthropomorphic, if at all.

[CobaltKobold]

WEll, clearly this doesn't apply from my function (one of the cases that first conditional needs changing for)- but, fairly easily: adjust the frame that one (or two or three) of the four pairs of limbs are now not [stance], add opposable thumbs to them as well as flexibility enough to be used properly as manipulators, add speech capabilities, and you're set! Spider-men.

Jellyfish...dunno. These would probably break my function for most people, as they'd be expecting a more bipedal body plan. You can, with very little work (motion cephalopodward), give them dexterity. Speech would likely be skipped, in favor of sign or color language.
Lobstermen are easy to make, like spidermen.
Anomalocaris-men would be primarily aquatic, I think, like mermen and sharkmen, etc.

I can see a lobsteranomolocaris-man, but not how you mix jellyfish in...exoskeleton vs jellyfish plan are hard to mix.

[smjjames]

Just add some stinging tentacles somewhere and the jellyfish part would work.

heheh, yea I'm trying to break the function by throwing non-bipedal body plans into the works.

How about something non-bilateral? Like, oh I dunno, radial (Jellyfish, Coral, and Sea Anemonenes) or penta-radial (starfish, Sea Urchins)?

While we are at it: F(Horse)=Centaur

[Rockphed]

While we are at it: F(Horse)=Centaur

I don't think that follows from our other discussions.  F(horse) should be a horse with hands that runs around on its hind legs, not a horse that has substituted a human torso for its head.