Personification of inanimate objects has been a part of humanity since the dawn of time. The ancients used to assign personality to inanimate objects like rocks, mountains, weather, and even the stars. Some cultures even assign personalities to abstract concepts like life, death, and knowledge. It should be noted, though, that personification of inanimate objects was not only practiced by ancients; it is still practiced today as well.

Since this practice of personification usually occurs during the attempt to understand their environment, it is an indication that humans can understand something with personality better than inanimate objects or abstract concepts. This is something natural, as humans often explain other humans by their personality. Another reason would be that as social creatures that often have to help one another, humans have brains which are adapted to understand what other humans want them to do.

It is interesting that the very brain adaptation that helps humans to survive is the one that sometimes misleads the ancients in their search for truth, or at least that is how most modern people see their attempt to understand their environment. Other than beginning to do careful experiments and observations, like how modern scientists do in their attempt to understand the universe, they begin to assign personalities to each power that they think may affect their well being.

Actually, it is not very hard to understand their way of thinking. Any beings with personality that surround them could be easily understood and asked for assistance for their survival, it is a very logical choice to assign personality to any power that may affect one’s well being. By assigning this personality to those powers, they hope that they may deal with them, by one way or another.

To think about a way to do this, we have to note that it is obvious that food and drink are the basic requirement for all biological creatures, and humans are biological creatures. That is a reason why providing other humans with food may help them to become friendlier with the provider of the food. Since most people around them show some tendency of being easily persuaded by food, it is logical to predict that these ancient human may start offering food to the personification of powers that may affect their well being in hope that they may be able to persuade these powers, to do them some favors.

It is also interesting to note that the very way that human brain is wired for their survival, also plays a role in how memes survive in their brain. Explanations about the powers, which include the personification of inanimate objects or abstract concept, will have high probability to become more popular than explanations without them.

In the ancient times and even today, the fact that explanations with personification is better fit with the brain topology of human beings, plays a great role in how historical events unfold. Since explanations with personification fit well with human brain, most people will find it easy for them to believe this kind of explanations. It is easier to believe in something comprehensible and the concept of belief itself is meaningless without comprehension of a belief object.

However, the personification of inanimate objects is not solely done by the ancients. There are empirical observation results, indicating that most humans show greater interest to learn an abstract concept if the concept is presented using some kind of personification. Sometimes this interest leverage effect is amplified, if the personification of the inanimate object or abstract concept is presented as a character with different sex, in which the sexual tendency of human being as sexual creature is used to amplify the effect.

Educational cartoonists like Larry Gonick often use personification of inanimate objects in their educative cartoons, to aid students in their attempts to understand advanced concepts. We all know that things like electrons, enzymes or RNA-Ts have no eyes whatsoever in the real world, but it is also a real fact that assigning some personifications to them do aid the students who happen to read the educational comic, to understand the abstract concept that have to be taught.

Other modern use of anthropomorphisms can also be found among the fans of Japanese animation, which is popularly called anime. Some people in Futaba channel assign anime characters personifications into several computer operating systems to describe the characteristic of each operating system. This personification of computer operating systems is popularly called OS-tans (tans here is a Japanese honorific term, which lend some aura of cuteness). Many computer operating systems ranging from DOS, Windows, Mac OSX and Linux, have their own anime character representing them. Some utilities such as MacAfee Antivirus and Symantec Antivirus also have their own anime representation. Other popular applications like web browsers such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera, is also represented as anime characters in OS-tans universe.

Another example of modern personification of abstract concepts can also be found in the statue of Liberty. The statue was presented to the United States by the people of France in 1886 as a gesture of friendship and now stands at Liberty Island, New York. The Statue of Liberty is one of the most recognizable icons of the United States, and more generally, represents liberty and escape from oppression. In other words, the abstract concept called liberty is personified as Lady Liberty.

The abundant examples of modern personification of inanimate objects and abstract concepts, speaks as a proof that even when modern humans had advanced so far from their ancestors in terms of technology, there are still remnants of evolution in the wiring of the human brain. The fact that the human brain is wired to understand things as something with personality, as they are evolved to become social creatures, didn’t change. This fact always has to be taken into consideration when preparing material for teaching students some abstract concepts.