Do non-living things have personalities to you?

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Not at all.

Applying a personality to an inanimate object would be emotional projection, which is something I lack.

I don't think objects have personalities, but I do think objects have emotions.
We're going to have our bathroom done this week (possibly tomorrow), and that means we're going to have to take off all the tiles in order to place them with new ones, and I keep ''feeling sorry'' for the tiles that are to come off. Each time I go in the bathroom I keep looking at the tiles on the wall and I can almost hear them saying ''today might be our last ever day to be on show and then we're going to have to come off, it's not fair!''

Seeing emotions in objects is becoming a serious problem with me though. It's causing me to become a hoarder, and I think I'm also developing a fear of rubbish dumps.

Do they have personalities?

NO.
My brain interprets this idea as silly. Inanimate things are just that, objects.


HOWEVER: Do I treat them like they do?
YES.
The difference is that I know it's me who is "breathing life" in the interaction. As it is, my cars and computers are deemed stubborns, or snobs etc.

Heh, good fun.

I don't have the true synesthesia, but I've always been able to easily create a personality/name for an inanimate object if I need to do so for whatever reason. I don't do it automatically in my daily life, but since I do believe I have true spatial sequence and ticker tape synesthesia, I think that it's not a coincidence that I can create personalities for numbers, letters, and inanimate objects much easier than most people. The best example of my inanimate object personality traits is how I created a full-fledged personality for every one of the microwave girls in "Is This a Good Idea to Microwave This?" My microwave biographies are up on the microwave show's Wiki page. I am very proud of them. The girls who didn't last long are the ones where the personality was almost entirely created by me. I had an instant like/dislike for every girl. Hard to explain why/how.

Quote:
When I pet my stuffed animals I frequently have to touch every single one of them because if I didn't they would feel left out, and I don't want any of them to feel slighted.


I do this too; I have to hug each of them individually before I go to bed, and if I miss one, I feel guilty about it. I also don't buy new stuffed animals very often anymore; I'm convinced if I do, the others will get jealous. The tiny, utterly illogical piece of my brain that believes this is also slightly convinced that the whole "Toy Story" thing is real; all the toys/knicknacks/objects in my room come to life when I leave. Of course, this makes having garage sales very difficult and I feel guilty for ever getting rid of anything, so it's turned me into a bit of a hoarder. I even have a hard time throwing old shoes away (part of my need for routine is wearing the same thing every day, so I only ever have one pair of each type of shoe at a time, so they can spend years with me) it just makes me feel sad, like I'm abandoning an old friend or something. Not all of my anthropomorphising is involuntary though; I once gave a personality to the dish rag I used at work to keep my day more interesting; I couldn't talk to my coworkers, so I talked to her instead. I'm pretty sure if anyone had ever caught me talking to a dish rag though, I'd have been thrown in the looney bin. I wonder why we do this; considering the trouble we have empathising with other humans and understanding their emotions, the idea that we can understand the perceived emotions of inanimate objects is extremely bizarre.

I don't have a problem with hoarding myself - while I perceive personalities in objects, I don't have much of a problem getting rid of them. Although, I do have a problem getting rid of certain things, like instruments and sheet music - I don't need every single instrument I own, but I like having them. They all do have their own sounds - for example I have three fretless basses but they all sound different (all made from different materials and having different types of fingerboard/fingerboard coating). I only use two of them on stage - I could easily get rid of one of them, but I have a horribly difficult time parting with instruments - which is why I have never parted with one.

They do not to me.

I haven't got over childhood animism, I still feel that toys and alike have soul and and feelings. Mostly I feel it about things that have some kind of eyes or face (or had once or are supposed to have). Like when a toy car has eyes, then it is much more a personality than a usual toy car without a face drawn on it. And also pictures - a drawing of some imagination character is also a personality for me whereas a drawing that is a reproduction of a real being is not. I mean a Winnie Pooh picture in in any book is animate, but a photo or a drawing of a real human or animal is not. Therefore it is very hard to me throw away toys or childrens books. And somewhat my car and motorcycle have a personality too, but that's not as much clear.

Not personalities, but emotions. My mother used to pay me to massage her feet as a kid and I would always be sure to treat both feet equally so one wouldn't feel bad" eventhough I hated doing it. Also, always pulled blankets, etc. off of things with faces or made sure they weren't blocked in any way. I intellectually know it makes no difference, but I do it anyway. I treat objects respectfully. I collect naturally heart-shaped rocks, and one my son found a few years ago, he decided yesterday wasn't so heart-shaped and wanted to toss it. I said no, but he really wanted to, so I let him. He had found a better one earlier. I felt horrible. He did too afterwards and tried to find it. Didn't, but actually found another one very heart-shaped. Weird. I just felt so bad that the rock was being 'ousted' for no reason after being so comfortable lined up by size with the others for years. Like being kicked out for no reason with nowhere to go out into the cold. Stuff like that.