Personalities supervene upon at least the central nervous system and probably the whole body or more. In other words, the body is the hardware, the personality is the software. However, when one is in love, one sees the other person as a beautiful soul and wants to relate to them in the fullest sense - they are one's significant other. Time passes, and the spell fades away. Increasingly, one sees the faults in the other person as one gets to know them. Eventually, if it goes sufficiently badly, one is able to predict everything they are able to do and no longer has empathy. The relationship becomes formulaic and stale. At this point, it is to be hoped, the relationship ends. Also at this point, it would be possible, given one's intimate knowledge of the other, it seems possible, in formal language, to write a complete description of how they behave in any circumstances, which could be written as a program simulating their behaviour, given the right compiler and hardware - basically an android. They have become, in Windows terminology, a .exe - partner. You can see through them.

The relationship has ended and they go their separate ways. The personae they have ended up adopting are dropped and maybe they get together with other people. Their personality is no longer predictable because they grow and change. Hence their operating system is now running a new .exe, but their new squeeze is not yet aware of it. They have yet to become a new .exe-partner.
-- nineteenthly, Feb 19 2008

AnalyzeThis.com AnalyzeThis_2ecom
I overvalued part of [DrCurry]'s idea. [nineteenthly, Feb 19 2008]

"Darling! You're just a shell script of your former self!"
-- hippo, Feb 19 2008


Crikey! I can now see why you wrote your 'Am I mad or not?' idea. About three siamese, a persian and a couple of tabbies I'd say.
-- Gordon Comstock, Feb 19 2008


Actually, it came to me from [DrCurry]'s similar idea "AnalyzeThis.com", where he refers to "exes", which i don't think i'd ever seen written down before, and yes it is more than a bit mad.

Come to think of it, if you really missed them you could always make an android, write a compiler for the language, come up with a formal description of personality which fitted into that and install it on the android, then you wouldn't need them any more, would you? I think that's a manga-type idea though - not original.
-- nineteenthly, Feb 19 2008


I don't understand the invention. I understand that relationships go stale, but why would you want an android reminder of a failed relationship? This sounds like the wife from ST "Mudd's Women".
-- MisterQED, Feb 19 2008


//At this point, it is to be hoped, the relationship ends. // Unless you're willing to make an effort and refactor yourself.
-- pertinax, Feb 19 2008


The android is not the invention. This is an idea, not an invention.

[pertinax], agreed, it wouldn't be a good thing if this happened, but it does sometimes.
-- nineteenthly, Feb 19 2008


Treon?
-- BunsenHoneydew, Feb 29 2008



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