I tend to form my mental portrait of people entirely by their dialogue. It doesn't have to be a correct representation of the person, merely consistent. This is an entirely unconscious and automatic process.
My mental portraits form slowly, like Google Earth's terrain algorithm (ooh, lovely simile, I'm a poet!), as I encounter people more and more. Thus, my protrait of Hurkyl* is pretty low-rez with little detail, while my portraits of Evo or Moonbear or Ivan Seeking are somewhat more detailed, including an approximate age, voice, nationality, etc. Again ,they look nothing like the real people, just as long as thoese people continue to behave in a way consistent with my portrait of them.
For wolram, my mental portrait does not simply continually refine itself. Instead it is rendered in chalk, with a handy eraser nearby. I'll build a mental portrait of him as a young, 20's-ish, American, happening, University student with a whip-like wit. And then he'll come along and post something that is so different, that my portrait will be erased and replaced with a quaint 50's-ish grey-haired Brit in a smoking jacket. And then just when that settles in, he'll come along and post something so different that even those two disparate portraits seem too ... familiar. A portrait will form of someone with ethnic-yet-indefinable features and a mysterious background and unknown profession.
More than nayone, I just don't know who I'm talking too.
That's what I mean by
https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=996161&postcount=11".
*no offense Hurkyl. If it's any consolation, it's a very
sexy low-rez blob.
yes mam.
