A Thunk is a beguilingly simple-looking question about everyday things that stops you in your tracks and helps you start to look at the world in a whole new light. © Ian Gilbert.
Thunk 23:
If you take a toy tiger, bleach away its stripes, and sew a mane on it, will it then be a tiger or a lion?
44 comments:
Firstly, HAHAHA! I think I'll try that :P
Moving on, yes I think it will. Because really, they're both just stuffed pocket's of cloth and the only way one can differentiate between them is through the details of their appearance i.e. the stripes and the mane. So yes, if you bleached away a stuffed 'tiger's' stripes and sewed a mane on it's head, it would then definitely resemble a lion more than anything else, and thus BE a 'lion'.
...this is an adorable thunk.
You know, it could have a sewed on mane and be an alien from Sedna, for all any child would care. A toy for a child won't be what its label calls it - unless you have like. NO imagination. You could give a 5 year old child a dolphin and ze'd call it a shark, ze would fight with zer parents and insist on its shark-ness!
Of course, if you've outgrown toys and imagination, roar for you. But a toy is a plaything for a child and it can be whatever the heck ze wants it to be.
I used to be one of those Bear Factory fans who used to clutch at the new edition to the countless stuffed animals at each little store, just wishing one would be mine. So this post was definitely a flood of nostalgia!
I agree with Neiha, being recently closely linked to children with absolutely charming creativity, the little stuffed toy could be a new creation of the child!
But then again, if you were to be overly observant and would see things as it is, then I think the stuffed toy would resemble an Orange Lion than a Tiger! [I just couldn't ignore the fact that tigers are more orange than yellow as compared to the lion] (:
Just a curious question, when cloth is bleached does it not turn white? Hmm, that would definitely be a new species of stuffed animal then! Orange body with white stripes and a fluffy mane!
Why not?
If we are talking about a soft toy here then, once its been bleached and had a mane sewn on it would be a lion. For the very simple reason that no one could be able to tell the difference, therefore why should the child that owns it think differently?
On the other hand, if this was metaphorical and we were talking about a real tiger 'losing it's stripes'... Then its a moral dilemma, just becuase your stripes change does that mean you, on the inside change? Your still the same on the inside and thats all that matters. Contradiction :S
Why yes, it would definitely be a Lion.
a) It's outer cover has been transformed beyond recognition. It's appearance can longer be compared to a Tiger.
b)I Second what Faiza said about two being exactly the same on the inside. The thing they have in common is the filling beneath the outer cover. So clearly, the only way the two can be distinguished is by how they look on the outside.
At the end of the day they're just toys.
It's never on a 5 year olds agenda to care about what's on the inside. They like stuff that's visually appealing.
My Barbies didn't have feelings. They just had nice clothes :)
I agree with Neiha's statement about how adorable this thunk is.
Getting back to the question though. Children have the advantage of imagining better then any adult. As Neiha has said about the 5 year old child. When the tiger had its stripes it resembles a 'tiger', children are aware of the characteristics a tiger owns. So when the tiger was stripped of its stripes and ended up with mane that was then sewn, we would then call it a lion, since thats what a lion usually looks like. By the way, children also know how the lion is supposed to look.
So overall, the answer is yes. It would be a lion.
A lion, definitely. Not only because the toy in itself will be made up of the same material and the only difference that really matters is what's on the outside, but also because the target we keep in mind here is a child, for a lion or a tiger isn't what matters, but that what he/she is holding is something to play with.
Seeing as we're talking about a TOY tiger here, I say as long as it's visual aspect changes to that of a Lion; it becomes a Lion. Besides, a child does not particularly think or care about what tag a toy carries; a child creates and imagines using toys, regardless of what they are.
It's like painting a white wall red; don't we call it a red wall once changed? After all, the toy is a non-living object, a stuffed animal.
However, if it were a real tiger and this were to somehow, very weirdly, happen - then I'd think the complete opposite. Just because ones appearance changes does not mean ones originality changes along with it.
Well, I don't think it would since it wouldn't be exactly identical to the lion (Plus, I observed the picture and saw that the tiger plushie's got sort of a white rectangular beard whereas the lion's jaw is oval.)
But then again like what everyone else has stated I doubt it would matter to a child. :P
-nikol 11g
It would become a lion! It has nothing to show that it is a tiger anymore, since its just a stuffed toy. So I would say that it's exterior appearance determines what it is.
Well, they say that a leopard cannot change its spots, so does that mean a tiger cannot change its stripes? Since it's a soft toy, it won't have a heart of a tiger, or a lion for that matter. Also I think this is a question of appearance, so I believe it is a lion. They are still big cats, right?
Since it's a toy and not the real thing, then it would be a lion.
They are made of the same fabric and have the same stuffing, and once all traces of the stripes are taken away, the toy 'tiger' would be nothing more than a wild cat of unknown species. However, sew a mane on, and you've got yourself a lion.
Like what everyone said though, it all depends on the child and his imagination :)
.Err, i think I called a dog 'beary' before :S
Like everyone has already mentioned: they are stuffed toys and therefore if a toy tiger had its stripes bleached and a mane sewn on it, then I would definitely say it would be a lion.
If in any case it would have been tried on a real tiger, then it would not be a lion, but remain a tiger from the inside and a new kind of big cat species from the outside.
Aisha Bashir
11g2
It will still be a tiger.
First of all, because we would have seen it as a tiger and know all along it is still a tiger.
Second, becase you are what you are, no matter how you try to change. When women or men have sex changes, are they what they made themselves to be or are they what they always were?
Just because you changed his exterior appearance, doesn't mean he feels the same on the interior. But I am very sure the lion in question doesn't exactly have feelings. Therefore, as far as visual aspects (as Tannya said) go yes he will be a lion. I think the real determination to what the stuffed toy is or becomes will be up to its owner. :)
Since the tiger is not real and does not have any living characteristics of any animal, I think it would be a lion. Changing the look of a toy completely changes what it is, but a a toddler doesn't really care about what the toy is or isn't, so long as they can have fun with it.
Speaking of a TOY tiger and using my imagination (putting myself in a child's shoe) i'd right away say that it will be a lion. Only because its a toy and the only thing that determines what it could be is it's visual aspects.
However, thinking deeply into this and considering it a 'real' tiger, i'd say it stays the way it is; a tiger. If a man grows his hair, shaves his facial hair and gets his ears pierced, does all that make him a woman? I would personally say no. No matter how you change your physical appearance, you're still same on the inside and i guess thats all that matters.
...they both belong to the same family either way (:
As everyone above me as mentioned, considering it is a stuffed animal, which are named based on their appearance, it would technically be a lion. & yes, seeing as the tiger and lion are both part of the cat family, the features would resemble and I'm sure anyone looking at this toy for the very first time would straight away call it a lion.
Yet, if I were child who had done this to the tiger myself, I would always call it my tiger, no matter how different it looked.
I don't think we can compare humans in this situation seeing as we are living and breathing and have individual personalities, therefore no matter how much we change our appearances, we will always remain the same person inside.
The same can't be applied to a toy, as they are judged upon their appearances, & once you change the way it looks, it changes what it IS- except in the view point of the owner, who will always KNOW the original look of the modified toy.
Even though I know this toy was once a tiger, it completely resembles a lion now, so what stops it from being one?
Once you bleach a material it would lose its original colour, therefore a bleached tiger with a sewed mane would quite obviously turn out to be a lion, since its the only cat with a mane. Besides a kid wouldnt care the least if it were a tiger or a lion as long as the toy is appealing on the outside :).
When women or men have sex changes, are they what they made themselves to be or are they what they always were?
...I disagree with this. The biological make-up of a person has nothing to do with the way they have always felt. "Make themselves" - I think the more appropriate term would be reverting to the gender they've always felt themselves to be.
As a cis-gendered individual, I don't think that was a particularly, well, appropriate assumption to make :/
LOL :D well if i was a kid and if i saw this toy in a shop,i dont think i would care if it was a tiger or lion as long as i was getting a new toy,,,however im sure i would say its a lion more then a tiger,,sincing the stripes have beng erased and has a mane,i would recognise it to be a lion.
If we were talking about real living animals, i'd say that just because the physical appearance has been altered, doesn't necessarily mean the inner characteristics have been affected too.
But since we're talking about TOYS. Then the tiger will look like a lion and be a lion :)
It would become a toy lion, period. Of course, ultimately, the toy tiger should have the verdict on whether or not it wants to turn into a toy lion. It shouldn't be forced to turn into a toy lion. That just reminds me of George Orwells 1984.:P
HAHAHAHAHHAHAHA! Awesome Thunk!!!
I vote for the Toy Lion.
Because, no one would know that that lion used to be a tiger. It has been physically transformed.
And I’d agree with Aisha, that if it were to happen to a real tiger, then it would still be itself no matter what.
In the case of a real tiger, the appearance would not make a difference because it will still have the mentality of a tiger. If it was born as a tiger that's one thing that cannot be changed. Though since it is only a stuffed animal it would be a lion because the appearance is the only thing that you have to difrentiate between the lion and any other animal. If you changed that factor you have nothing else to make assumptions with except the purchase tag I gather:).
Yes, it would be a tiger because the appearance of the stuffed animal is all that you have to difrentiate it from anything else. Except the purchase tag I supose.
Like the majority of the comments above, I also agree that if we're talking about a stuffed toy, to a child, then it would be a lion, for the mere reason that from it's appearance, the child wouldn't be able to tell that it was once a tiger.
On the other hand, if we're speaking metaphorically, then it could be looked at in two perspectives.
One being that, it's still a tiger, because we're only changing what appears on the outside, and the external visual doesn't matter. Just because it has a mane now, doesn't mean that the tiger, on the inside, changes.
Then there's the second perspective, like Tannya.D mentioned,''It's like painting a white wall red; don't we call it a red wall once changed?''
Some excellent points being made above as a consequence of this seemingly childish (but, in fact, fiendishly profound) thunk. Tannya makes an excellent point about how a painting a white wall red makes it a red wall.
Myra raises an interesting point as well - if a man has a sex change and becomes a "woman" is he really a woman or still a man? Her point goes to the heart of this thunk. How much does external appearance influence our perception of people and objects.
I suppose, at the genetic level, a real tiger can look like a lion, but if its genetic code and chromosome number indicates it is a tiger, then it's a tiger regardless of what it looks like.
The sex change issue is a little more tricky. Males have the XY chromosome and females have the XX chromosome. But there are people born with an entire range of other chromosomes: XXY, XYY, XXX, YYY - are these people male or female, both or neither? :)
I'm reminded of a quandary people were in, when, in the 1980s, they discovered Oliver, the chimp that walked upright. He had a straight spine, a flatter face, an expanded chest, and almost never used his knuckles to walk; he preferred, instead, to walk upright on two legs. Poor Oliver looked and walked unnervingly like a human being — a kind of humanzee.
Humans have 46 pairs of chromosomes. Chimps have 48 pairs of chromosomes. What if Oliver had 47? Would we classify him as a human or a chimp? Would we put him in a zoo or in a special-needs school?
First of all, if you only bleached away it's stripes then the tiger becomes 'orange with WHITE stripes', that is if you believe that a tiger is 'orange with black stripes' rather than 'black with orange stripes'. I guess it's something like the controversy over the zebra issue, which is yet to be proven.
If a tiger is black with orange stripes, then bleaching away it's stripes would make it look like a zebra...well apart from the mane of course!:P
But to make it look like a lion, you would have to: first bleach it, dye it a nice tawny colour and then sew on the mane, only to find out that your younger brother can't go to sleep without his "Tigger the Tiger-Bear"!
Note: I only said 'look'. The ugliest of people can have a heart of gold, and the best of lions could have the heart of a tiger!
Well, this is a mind boggling question! Since we are talking about a 'TOY' here, I assume it will become a lion.
There is a reasons that I think the toy will look or become a lion:
-If you try to bleach away its stripes, its orange colour will be bleached away too. And if you sew a mane on it, it will definitely look like a lion.
Appearance is what matters first(to a child), not what it used to be. A child does not know that the lion was a tiger before, as many above me have said,'for all a child cares, its just an another toy', whether its a lion, tiger or both!
Straight to the point, it would still be a tiger. It was born a tiger although his appearance might be different to all other tigers he is still classed as a tiger. Take for instance Michael Jackson (RIP) he was born black and his whole heritage was black, although he may have done surgery to change his appearance to look white, he is still a negro inside and it can’t change his whole history of being African-American cause of his several surgeries he has gone through.
i agree with dylan on this one, because you can take away it's stripes but there will be some way of telling them both appart. it's just like identical twins they both look the same but theres allways going to be a way of telling them apart.
Hmmm.....This is a tough one. Sure, you can bleach away the stripes. You can sew a mane onto it. You can change it's appearance, but the fact remains that it's still a tiger, not a lion. So i don't think by bleaching away it's stripes and sewing onto it, will change it to a tiger.
And personally, I find that image hilarious :D
First of all cute thunk. As for the question I have to say that it will be a lion, as long as it’s not the real thing. Obviously because if you look at a toy with brownish orange stripes you will identify it as a tiger, but when you look at a toy with no stripes and a mane then you will see it as a lion.
So I would say that if you bleach a tiger’s stripes away and sew a mane on it then yes definitely (as long as it’s a toy) it would look like a lion.
Seeing as it's a childrens toy I think that yes, it would be a lion.
As most people have said, changing the outside of the tiger would transform it into a lion.
Though if we're talking about a 'real' lion, no matter what anyone does on the outside - you're still the same on the inside.
You change the toy tiger into looking like a lion, but to you it still remains a tiger. Though on the other hand, if you have someone else looking at it then they believe for a minute that its a lion, but to a discerning it will just look like a tiger modified into a lion.
I'd say if a person didn't know that it has been changed from a tiger to a lion then they would definitely say it's a lion. We naturally judge things by sight, it's just how humans are, but I'd like to think that if a person knew that it's been changed they'd still call it a tiger, I mean I would.
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