Thread: Talking with Nature?

A rational explanation, huh? Alright, I’ll give it a shot:

Human beings have evolved to be able to quickly detect motion, especially using their peripheral vision since this has obvious advantages for hunting. It could be that you're detecting minute movements of the animals in your periferal vision as you pass the window, so that, when you turn to look out at the backyard with your directed frontal vision, your eyes go right to it. Also, are the animals always still when you look, or could it be that you simply don't remember the times you looked out and saw an animal in motion? Selective memory is responsible for a lot of seemingly strange occurences - for instance the "11:11 phenomenon".

peregrinus pretty much covered the rational explanations i could have offered.

so, i'll posit some irrational ones

perhaps there is an attraction between your consciousness and that of various animals... you may have heard of the much conveyed tale of how the aboriginals could not perceive the large ships of the invaders at first, because the vessels were so foreign to them. apocryphal or not, this story seems to describe a fundamental aspect of human nature:we perceive what we are familiar with.

one could then loosely apply this principle further, and suggest that we most readily perceive that which is most familiar to us. hence, you "hone in" on animals because they are closest to your mode of consciousness.

pretty farfetched probably, but whatever...

i'm sure you have experienced the sensation of "eyes on you", and turned to catch someone staring intensely at you. i certainly experience this often, even when my back is to them (which rules out peripheral vision). perhaps in a similar way human animals can sense non-human animals' attention.

of course, one would then have to explain why animals seemingly become fixated on you every time you pass a window. perhaps the animals are drawn to your movement, and you in turn are draw to their fixation on yourself by means of some ill-defined faculty of perception.

hehe, i did say they would be irrational explanations...

Thanks guys, both your posts make sense to me, in their own way.

This reminds me of my more intuitive nature as a kid. In kindergarten class, I remember the teacher would periodically sing and invite us to follow along. For some reason, our class never had trouble following along, as well as I. I felt like I knew the lyrics just a second before I was going to sing them. Or maybe I'm blowing things out of proportion, but reflecting on that is pretty cool.

Maybe if you read up on metaphysics, it can give u some satisfying insights.

Originally posted by wombing
i'm sure you have experienced the sensation of "eyes on you", and turned to catch someone staring intensely at you. i certainly experience this often, even when my back is to them (which rules out peripheral vision). perhaps in a similar way human animals can sense non-human animals' attention.

That's what I would put my money on. On occasion, when I see birds out back I have done a little experiment where I stare at them and pretend I am really angry. Several times I have gotten them to look both directions and prepare to take off . I have another ultimate goal when it comes to birds, and when I am the passenger in a car. Sometimes they fly across the car, just above it's height. I tell them to move right in the way of the car, and at least once I got really close. I have silently always wanted to see a bird get hit by a car windshield, because I hear there is an explosion of feathers.

Don't quote me on this, but I remember hearing of a scientific study where people just randomly stared at strangers and tested their sensitiviity and reaction. I think five seconds was necessary for most to catch on. If you are checking out a girl, any more than three seconds at a time is risking it. It happened today at the store. I am almost to the point when I can tell when they have caught on to the feeling and so I stop looking.

I heard about that feather explosion happens only with airplane windshields, I don't know if a car is fast enough to make that happen. I would think it would for sure kill the bird, lose a few feather, and end up with a bloody windshield paintjob.

Originally posted by Distant Clone
I have silently always wanted to see a bird get hit by a car windshield, because I hear there is an explosion of feathers.

I certainly hope you're kidding, because that's just sick.

Originally posted by Peregrinus

I certainly hope you're kidding, because that's just sick.

Well i saw a pidgeon get crushed under the wheel of a car once , it just made this sickening crunching noise .

Sounds like you are becoming aware of your connectedness with everything manifesting it's self in your awareness of animals.