Thread: How Humor can Harm Human Progress

The Onion recently posted an article in which it satirically insinuates that cats see people as larger cats: Scientist: Cats View Owners As Large Cats | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

At first you may be thinking, "Okay, so the Onion isn't always funny, what's your point?" The point is that there actually is a little evidence that cats may see humans as larger cats.

Exhibit A (PS I have no interest in criticism regarding the quality of the video, that's not what this thread is focused on):


Whether or not you buy what the narrator is selling, Yang Dan has been doing research into this for over a decade, and the results, at the very least, show credence to the possibility that perhaps our brains do twist reality to some extent. If you don't believe me, watch the ted talk on optical illusions: Optical illusions show how we see: Beau Lotto on TED.com | TED Blog

It is revealed that evolution hardwires our brain to misperceive reality based on survival. This means the old saying is true, "Believe in nothing that you hear and only half of what you see." Your brain is warping the world, but furthermore if Yang Dan's research proves accurate, then our brains warp our perception to a much greater degree than we previously thought.

But unfortunately, now that this research has been satirized by the Onion, the chances of the mainstream taking it seriously have considerably dropped.

I feel like that too, sort of. I know that I only know my consciousness, so nothing else can be proved as it is, or as I originally perceive it

I think most news is somewhat skewed when presented on common news forms (i.e. Fox, CNN, Cracked, etc.).

The smart person would look up more information, and not just believe what one site says. Read up on other reports, then come up with a conclusion, instead of just being fed one view. Sadly, nobody else does this - they just accept what the one news report says.

News has become too much entertainment and not enough (f)actual information.

One of the greatest tragedies this century has seen is the death of investigative journalism.

(Also Nelson Mandela, rip)

I agree with original poster that investigative journalism is dead, for the most part, as far as the mainstream goes... but the Onion satirizes things every single day and I've never seen it actually mess with intelligent people's curiosity about real findings in science. Ignorant people stay ignorant because it's comfy there, while those who are actually curious look further for information.

Also, keep in mind that academic communities (biology, physics, psychology, etc.) operate almost completely outside of the domain of journalism. They publish their reports in peer reviewed journals and it goes on to influence further research and changes technology, etc. The academic community doesn't need every regular Joe to believe in or even really care about its recent discoveries.

The real problem is not that The Onion exists, but that people don't think to question their own reality naturally. That's a problem that has always existed. In any era throughout history, the majority of people have been snug as bugs not being truly curious about a single big question ever.

Oh I have no problem with the onion. It's most likely complete coincidence that they made a satirical article about a real phenomenon. But humorous dismissiveness also often stands in the way of groundbreaking research. Rupert Sheldrake (researcher on telepathy) has had to battle sarcasm his entire career, and sarcasm from his own colleagues at mind you, the very people meant to take his work seriously in order to peer review it.

It's sort of like what Gandhi said, first they ridicule you...

Originally Posted by Original Poster

Rupert Sheldrake (researcher on telepathy) has had to battle sarcasm his entire career, and sarcasm from his own colleagues at mind you, the very people meant to take his work seriously in order to peer review it.

Agreed... but for a different reason. When it comes to psy phenomenon there's this harmful attitude in the scientific community that "extraordinary phenomena require extraordinary proof". It's based on a mix of skepticism and the way the "rigors of science" are set up. A lot of the research on things like telepathy end up with results that are statistically significant but small and are often are not replicable with different researchers. Then, because of skepticism, peers in the field say the results aren't significant enough, or could be attributable to other causes.

I remember my 4th year supervisor, when I told him I wanted to do a Ph D researching the nature of consciousness, told me "you're better off getting a philosophy or religion degree then. Science can't study that yet." And he wasn't completely wrong... IMO, it's the most important question, but at this time, it may lie beyond the realm of science (though theoretical physics is starting to have a real go at it ...)

It is paramount that scientists investigate it. If scientists are unwilling to do the groundwork now, they never will. Fuck, scientists have been putting in the ground work to understand the nature of consciousness for some time. You just have to figure out which baby steps to pursue and begin your work there. Sheldrake himself has put in a great deal of groundwork, just look up the youtube video "the extended mind."

You're right though, the biggest problem with psy phenomenon is that other, more skeptical researchers have trouble replicating it. I believe it's because they presume they'll find nothing and so skip over important details, like that relatives and friends score above chance more than strangers, and only very close relatives scored significantly above chance. So for example Rupert Sheldrake finds a family of sisters and see's they scored significantly above chance at predicting which one is calling but when other researchers watch other siblings attempt the same, they only score slightly above chance, and I think the researcher is ignoring how tight the bonds are in Sheldrake's test subjects.

You can't be serious!!?

Don't know, where the big cats hypothesis comes from - but in the work, that was done 1999 - there is no mention of that.
It's actually pretty interesting - that's more than ten years ago - didn't know it was possible back then already.
I believe, I posted something with humans somewhere here, where they also were able to associate patterns with specific visual clues..

But this here is just a fuzzy recording, showing remarkable resemblance to the source - but in no way something on which to pose such a bizarre hypothesis. Good question, why the moustache - maybe to get that black dot?
Compare also the woodland scenes and consider the accuracy of depiction.
And of course cats can discern different other animals - including us. That's not dogma by the way, but common sense!!

Not even only common sense - there's a hotly be-researched topic - the binding problem.
Even directly with cats, discerning different animals and different individual animals.
Perceptions being shown to correlate to certain temporally integrated far-reaching oscillations. Just comes to my mind - check out Wolf Singer, if truly interested in science - not accusing people of not taking seriously your beloved pseudoscience.
This does not belong there, though.
It's not The Onion distracting from the value of this piece of science - you are!

Here we go - that's all this youtube video got in terms of evidence for cats seeing humans as big cats:



Make up your so highly treasured critical and unbiased minds of your owns on that..
You want to stick out your neck for the cat seeing another cat?
Or do you think, she might have just normal vision and a correct perception, of what she is faced with for herself with all her brain, as opposed to what 177 neurons can do?
Like it is damn useful for survival?

Sci/Tech 1999

Looking through cats' eyes
Fuzzy but recognisable

By BBC News Online Science Editor Dr David Whitehouse
These are the first pictures from an extraordinary experiment which has probed what it is like to look through the eyes of another creature.

As reported on BBC News Online last week, a team of US scientists have wired a computer to a cat's brain and created videos of what the animal was seeing.



By recording the electrical activity of nerve cells in the thalamus, a region of the brain that receives signals from the eyes, researchers from the University of California at Berkeley were able to view these shapes.

The team used what they describe as a "linear decoding technique" to convert the signals from the stimulated cells into visual images.

Dr Yang Dan, Assistant Professor of Neurobiology at UC Berkeley, Fei Li and Garrett Stanley, now Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Harvard University conducted 11 experiments.

They recorded the output from 177 brain cells that responded to light and dark in the cat's field of view.


In total, the 177 cells were sensitive to a field of view of 6.4 by 6.4 degrees. As the brain cells were stimulated, an image of what the cat saw was reconstructed.

The first example is a face. Although the reconstructed image is rather fuzzy, it is clearly recognisable as a version of the original scene. It is possible that a clearer image could be obtained by sampling the electrical output of more cells.

In the cat's brain, as in ours, the signals from the thalamus cells undergo considerable signal processing in the higher regions of the brain that improve the quality of the image that is perceived.

Taking an image from a region of the brain before this image enhancement has taken place will result in a poorer image than the cat is able to see.

The other two examples show two woodland scenes, with tree trunks being the most prominent objects.



By being able to tap directly into the brain and extract a visual image the researchers have produced a "brain interface" that may one day allow the control of artificial organs and indeed machines by thought alone. It is also conceivable that, given time, it will be possible to record what one person sees and "play it back" to someone else either as it is happening or at a later date.

That latter fattened part is by now reality. Might go to the trouble and link through to that later.


Oh wonder - better electrode placement into more than just 177 cells - big cat morphs into human in plain cat-sight!!
Soz - acute dis-inhibition of my sub-humorous sarcasm-centre around the midbrain..

^Very nice facts. You may be right, but as for the "perception defines our reality" part of the subject, I must agree. We know what we recieve and conclude, and it all depends on the brain's functions. So we live in this world, we have certain 'characteristics', and other creatures have other characteristics, and diferent views, so each must have a different 'reality', because we are only what our brains do.
I'm sure you share the same view, right?
And if I'm bambling something unrelated, then sorry.
Note: I believe that cats don't see us as bigger cats, when I see study results, which you provided, so yeah, whatever science proves I walk with.

I doubt cats really differentiate between species the way we do. They probably just categorize (heh, cat-egorize) other animals into "things I eat", "things that eat me", and "things that help me". Cats, humans, and potentially household pets fall into the last category and they don't bother differentiating beyond that point most of the time.

They do, TimeDragon - like I mentioned above with this binding problem - also by "listening" to nerve-signals, you can see, that cats categorize dogs for example into their very own category of pattern.
But actually - I see the point of OP - we do indeed perceive our environment through heavy filtering mechanisms, as do cats.
Just not in this respect - they are clever predators and know, what they got in front of them concerning category of other animals.
At least I believe that.

But we can only perceive, what our sensory organs are equipped to perceive for once.
Our perceptions do not follow from the physical phenomena directly - an example is light, which from this to that wavelength is seen as such, and from a certain frequency of waves onwards - we perceive the same thing as warmth with completely different receptors. Despite the physical phenomenon being a continuum.

Not only that, though - as OP poses - it's also true, that we don't see, what our optical nerves process 1:1 - I have a nice example actually.
In between the light falling on our retina from the pupil and the actual sensors in it, lies a layer of blood-vessels - and they make a shadow on our picture, so to speak.
But since it's always there and always the same - we don't perceive it.
But when you get your eye-back-ground looked at - doctors come with a strong light-source, and if it's not shining in the usual angle through the pupil - this shadow lies somewhere else and suddenly becomes visible.
I could see my own blood-vessels in my view because of that - ophthalmology professor explained it to me.
It's impressive.
I can't exclude the notion of the OP of course - but would you come to such a conclusion from the article and pictures?
If nobody had suggested it - wouldn't we just see a blurry picture, which is very similar to the original one?
I mean it looks only remotely like a cat - I find, it rather looks like a dog - just suggesting the cat sees a dog here would be ludicrous, because of the cat's behaviour towards humans vs. dogs.

I wonder, what house-cats would think of a real big cat coming up to them - I can hear it in my ears, almost, the uproar.
Besides - don't forget we smell completely different - really - cats in my view definitively are dependant on discerning species for their evolutionary survival.
To convince me otherwise would need a lot more salient data to go from.


By the way - I have written a longer post under philosophy, with two videos included, and one of them actually explains this binding problems as well. I'm also afraid it gets overlooked over there - I could have opened a thread on consciousness here as well - but that one fits, what I got to contribute nicely - and it's on topic in a way here as well:
http://www.dreamviews.com/philosophy...ml#post2085348

Correct.

But what I think should be argued here is that we percieve existance anly as how much our sensory and brain capability can.
Meaning evolved aliens can 'see', or 'be' in the universe muchmore than we can. This principle is what is meant by the OP for cats not seeing us like we are, but, like you said, it's not like that, because they need to see us as we are(for survival reasons), and they probably do.

Yeah - where are these damn aliens??
Lets hurl lights into their eyes to see if they can see, and ram needles into their nerves to hear, if they can feel..*
Or maybe just have a chat.
They could turn out very similar to us, actually - along the lines of convergent evolution - it's not unreasonable to imagine, they use the camera-principle for their eyes for example..

*Stole this and modified it - is a quote and forgot from where - but "hearing" if they feel comes from recording nerve-signals and transforming them to audio, like it is done sometimes.