Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Perspective

I've read someone saying that fish look at us like we're just big, weird fish. And that in a way they're right. Of course seeing the way someone else does is hard enough, much less members of a whole different species. Still, there's something to that. We have much of the same equipment, it's just that evolution has made us use it differently.

2 comments:

susan said...

It seems to me it's next to impossible for us to understand how a fish could come to any conclusion about people - other, of course, than when it sees a hook at the end of a line. How animals in general view the world around them, including us, has been the focus of a number of studies over the years. Wouldn't it be entertaining to be paid to watch an elephant look at itself in a mirror or see how a cuttlefish reacts to wearing 3D glasses?

Ben said...

Point. When we talk about the way fish perceive the world there's a lot of guesswork involved. In fact it's hard enough to come to a conclusion about the perceptions of small babies. Yes, we've all been there, but nobody has perfect recall of that time of life. (Some claim to. I'm dubious.)

It would be a trip seeing an elephant look at itself in the mirror. They do see reflections, since they drink out of pools, but the mirror focuses the image differently. And cephalopod eyes are remarkably similar to vertebrate eyes but...not quite the same. It would be interesting.