Here's a link to an interesting press release about some research into
what goes on in ferrets' brains when they watch the Matrix (I am *not*
making that up, I guess they chose it because it had lots of visual
stimuli):
 
http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=1898
 
The study was designed to look at what the brain does while it is
"idling"--so they compared brain activity in the ferrets while they were
watching the Matrix and while they were in a darkened room with no visual
stimuli.  The researchers were surprised to discover that the ferrets'
visual neurons were about as busy in the dark room as they were while
being visually stimulated by the movie.  I doubt this would come as a
surprise to any ferret owner who has always suspected their ferrets of
thinking and plotting and imagining how to do things!
 
But the final paragraph of the article is the best part:
 
"The basic findings are exciting enough, but you can't help but speculate
on what they might mean in a deeper context," says Weliky.  "It's one
thing to say a ferret's understanding of reality is being reproduced
inside his brain, but there s nothing to say that our understanding of
the world is accurate.  In a way, our neural structure imposes a certain
structure on the outside world, and all we know is that at least one
other mammalian brain seems to impose the same structure.  Either that
or The Matrix freaked out the ferrets the way it did everyone else."
 
:)
Regina
 
Regina Harrison  [log in to unmask]
http://users.rcn.com/badriya/
blog: http://badriya-z.blogspot.com/
 
"Is that my business?  Well, what is my business?  Do I know?  Did I ever
know?  Let's not go into that.  You're not human tonight, Marlowe.  Maybe
I never was or ever will be... Maybe we all get like this in the cold
half-lit world where always the wrong thing happens and never the right."
--Raymond Chandler, The Little Sister
[Posted in FML issue 4665]