There are several ways we can know what a dog, a bird or, indeed, any other organism can see, for example either by looking at the structure of the eye and comparing it with other species, or by behavioural tests.
When eyes were first developed in animals, suddenly animal life becomes proactive.
Animals see the unobstructed world with their whole eyes. But our eyes, turned back upon themselves, encircle and seek to snare the world, setting traps for freedom.
Even goats may have starlight in their eyes.
I put contact lenses in my dog's eyes. They had little pictures of cats on them. Then I took one out and he ran around in circles.
Is there a more mysterious idea than to imagine how nature is reflected in the eyes of animals?
I have eyes like those of a dead pig.
Animals see a video of the world. If an animal were only to see still images, how would its vision develop? Neuroscientists have run experiments in cats in a dark environment with a strobe so it can only see still images - and those cats' visual systems actually underdevelop. So motion is important, but what is the algorithm?
Animal vision - including human vision - is so biased toward movement that we don't technically see stationary objects at all.
It is with roses and locomotives (not to mention acrobats Spring electricity Coney Island the 4th of July the eyes of mice and Niagara Falls) that my poems are competing.
Though it is true we are the highest and smartest animals, ospreys have eyes we have calculated to be sixty times more powerful and sophisticated than our own and that blindness, often caused by microscopic parasites that are themselves miracles of ingenuity, is one of the oldest and most tragic disorders known to man. And why award the superior eye (or in the case of cat or bat, also the ear) to the inferior species.
Why cat were given such terrific peripheral vision when they spend so much time looking down their noses is difficult to understand.
