The Rabbit-Duck God

TL;DR. Do not assume anything, especially matters of subjective opinion. When you assume, you make an ‘ass’ out of our entire human experience.

Part I

Something surreal just happened. I was swiping through my Twitter feed and stumbled upon the following post by Ian Bremmer, a pioneering geopolitical risk analyst. At first glance, it seemed like any run-of-the-mill meme floating around the blogosphere, commenting on the absurdity of our society and culture. However, the fact that this could be the “best cartoon ever”, piqued my interest and I decided to take a closer look.

I saw two warring factions about to fight each other tooth and nail, over the relative superiority of their chosen gods. The cartoon, therefore, seemed to attempt to highlight the non-sensicality of our religious conflicts and monotheistic beliefs. However, I had this nagging suspicion that I was missing something. Cartoons are like jigsaw puzzles or newspaper crosswords — there are no extra pieces and you almost always experience that ‘Eureka!’ moment when you are finished.

The cartoon, in its original form, that I stumbled upon while sifting through my Twitter feed one Saturday afternoon.

However, in this case, there were a couple of items that stood out like a sore thumb — for instance, why did the cartoonist invoke the “Rabbit” god and the “Duck” god specifically? Even more troubling, why were both the camps holding up similar-looking flags. I spent a few more seconds trying to join the dots and suddenly, out of nowhere, an image popped into my head — the rabbit-duck optical illusion.

Part II

I remembered the picture from my high-school years and suddenly it all made sense. Just as you could choose to see the rabbit OR the duck, you could similarly accept the “Rabbit God” OR the “Duck God”. Hence the caption — one group was adamantly demanding the other group to abandon their belief in the “Rabbit God” and start believing in the “Duck God”. The cartoonist was, therefore, hinting at the ambiguous nature of our religious beliefs and our predisposition to tunnel vision. Nothing is as unfunny as a joke requiring logical explanation; hopefully the same doesn’t apply to cartoon humor.

The earliest version of this optical illusion appeared in the 1892 version of a German humor magazine. It was also used by the American psychologist, Joseph Jastrow. It it helps at all, the duck’s beak and the rabbit’s ears are one and the same. Try imagining the duck with its beak pointing leftward and the rabbit with its face pointing rightward.

While, I was happy to experience the ‘Eureka!’ moment, that I referred to earlier, it was only fleeting, quickly replaced with feelings of discomfort and doubt. I distinctly remembered being unsatisfied, even back during my high school days, with the Rabbit-Duck image. The problem, then and now, were one and the same — I was never really convinced with my perception of the rabbit. Those lingering doubts and uneasiness seemed to have come back to haunt me. I wanted to dispel them completely, once and for all.

I could clearly perceive the duck — there it was with its elongated beak and egg-shaped head. It was plain as day. But, the rabbit, not so much. I was able to make out a faint impression of a leaping white bunny, but I was not convinced with this re-imagination. After all, this was one of the most iconic optical illusions, employed in academic research and puzzle books, alike. There had to be, more than just a faint impression.

Back in high school, I assumed that the rabbit in the image, that the illusion was referring to, was actually the white bunny rabbit leaping from left to right across the image. As ludicrous as it sounds, I carried around this incorrect interpretation in my head for more than a decade.

Part III

I failed to see the real black rabbit, not because of my lack of trying or ignorance or visual impairment. If anything, I tried really hard to pull a rabbit out of thin air (pardon the pun, if you will) — I squinted my eyes, changed the orientation of the book, tried looking at the picture from a distance — still nothing. All I could see was a white rabbit swiftly leaping towards the right. Its ears and feet seemed quite blurry, but that was all I was able to see. Needless to say, I read the instructions blurb repeatedly. It only indicated that the rabbit was looking in the opposite direction of the duck. “My white rabbit” also seemed to be leaping in the opposite direction. So I pre-maturely convinced my brain, halfheartedly, that I was right and moved on.

But, the rabbit-duck image on the flags displayed in the cartoon, were quite different from the original image. They were quite rudimentary and lacked the level of detail of the original image. All of a sudden, I was not able to see any rabbit, whatsoever in the image, not even that faint impression of the leaping white bunny rabbit that I had discerned before. This illusion would not be as popular as it is, if the only rabbit in the image was the faint impression of the leaping white bunny rabbit that I construed. I was certain, that my original understanding was incorrect and my brain was eager to unearth the real rabbit. There had to be a big, fat, bunny rabbit hidden inside those pixels somewhere, screaming for my attention.

The rabbit-duck image employed in the cartoon was quite minimalistic, when compared to the original image. Hence, I was not able to see “my” leaping white bunny rabbit in the cartoon and I knew that I was missing something.

Unlike before, I was not confined to the pages of my puzzle book. I was now armed with the internet. The world’s knowledge base was at my fingertips. I started googling ferociously to understand the rabbit duck problem. I soon stumbled upon a PBS video, which promised to dissect and re-construct the image, piece by piece to clearly show the existence of both the rabbit and the duck.

Surprisingly, it succeeded in altering my cognitive perceptions on the first attempt. In a matter of seconds, my rabbit blindness had been cured. There it was — hiding in plain sight — the big, black bunny rabbit. It was not leaping. It was not hidden inside the duck. It was not even white. It was just sitting there with a quizzical expression on its face, as if asking me, did it really take you a decade to find me?

Having found the rabbit, I now returned to the cartoon and it all came together. Both the groups were holding up similar-looking flags. One group believed in the “Duck” god visible in the image, while the other group believed in the “Rabbit” god also visible in the same image. While each group is aware that there is also another god existing in the same picture, they are either unable to see it or they refuse to see it. This confusion was manifesting itself in the form of imminent war and bloodshed. Having deconstructed the cartoon and resolved my residual doubts, I became euphoric, which is how this essay got started in the first place.

Part IV

I still cannot believe that I was walking around for more than a decade, believing that the rabbit in the illusion was actually the faint impression of the leaping, white bunny rabbit that I had construed. If anybody had struck up a conversation with me about the illusion, I would have nodded my head along, blithely oblivious to our differing perceptions. I am quite concerned, as to how many more erroneous ideas, I am carrying around in my head. Most definitely, my interpretation of my favorite films and music bands, are quite different from what the makers originally intended or what the mainstream population assumes.

But, the purpose of this protracted essay, is not to document the transformation in my cognitive perception. I am sure, most people, reading this would have immediately identified both the (original black) rabbit and the duck and therefore would find this verbose account quite ludicrous and unnecessary. But, I believe that this cartoon and my experience with the underlying illusion, serve as an object lesson in fields as diverse as psychology, religion, cognitive sciences and philosophy.

First, the cartoon in and of itself, irrespective of my personal experience, is quite possibly the best cartoon ever, as validated by Mr. Bremmer. It deftly employs the analogy of optical illusions to illustrate our religious beliefs and systems. If anything, our religious systems are even more convoluted than these optical illusions. Consider, for a moment, that all three major Abrahamic religions — Christianity, Islam and Judaism — evolved around the same time and circumstances (akin to the rabbit and the duck in the same image). Yet, we refuse to accept that these religions are part of the same fabric, and fight incessantly over which religion is the purest of them all.

Secondly, the cartoon along with the optical illusions, depicts the complexity of the human mind. The key to identifying the rabbit in the image, is to recognize its contours. Unless you know what to look for and where to look at, you will never be able to find the rabbit. This highlights the immense complexity of human visual perception and cognitive processing. For instance, we recognize a pen as a pen, because we have come to expect what a pen looks like and what the key marker points are (i.e. the tip, the cap and the body). If either of these assumptions change, then it will severely impair our perception and we will no longer be able to identify our pens accurately. I will leave it to you to extrapolate these observations to the realm of facial recognition!

My experience with identifying the rabbit, also tackle head-on some of the pressing questions regarding the existence of god — Is god’s existence independent from ours or do we need to actively perceive god? Is god present all around us, but hidden in plain sight (just like the rabbit?), as some religions proclaim? Or do we need to actively seek out the presence of god and be on the lookout for divine intervention (just like my internet search exercise)? Finally, does god really exist or is it just an illusion of the mind (like my white bunny rabbit)?

Part V

Fourth, through this experience, I have come to appreciate the importance of language and communication. The hidden rabbit in the image was an elementary problem, yet it slipped my mind for more than a decade. Even though, I was aware that there was a rabbit in the image, I was not able to see it. So, it is not a question of knowing whether a rabbit exists or not, but actually perceiving it. Through language and most forms of verbal communication, we can only convey messages. For instance, the puzzle book instructed me how to identify the rabbit. But, it was grossly insufficient and unclear. Luckily, other forms of communication, such as the Youtube video, were more useful. It imparted clearer and more easily accessible messages (for example, picture re-construction), that were instrumental in changing the way I perceived the image.

But what about complex human feelings? Would our current modes of communication be sufficient? For instance, how do we instill a sense of guilt in sociopaths and psychopaths? Yes, we can tell them when to feel guilt by describing our past experiences in vivid detail. We can even show them how to feel guilt by showcasing films about contrite prisoners. But, at the end of the day, they have to feel “guilt” and their sensation of “guilt” must be similar to ours, otherwise, the communication process would have failed.

In short, the objective of the communication process is to re-create whatever feelings, emotions, thoughts, values that I hold in my mind in your mind. This is not the same as exchanging objective information (such as height or weight which can be easily achieved via a common numerical system). Even with the help of mirror neurons and 6500 languages and dialects, we can only strive to first map our thoughts to whatever form of communication is most appropriate (i.e. language, videos, pictures etc.) and then transfer them to the recipients who will then decode the transformed message in their minds and experience the resulting thoughts. This process, is highly susceptible to error, to say the least.

Finally, building on the previous argument regarding the limitations of human communication, I have come to realize the ambiguous nature of our subjective beliefs, emotions and values. For instance, we often claim that we can empathize with others and understand their pain and problems. But, really, do we? For more than a decade, I was walking around assuming that the white, leaping rabbit that I saw was the real deal. Similarly, my perception of pain might be quite different from another person’s and there is no way of objectively verifying if we both are indeed feeling the same sensation (even though we both refer to the feeling as “pain”).

At least, in empirical science, you could recreate the experiments and arrive at the truth independently by yourself. But, outside the realm of empirical science, we simply have to take people’s word for whatever it is they are saying or feeling. More importantly, everything that we recognize as distinctly human — our culture, values, beliefs, emotions, morals — are all either handed down through generations or absorbed through our peers via conversation, books or hearsay. It is quite possible, that this communication flow, or what some people call the long game of telephone, was corrupted somewhere along the line, similar to a rumor mill, and our cultures and values are different from what our ancestors experienced.

All that it would take to poison the well, is for me to explain my incorrect vision of the leaping, white rabbit to another person. He/she might transmit the knowledge to his/her friends or write it down on a piece of paper which might get handed down generations and the truth shall become slowly distorted. But, since none of these subjective notions can be objectively verified, people will continue to accept conventional wisdom and re-interpret it in a way that suits their needs. I strongly suspect, something of this sort, was set forth in eastern Jerusalem 2,000 years ago.

TL;DR. Do not assume anything, especially matters of subjective opinion. When you assume, you make an ‘ass’ out of our entire human experience.