this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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Showerthoughts
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Animals often avoid eye contact, it's considered rude. Humans are a very touchy-talky-looky species. So yeah, it's freaky. I used to think I suffer from face-blindness (forgot the fancy name of it), then it occurred to me that I just straight up forget/avoid to look into people's eyes so I never even see their faces. Now I sometimes try to make a conscious effort to look at people's eyes - but how long is even appropriate?
Your story of the lemur reminds of staring into the eyes of a genet for probably about a century during a somewhat substance-enhanced camping trip. Can't say I was freaked out, rather honoured by the animal deciding to hang out with me for a while?
A Genet? That's crazy. I didn't know they were still releasing new animals.
I had no clue this thing existed till I met it - I did think it was a lemur at first but then I looked it up. They probably arrived in the Iberian peninsula as pets so it's not too surprising that they approach people.
Prosopagnosia (face blindness) is the disorder you are thinking of
I keep confusing it with pareidolia - seeing faces everywhere.
If you had both, would you see faces everywhere that you never recognize?
Yep and the ted chiang short story on that is brilliant.