Here, kitty-kitty! – the symbol of the cat

My dad recently sent me this link from an article in the Trinidad Express (http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article?id=161460750), which got me to thinking about cats as symbols, scientific and historical creatures.

There is a somewhat negative association when you say that someone is a “cat person”, not to mention the saying that someone “will die alone except for his/her cats”.

While I’m sure that more people have been seriously injured from dogs or other domesticated animals, it seems to me that more people fear or dislike cats. Where does this come from?

What is it about the crafty feline that unnerves us so, when — for all intents and purposes — cats are more similar to humans than most other creatures.  

While it is widely believed — and scientifically proven — that apes and monkeys are closer to human DNA, I’m inclined to think that cats are actually more human-like than any other living creature.

Of course, I could be biased because around 30 cats have passed through my household in the 20-odd years of my life so far.

(At present, my cats at home fight for my dad’s attention, and the one we’ve had for 9 years seems to believe she is married to him and can’t seem to understand why my mother is around all the time trespassing on her territory.)

The science of cats

It has, however, been proven that the X and Y chromosomes of cats and humans are remarkably alike, reports Genome News Network.

The two species, however, haven’t shared a common ancestor for around 90 million years when the human race was linked to goats, sheeps and cows.

This discovery may help scientists to better understand male infertility and human genetics – as well as helping to preserve endangered cat species.

Apart from science, the aura surrounding felines has a long presence in ancient history.

Worship the kitty

Though originally a wild species useful mainly for controlling vermin and snake populations in ancient Egypt, cats became domesticated over time and even became the core focus of a religion centred around the worship of animals.

The goddess Mafdet – deification of justic and execution – was a lion-headed goddess, eventually replaced by the cat goddess Bastet, whose image softened over time to become the deity that represents protection, fertility and motherhood. (You can read more about it here and here.)

The religious issue surrounding cats is so strong that there is even a debate that true Christians should not be associated with cats because they are elements of pagan beliefs.

Though, to the best of my knowledge, no one in the modern world still worships cats, I’ve been around enough cats to know that as a race, they still expect to be worshipped. And there is something indescribably mysterious — and possibly holy — about the cat.

Something about the way they move, slinking so easily… pouncing on their prey (whether another animal or a piece of fluff floating in the air)… the wide eyes glowering and swallowing you in its darkness. Something eerie. Something devilish.

The era of Scotty

I once had a cat that was just pure evil. Scotch — Scotty — lived for only two years before succumbing to the fatal decision to eat a poisoned rat, but his memory lives on.

When we first got him, he was so violent. He also urinated and defecated EVERYWHERE – each time picking a different spot because he saw how that aggravated my mother.

We tried to lock him out of the house. He squeezed in through the bricks to lay a load of a present in the middle of my parents’ bed.

If you didn’t feed him on Monday, he would lie in wait on Friday to leap out from behind a chair to attack you, all twenty claws out as he leapt and scraped down the length of your body.

If you spoke ill of him, his ears flicked and his eyes narrowed. He knew.

He laughed at us, foolish humans succumbing to his every wish.

We loved him, yes, but a part of each of us was afraid that one day we would wake up to see him on top our stomachs, one wicked lip curled as he prepared to pounce. 

Is evil hereditary?

He eventually ‘married’ and moved his ‘wife’ (a stray) into our house, soon accompanied by 6 and then 5 kittens in another litter.

We were afraid to let him get near his own children lest he eat them, for pure fun.

The day he was dying — a slow, painful death that he seemed to prolong just so that he could die on my fifteenth birthday — was the first day that the kittens could freely roam the house.

His daughter, the 9-year-old who we kept from the first litter, still thinks she owns our house — not to mention my father.

Though the sweetest, most loving and nurturing creature imaginable, sometimes we still see the glimmer of Scotty in her eye……….

Plugged in: enroll me to Second Life

 

We are still far away from Matrix-style ‘uploading’ directly into our brains, but virtual reality in the form of Second Life may soon replace the classroom.

Ofsted’s recent survey shows that Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) for schools have been slower to take off than expected, failing to “enthuse” students, reports the BBC.

VLEs were found to be a “dumping ground” for rarely-used files, rather than an interactive forum to enhance teaching in a classroom.

But what if we didn’t need classrooms? What if we rolled out of bed, unbrushed and unshowered, and logged in to class?

Far-fetched, perhaps, but that’s the modus operandi of Second Life.

From Virtual Learning Environment to Social Virtual World

Dr. Li Jin, Course Leader of MSc Computer Animation at Westminster University, thinks virtual worlds are a powerful teaching medium.

Her research examines how Social Virtual Worlds (SVWs) transform the nature of learning as social practice, and aims to design an innovative platform which combines SVWs with conventional VLEs.

She says: “With increasingly pervasive high-speed networking connections and the technological evolution of Internet technology, SVWs have emerged to facilitate social interaction, combining efficient visual communication, integration of rich media, and the share of user-generated content in a collaborative environment.

“They have expanded and challenged ideas of the next generation of virtual learning environment.”

Second Life art

SVW Second Life (SL), a downloadable client program inspired by the cyperpunk movement, enables ‘residents’ to interact with each other through motional avatars in the ‘metaverse’.

Though akin to social networks like Facebook, it is differentiated by its rich graphics platform that fosters an immersive 3D environment.

SL residents can sell avatar designs, display ‘real art’ and also create ‘virtual art’ with the 3D modeling tool, which may be impossible to create in the real world due to physical constraints or high costs.

Countries including Sweden and The Maldives have virtual ‘embassies’, ‘live’ concerts and rallies take place, and Second Life has even hosted a virtual Inaugural Ball for US President Obama.

Second Life: the new distance-learning

SL, which offers discounted rates to educators to purchase campus land, has a large education community including leading universities Harvard, Iowa State, Stanford and The Open University.

SL is also a valuable medium for organisations such as the NMC, which fosters shared learning among educators by running inworld seminars and conferences related to virtual worlds.

Though distance learning has existed for decades, Second Life – with over 2 million users worldwide – opens a wealth of new possibilities.

Reincarnating themselves in an avatar, teleporting to different worlds, flying, hopping on a unicorn to gallop up to a tall building hovering over a glimmering city to get to class…

In a fantasy world where the laws of physics don’t necessarily apply, Second Life is certainly more interesting than the regular educational droll. But this does not mean that it is all fun and games.

Vassar College constructed a virtual Sistine Chapel to explore how SL could be used for art classes, University of California-Davis created a place to train emergency aid workers, and students at Texas University’s Genome Island in SL can perform virtual experiments.

Second Life setbacks

Second Life is not conducive to traditional lecturing, as streaming real-time audio is difficult. But as its supporters point out, this is not necessarily a disadvantage – classes are less professor-centred.

Also, the non-linear fashion of discussion that emerges from many people being able to type in real-time simultaneously (as opposed to the din that would emerge if they all spoke at the same time) can be productive for the development of ideas.

As Science Daily quotes Bill Ditto, chairman of Florida University’s Department of Biomedical Engineering: “Second Life will make you think about the real world rules and possibilities a little differently.”