Joseph Jastrow and his duck – or is it a rabbit? (2004–2020)

Recently became totally enamored with Wittgenstein - one of those thinkers who's core ideas have lived, inarticulate, in my heart, since I was a child: Language has no definite meaning, we operate in a fog of connotation, real communication of meaning is impossible, there is no possible scientific description of every-day concepts like "chair"... So much to be gained from overcoming "the bewitchment of language". Brilliant thinker.

Had no idea the duck-rabbit was attributed to him! Appears attributed incorrectly, but one can see why: The drawing is neither a duck nor a rabbit, while also being both a duck _and_ a rabbit. Ask a toddler if it's a duck and they'll say of course! Ask a philosopher, and they wont be sure! Language is fun (and meaningless!)

If you’re in the mood for a nice philosophy lecture, here’s a great overview on Wittgenstein: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=X7Rb56kZQSk

Solving the duck-rabbit puzzle in Animal Well gave me such chills. In the beginning of the game the player comes across a room with a duck that quacks at you when you walk by. In a distant corner of the world there's a picture of a duck-rabbit with a passcode. When you enter the passcode in front of the duck, it transforms into a rabbit and warps away through a portal that appears for a brief moment while a spooky sound effect plays.

I’m reminded of the New Yorker cartoon where two armies face each other, both carrying the same image on their flags.

“There can be no peace until they renounce their Rabbit God and accept our Duck God“

> Technically, the duck-rabbit figure is an ambiguous (or reversible, or bistable) figure, not an illusion

> From a constructivist point of view, many illusions illustrate the role of unconscious inferences in perception, while the ambiguous figures illustrate the role of expectations, world-knowledge, and the direction of attention (Long & Toppino, 2004).

In my opinion the ambiguous figure is also a form of illusion.

The given distinction isn't really valid because our expectations and knowledge are also part of that same unconscious interference that our brain does.

One is just a lower-order mechanism and the other a higher order mechanism.

But both of those interference happen in the chain of operations between the light hitting our eyeballs and when we consciously 'perceive' it in our minds eye.

FWIW Joseph Jastrow came to the US from Poland [0] and in western Poland there's a town called Jastrowie [1] (Jastrow in German)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Jastrow

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jastrowie

Always a rabbit. Ducks bills are never that thick.

See also https://duckrabbitbrewery.com/beer/ , in particular Duck-Rabbit Ludwig Vienna Lager.

And it is my recollection that the artist Jasper Johns did a duck-rabbit or two.

if it walks like a duck...