A cat's consciousness

Director explanation

When my roomate banned her little cat the entrance to our bathroom none of the inhabitants of our
house thought on the brand new world that the little feline would discover, when considering him old
and smart enough to not succumb on an accidental mortal inmersion into the deep waters of the toilet,
the doors of this room of the flat, would had been, to him finally opened.

The truth is that the sudden oppening of this chamber, had revealed the cat, not only an additional place
where to play within the geometrical surface of the appartment, but also, an inexhaustible Universe of
new sensations, perceptions and extravagnt cognitions, that finally suggested me as an spectator and
experimentator of his beheavoir and discoveries, the main idea for a short animated film that started to
run in my head under the title A cat's consciousness

Consciousness, is not only what made anything to ever matter to anyone, but is also one of the most
controversial fields of study in contemporary science and philosophy. What is exactly the bridge that
connect our perceptions with the outside world? How to link all those millions of lower level
microprocesses that happen inside our brains with the macroprocesses that take place on the World that
souround us? How to grasp the Reality of that World?

The cat discovering and exploring a new Universe in our own home seemed to me, in one hand, a
wonderful pretext to materialize these questions and express something about the controversy of
reality and the plenty of ways in which living organisms perceive it; and in the other hand, as my topic
is consciousness, and most of the studies on consciousness are linked to the concept of Artificial
Inteligence, it had presented to me, as an oportunity to situate myself in a historical, philosophical
present context, where the bounderies between Reality and Simulation seem to be slowly vanishing or
at list being put under a huge question mark.

A cat's Consciousness will be presented as a filmic essay, with a tint of science fiction storytelling,
influenced by Chris Marker's Level five, Paul Bush's Rumour of True Things or Ben River's Slow
Action.

Imitating the scientists that enclose pigeons and rabbits in cages with the purpose of their academical
research; as an animator, I'd like to enclose not a real cat but a hypotetical simulation of a cat in the
artificial enviroment of a simulated bathroom. With nothing, but artistical purposes.

Guided by the voice of a computer simulated voice (Ana) that will explore the behaivoir and
perceptions of the cat, the audience will find itself, surfing in a kind of software interface, were wire
frame 3D looking shots of the bathroom and cat, will intercalate with pictures taken from neuroscience
imaginery, in a Sci-Fi narrative built by humorous, imaginative chapters.

Humor and imagination is exactly what computers are still missing, and that's something I'd like to
highlight in A cat's consciousness, the movie might talk not only about my curiosity on how we, and
cats, and living organisms perceive and construct reality, but also about our human obsession with
representation, and simulation of Real.
What is happening now with the latest developments on biotechnology, nanotechnology and computer
science, reminds me the Empire decribed by the fictional Suarez Miranda in Boges text On exactitud
on science

... In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single
Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province.
In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a
Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with
it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography as their
Forebears had been, saw that that vast map was Useless, and not without some Pitilessness was
it, that they delivered it up to the Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West,
still today, there are Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in all the
Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography....

I understand Artificial Inteligence as an obsessive map of human inteligence, the obsession of coping
our biological consciouss processes, on a computing machine, either with the porpose of studing those
processes, or with the idea of creating a cyborg, talks about humanity being swallowed by it's own
representation, and by it's own simulacrum.

What does that means?

Far from knowing it, I can just guess that these maps will finish in the Dessert of the West, as the map
of the Empire that Borges describes in his text. And given the fact nature of suns and winter are
inclement, they might desapear under the Will of a Universe that we could only get to know through
the limitants of our enormuous maps, countless theories and finite, always finite thoughts.
Resume of Chapters

Chapter I
A controled fiction

Inspired by the models of Cosmos that can be found on the History of Science and borrowing from
Mario Bunge the concept of mathematics as controled fictions. This chapter will be dedicated to
models of Reality and models of Subjective perception of the cat (when Ana decides to go inside the
cat's head and de-code his possible Models of the World

Chapter II
Reality and Simulation: A runaway materialism

The universe is colorless, odorless, tasteless and soundless qualia resides on our nervious systems and
not in the material world that surround us

Ana will talk about organic and informatinal Worlds being One and the Only.
And will present images the skin and bones of the simulated cat and the codes and computer lenguage
that guides it's life and activities.
The codes can transform into abstract images of neurons or on colorful representations of them as Ana
develops her speech.
Chapter III
The molecular self and without ego of the cat

Ana opens the chapter:

Underlevel animals like cats aren't dotated with egos as H-Humans are. Missing a selfrefering code.
the cat difference himself of the world molecularly, but never cognitively.

Nevertheless we can talk about a cat's epistemology, 'cause even non self- conscious explorers are
World explorers, I'm gonna tell you in which way...

In the left side of the screen will be presented a cat on a cubical transparent cage turning incessantly in
it's own axis, on the right side of the screen there will be little windows showing a molecular-pixelical
building of cats animation.

Chapter IV:
The mechanics of God on the cat's brain

Where Ana compares the group of neurons that light in the cat's brain while contemplating water to the
groups of neurons that light in a human's brain when he is in deep meditation or ardorous pray.
Chapter V:
Death an revitalization

When the cat get's distracted from God contemplation by the jumping steps of a pigeon.
Scene acompanied by Vivaldi's Summer

Fragment of text wrote in spanish:

El gato olvida a Dios y superpone a su imagen la necesidad instintual de revitalizar el mundo...

DEVORANDO.
La paloma, opuesta a Dios, presentado anteriormente al gato en forma de agua, es candidata a una caza
posible.
El gato abandona la faena de la pata mojada, el sueo de atrapar lo eterno imposible, por la delicia
exquisita de comerse al ser de vsera y pluma que ahora vuela de un lado a otro en el cuarto de bao

The murder of the pigeon will be shown through schems and diagrams. In the end we go to black. A red
circle in the middle of the screen, and sounds of the cat eaten the pigeon.
Chapter VI:
The mechanics of God on the cat's brain

The satisfied cat, after his hunt, looks for a subject of contemplation. The water from the sink starts
flowing again.
The film ends with the image of the cat contemplating this water.

Andrea Guzar, 2016