October 2022 - Page 2 of 2 - C U R I O U S L Y

Take a look at the below pic and try to spot the brilliantly camouflaged snake amidst the crevices of a tree bark.

Pic source: buff.ly/3TLo0H2 shared through the twitter handle @Rainmaker1973.

Recently my friend shared the below Facebook link with me (Original video by BBC One).The video is exceptional. Nature is so beautiful and works in mysterious ways.

Link is here.

Just in case the video is inaccessible, you can search the internet for videos on BBC, Science, Ptarmigan Camouflage.

Whenever I marvel at the brilliance of nature and the camouflage abilities, a series of thoughts nag me and make me curious on what exactly is happening.

Issue no 1: Camouflage is needed by the prey (in this case the ptarmigan) to protect itself against its set of predators. Example – hawks, snakes, humans, foxes etc. Each prey has multiple predators. And each of these predators have different types of (dominant) sensory organs. For ex: Hawk can see in ultraviolet spectrum, humans can see in “visible” spectrum and snakes can see in infrared. In which of these spectrums will the camouflage be? Because as long as the ptarmigan blends in with the rocks, we humans can’t find it but the hawk can find it easily because the ultraviolet signature of the ptarmigan and rocks are different. A snake on the other hand, because it sees in infrared, can literally “see” the “warm body” of the ptarmigan against the cold rocks. Coming to the fox, even a blind fox can smell the ptarmigan from a distance or even find it using its (not so) special sense called magneto-reception. Even as “we humans” marvel at (or are blinded by) the camouflage, the ptarmigan is “visible” to its other predators.

So against which predator is the ptarmigan deploying this camouflage? Is it able to choose? Now this brings us to the second issue.

Issue no 2: Assuming it is against “a particular” predator, is the ptarmigan able to choose to deploy its camouflage selectively? Does it have the ability to change its body chemistry or physics (that property that allows it to change its colour)? Just like it blends in with its environment of the same colour, can it also blend in in ultra violet? change its body temperature to give a diff infrared signature? Change its smell? Its magnetic properties? Does it have these capabilities?

For that, the ptarmigan needs to have the ability to “KNOW” how other organisms perceive it (How would it know how a hawk or a human or a snake or a fox perceives it)?

In case it is able to do it, it is wonder of wonders! Because, would we humans know how a dog senses us? We may have a reasonable understanding of the mechanism it uses to sense us (ability of smell) but how exactly does it perceive us (good or bad odour, smelling like what?)? Without knowing it how can we determine what camouflage (perfume) to wear so that we blend in? (scientists call this qualia – how one uniquely perceives / experiences something). We humans know it based on the learning we have had. How would a ptarmigan know?

So my (unvalidated) thoughts run like this.

Thought no 1: The ptarmigan is NOT doing anything active. In its feathers there is a property which gives it some “permanent” feature – colour, smell, etc etc. And some flexible feature which “adapts” involuntarily(from ptarmigans point of view) to its surroundings. So when we “see” it, depending on how much of light falls on it, gets reflected those parts and reaches us, we see it in different colours. Because the feature (pigment etc) itself adapts to the surroundings, irrespective of the observer (humans, foxes etc), the colour of the ptarmigan is the same in that context.

Thought no 2. If you recall my session on how our brain perceives the world around us, we learnt that what we see has nothing to do with the ptarmigan but what our MIND actively constructs. We saw this in numerous examples of how the two shades of grey were the same, but with differences in angle and the context it is present in, we perceive those colours differently!

We also saw an example where the same dress appeared black & blue to one set of people and gold & white to another set of people. So this makes me think that, the camouflage is in OUR EYES (more accurately MINDS) and the ptarmigan is blissfully unaware of how others see it. There may not be any active agency from the ptarmigan at all in accomplishing this.

We will continue to marvel at nature – as though something extraordinary is being done by the ptarmigan – but it might be the handiwork of the tricks played by our mind after all.

I am not concluding anything but seeking answers if any of you know what exactly is at play here. Leave your thoughts in the coments section.

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This blog is an attempt to explain the world of international finance from a bird’s eye view. While it was written with a layperson audience in mind, some of my friends in this field who have read these posts, found the posts to be useful to understand the fundamentals. So if you are new to the world of international finance or are familiar with it at some level, you will still find these articles helpful to some degree.

If you are an expert and want to offer some suggestions or contribute subject matter, you are welcome and your contributions will be cherished!

A good way to understand the world of international finance is to take a scenario & see how things work. For this purpose, we will take the restrictions put on Russia by the west subsequent to its “special military operations” in Ukraine that started in Feb 2022. Remember, we aren’t taking any sides, but are using the situation to understand the world.

Some articles of this blog are standalone and can be read independently. However, if you are someone who would like to follow a structure, then you will find reading in the following order helpful.

As a first step, we need to become familiar with “what is money”. Yes we all use it, save it and grow it, but do we know what exactly it is? Read it up in Money money, who art thou?

Have you wondered how international trade works? And why most transactions in the world are performed in USD.Find out the answers in

Trade across borders — and how choosing the right currency matters

and in

Trust, Trade & Transact

The world of International finance works on a distributed giant machine composed of banks. Read more on how they play a role in facilitating trade across borders in Gods of Trust!

and how international payments get paid in Show Me My Money!

Or how the tools of international finance play a big role in Geo-Politics in The Kill Switch.

The thing with adaptive systems is -they adapt. If one of the players don’t play nice and makes a move that hurts others, everyone takes notice. A famous saying in geo-politics is, “capability is more dangerous than intent“. This is to say, when a player accumulates an advantage, whether the intent was good or malicious doesn’t matter. Because intentions can change at a moment’s notice but a capability may takes years to build. So if a country has a finger on the kill switch, some others will work on building another capability and a few others will try to make the kill switch useless. This is a relentless game. The next series of posts will look at the challengers to the current mechanism of international finance. How some are red herrings, some are just minor inconveniences and some, turn out to be more serious. In the first of the articles in this series, we see how some of the challengers have challenges.

A new kid is on the block, a money kid! It looks like its parents, but is more sophisticated. It is a simple, yet a powerful new form of money. And it seems to be blooming across the world. Yes we are talking about CBDC. What is it you ask? Find out in CBDC- A new form of money.

In, the shifting gears of cross border payments with CBDC, you will read about why several countries are implementing CBDCs and the different collaborative initiatives between countries in the world in this area.

We look at one of the most promising collaboration projects that is set to revolutionise payments in Let’s talk mBridge. Read how it reduces risk, cost & transfer time for all parties – countries in general, corporates that do business internationally and common people like us.

Supplementary articles:

These are “explainers” on some key concepts that assist the understanding of the main theme will also appear in this blogpost. They can be read anytime or as a supplement to the main ones.

Like the one on the SWIFT network at the below link.

A swift introduction to SWIFT

Happy reading. Do let me know of your thoughts.

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